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First 2005 Post Mortem

ABG Sep 08 2005 11:11 PM

Have at it. God I'm disgusted.

metirish Sep 08 2005 11:20 PM

Well the Mets did play games that mattered late in the season, that was a plus, the starting pitching was better than decent, the bench this year is super.David Wright is a star, Reyes is a star. I could go negative but I hope this year will be a good learning experience for next saeson.

Edgy DC Sep 08 2005 11:26 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Sep 08 2005 11:26 PM

Reyes has been still more potential than realization, I think.

Zvon Sep 08 2005 11:26 PM

="metirish"]Well the Mets did play games that mattered late in the season, that was a plus, the starting pitching was better than decent, the bench this year is super.David Wright is a star, Reyes is a star. I could go negative but I hope this year will be a good learning experience for next saeson. Im glad Im not the only optimistical noodle head around here.

Valadius Sep 08 2005 11:38 PM

David Wright, Superstar. Opened in Queens in 2004, now better than ever!

Rotblatt Sep 08 2005 11:48 PM

Postitives Reyes stayed healthy and improved as the season went on. Wright took another step towards being a superstar. Hernandez shocked the relief circuit by dominating all season long. Jae Seo established himself as a solid MLB pitcher. Petey proved he could stay healthy and had a Cy Young candidate season (albeit a long shot one). Heilman established himself as a top-notch relief pitcher with the potential to start. Floyd stayed healthy and put up solid OF offensive numbers. Castro showed he could arguably be a regular starting catcher. Diaz established himself as a potential OF regular. Glavine reinvented himself as a legitimate starting pitcher. Cameron adjusted to RF and played well. Negatives Looper. Beltran. Looper. Matsui. Cairo. Zambrano (IMO, anyway). WWSB. Looper. Mientkiewicz. Looper. Ishii. All in all, a fine rebuilding season. None of us expected much better than .500, but I think all of us had questions about Reyes, Floyd & Petey staying healthy, about Cam adjusting to RF, about the future of our starting rotation . . . If the rest of the east hadn't been so goddamn weak, we wouldn't have been in pain at all.

Zvon Sep 09 2005 12:07 AM

Valadius wrote: David Wright, Superstar. Opened in Queens in 2004, now better than ever! yes, we have liftoff of a career to be reckoned with.

Zvon Sep 09 2005 12:09 AM

Rotblatt wrote: If the rest of the east hadn't been so goddamn weak, we wouldn't have been in pain at all. truDat

Edgy DC Sep 09 2005 12:20 AM

I don't understand why a division that's tight top to bottom always leads to the conclusion that the division is weak.

Willets Point Sep 09 2005 12:25 AM

The NL West is weak. The NL East are battlers.

Spacemans Bong Sep 09 2005 12:55 AM

Good: Pedro had a good season, although he's fading. One of those silver linings to the black cloud of staying home in October is he could probably really use the month off - he's pitched to November the last two years. Wright is a stud. Reyes is a stud, and if he learns to lay off the breaking stuff out of the zone (easier said than done, but he's shown genuine strikezone improvement), will be the best leadoff man in the NL in 2006. He needs to keep his shoulders level too - he should be a groundball/line drive hitter, and never upper cut. Ever. The Mets have a pretty good pitching staff this year, Looper's monumental suck aside, and with some additions (Burnett, Ryan?) could be really good next year. The Mets are currently 7th in the majors in attendance. Barring a really, really, really big and long hot streak (like 10 in a row :( ), they may fall down the order - they have 17 home games left, and it looks like most of 'em won't mean much - but the Mets at this point are drawing better than any Met team since 1989, the year after they fielded arguably the best Met team ever. Bad: Beltran sucks this year. Good: Beltran is far too good of a player to suck throughout the entire contract, and he has been legitimately hurt almost the entire season. Bad: The Mets don't have a closer. Good: The Mets have money, and can do cool things with money, like sign BJ Ryan. Bad: The Mets do not have a first baseman. Good: See above, with Paul Konerko. It is a testament that the rest of the offense is actually pretty good that the Mets have been decent without ANY PRODUCTION AT ALL FROM first or second base. Shopping list: Relief ace Second starter Power bat (this basically means Konerko, with Plan B being Manny) Second base Probably a catcher - I don't think Ramon Castro is a starter.

Nymr83 Sep 09 2005 08:10 AM

]Probably a catcher - I don't think Ramon Castro is a starter i think he is as good, and cheaper, than anyone who is available. might as well keep him and spend the money at 1B, in the bullpen,etc.

Valadius Sep 09 2005 08:40 AM

We need a catching tandem if we keep Castro - he can't play every day.

smg58 Sep 09 2005 09:09 AM

I'm not sure that Castro and Jacobs couldn't work as a platoon, but there are a few rookie catchers who could possibly be had (Shoppach, Dioner Navarro, Ryan Garko in the Indians system), plus you'd have to consider Pudge if the Tigers just give him away, the bizarrely bad walk ratio notwithstanding. Let's see who's available for what price. Good: Wright is a star. Reyes showed what he can do when he's healthy enough to run. Pedro. Most of the pitching in general. Jae Seo. Cliff Floyd. Roberto Hernandez. Bad: Reyes still doesn't get on enough to make his speed the devastating weapon it could be. The lack of timely hits, again. Looper. Shingo Takatsu. Willie's fondness for Shingo Takatsu. Cairo and Matsui. Too little from first base. Beltran was practically irrelevant. Danny Graves and Mike De Jean.

Diamond Dad Sep 09 2005 11:05 AM Wait 'till next year

Glass half full: Reyes and Wright are only 22 and while Wright can't do much better than he has done this year, he's likely to actually improve in some areas of the game, while Reyes has shown signs of having better plate discipline, can still learn to bunt for hits, and will be leading off for the Mets for the next 10 years. Willie won't be a rookie manager next year, and the players do seem to play hard for him. Beltran will be better next year. Pedro will be as good -- he's still only 35 We'll have a closer next year (note to Omar -- ) We'll have a better first baseman next year (Note #2 to Omar -- ) Glass Half empty: Trachsel will be a year older Glavine will still be here Kaz Mat will be making $8 million next year We still need to find a closer and a first baseman Cameron probably can't be traded now until next spring training after he proves that he can still play after his horrific injury Floyd just finished his first full year without a major injury in 5 years -- how likely is that to repeat itself? Plus, he slumped at the end, which may indicate that playing a full season isn't necessarily something he's able to do while keeping up an offensive pace Still -- happy to have had interest through Labor Day. Nice of the Mets to drop out of the race just in time for football season.

Vic Sage Sep 09 2005 11:16 AM

analysis of 2005? the pitching was good and the hitting sucked. plan for 2006? get better hitters. thank you for your time..

Iubitul Sep 09 2005 11:20 AM Re: Wait 'till next year

Diamond Dad wrote: Still -- happy to have had interest through Labor Day. Nice of the Mets to drop out of the race just in time for football season. Oh man... No post-mortems until no more Met baseball is being played... The winters are always long - any day with a Met game is better than any day in the winter...

Rotblatt Sep 09 2005 12:32 PM

Vic Sage wrote: analysis of 2005? . . . the hitting sucked. Man, that's just so wrong, Vic . . . I wish people would stop saying our hitting sucks, cause it just ain't true, much like the whole "the Mets bullpen sucks" theme isn't true (although Looper does, in fact, suck. Looper.). Our .736 OPS is the best we've posted as a team since 2000 (.776), which places us at a respectable tie for 10th in the NL, 19th in the majors, tied or ahead of such playoff contenders as Oakland, San Diego & Houston. Is it good? No, but I wouldn't call being at the top of the bottom third sucking, and OPS doesn't tell the whole story. I give us a below average in the OPS department. We're on pace for 728 RS, our best, again, since 2000 (807), and good for a tie for 6th in the NL, 16th in the majors. That's indisputably good. We're 14th in the majors in XBH, 7th in the NL. On a related note, we're 15th in IsoP, 7th in the NL. Average. We're 10th in the majors in SecA, 6th in the NL. Good. We're 11th in the majors in P/PA, 7th in the NL. Average. We're 17th in the majors in BB/K, 11th in the NL. Below average. Our hitting didn't suck. At worst, it was average. If you want to heavily weight OPS, it was maybe a bit below average. But there's no way our hitting "sucked" this season.

Valadius Sep 09 2005 12:41 PM

Why do we think our hitting sucked? Because the average Mets scoring opportunity goes like this: Batter singles, reaches 1st. Batter sacrifices runner to 2nd, 1 out. Batter walks, runners on 1st and 2nd. Batter lines out, 2 outs. Batter strikes out, 3 outs.

MFS62 Sep 09 2005 12:53 PM

I'm still hoping this will be like the CSI episode in which, during the autopsy, they discovered that the person was still alive. There will be plenty of time to determine the cause(s) of death once they're really, oficially dead. Please keep this thread around. I'll be glad to provide my input at that time. Later

Rotblatt Sep 09 2005 12:54 PM

]Why do we think our hitting sucked? Because the average Mets scoring opportunity goes like this: Batter singles, reaches 1st. Batter sacrifices runner to 2nd, 1 out. Batter walks, runners on 1st and 2nd. Batter lines out, 2 outs. Batter strikes out, 3 outs. Except it doesn't. Our OPS with runners in scoring position is .751, 15 points better than our average. With runners on, our OPS is .762, 26 points better than our average. Now, with RISP & 2 outs, our OPS drops to .678, which is pretty bad, but I suspect a drop-off there is normal for most teams. In close & late situations, our OPS is .726--a dropoff, but not a huge one. We're all prone to fixating on the mistakes we've made, but we really haven't been a bad team offensively or defensively. Willie's made some retarded mistakes, but I think to the independent, stats-oriented observer, we look like a pretty good team that got unlucky.

rpackrat Sep 09 2005 01:15 PM

Positives: Wright!!!!!!!!!!! Reyes Floyd Pedro Starting pitching in general (notable exception: Ishii, but he'll be gone) Bench Negatives: First Base Second Base Closer IMO, the biggest need is a slugging 1B. We have some trade bait in Diaz or Cameron, or could obtain a slugging leftfielder (Manny?) and move Floyd to 1B. 2B we seem to have some options in the system Closer. If it can't be addressed through free agency, maybe Heilman has earned a shot. Oh, and WWSB has to learn that BIFL!

Elster88 Sep 09 2005 01:41 PM

]respectable tie for 10th in the NL, 19th in the majors This is not respectable, this is below average. Seeing as how hitting is 50% of the game, I don't see how below average can be acceptable or respectable for any team with playoff aspirations. _____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Johnny Dickshot Sep 09 2005 01:44 PM

We've been one-quarter a bad team offensively. Our first basemen have produced the worst numbers in the NL in just about every category (fewest hits, HRs, XBHs, lowest BA/OBP/SLG). Our second basemen have also badly underperformed league-average figures in every category. Now, the rest of the team may have helped take this edge off partly and bring us to "average" combined figures, but it hasn't changed the fact that that most nights, we are worse than the opposition in 25% of the batting order. If these spots were only average and not league-worst, we'd have been a much more successful team.

Elster88 Sep 09 2005 01:49 PM

]We're on pace for 728 RS, our best, again, since 2000 (807), and good for a tie for 6th in the NL, 16th in the majors. That's indisputably good. Not indisputably good. 6th in the NL is above average, true, but 16th out of 30 teams is not good, it's average. And we had this argument already, and JD made many salient points about the blowouts which contributed to this. Rotty, I think you are thinking with your heart too much. Just take a look at what has happened since Arizona, please. W 1-0, L 2-1, L 4-1, W 6-4, L 8-2, L 3-1, L 4-2, L 5-4, W 7-1, L 4-2, L 3-1, L 4-3, L 5-0 That's 31 runs in 13 games, or 2.38 runs per game, including a 7 spot and a 6 spot. I don't think Piazza and Cameron make a huge difference when inserted back into the lineup either. And we pulled this off during a stretch which was easily the best chance to make the playoffs since 2001. _____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

MFS62 Sep 09 2005 01:51 PM

I wonder what the 2005 team stats look like if you take out those two blowouts against the Snakes. Later

Elster88 Sep 09 2005 01:52 PM

This has been done...but I don't remember where. JD do you remember which thread? Someone link it. _____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Johnny Dickshot Sep 09 2005 02:12 PM

At some point last week I figured this out -- taking away our 5 highest scoring games our average rpg dropped from 4.5 to 4.1, approximately, and more or less approximated our actual winning percentage by pythagorean. I think I was trying to say that overall RS/RA was a little decieving in that we'd been involved in more blowout wins (5 double-figure RS advantage games) than blowout losses (only 1 loss by 10, no 9s, 8s) -- and that reflected not great hitting necessarily but good pitching.

Vic Sage Sep 09 2005 02:54 PM

Rotty, i'm as stat-oriented as anybody here and i actually do appreciate the fact that LUCK plays a large role in outcomes. And i'm not one whining about how "un-clutch" we are, as i think its a matter of sample size. BUT, one has to have one's had entirely up one's sphincter, or just be watching an entirely different baseball team, or relying to much on stats that could easily be interpreted differently, to think that this team's hitting un-sucks. when your 1b and 2b production is the worst in the league, and only your 3b production is significantly above average, one has to look at the aggregate stats and figure out why they DON'T paint an accurate picture of this team's hitting, instead of interpreting them in the most favorable light that contradicts what your eyes can plainly see. i think Widey's point, about a disproportionate number of offensive explosions skewing the RS numbers, may be one reasonable explanation.

Rotblatt Sep 09 2005 03:40 PM

]This is not respectable, this is below average. Seeing as how hitting is 50% of the game, I don't see how below average can be acceptable or respectable for any team with playoff aspirations. My main point was that it doesn't "suck," even if it's below average. My other point was that it's better than 3 teams that have a very good shot at making the playoffs, so yes, being in the bottom third in OPS can be acceptable. ="Elster88"] ]We're on pace for 728 RS, our best, again, since 2000 (807), and good for a tie for 6th in the NL, 16th in the majors. That's indisputably good. Not indisputably good. 6th in the NL is above average, true, but 16th out of 30 teams is not good, it's average. Well, the major league results are skewed, since the AL has a DH instead of a pitcher. I probably should have left them out entirely, but I thought it was interesting to look at. ]That's 31 runs in 13 games, or 2.38 runs per game, including a 7 spot and a 6 spot. I don't think Piazza and Cameron make a huge difference when inserted back into the lineup either. And we pulled this off during a stretch which was easily the best chance to make the playoffs since 2001. Your last paragraph is irrelevent when discussing how our offense has performed. And 13 games is an incredibly small sample size, but even WITH those 13 games, we've still played like an above-average offensive team when viewed over the course of the season. The entire season, I've been listing runs scored and offensive numbers, saying "Hey! We're not so bad after all!" (you may remember me from such threads as "Offensive Powerhouse?"), and from pretty much month 1, y'all have been telling me that I'm crazy, that our offense sucks, it's an abberation, we'll revert to norm, etc. Well, now we're pretty much done with the season, and the numbers are what they are. We've been in the top half in the NL in runs scored all season, despite terrible production from 1B & 2B. Why? Because we're getting above average offensive production from 3B, SS, LF, RF, CF & C. And Vic, just because they're not "well above average" doesn't mean shit. How many teams are getting league average output at every position? Without looking, I'm guessing none. 1B for the Sox has been a sink, 2B from the Yankees hasn't been good. Maybe St. Louis has gotten that, but they're about it. Everyone has holes; ours just happen to be bigger than most, but the net contribution from the rest of our team has outweighed it. And it's resulted in enough runs to put us in the top of the NL. Look at the data and show me where my conclusion--that our offense has been average--is wrong. I've been watching and listening to the same games you guys have, and so far, the "Your head's up your ass" argument isn't convincing me. Neither is the cherry-picking argument (if we take out the 5 best games, etc.). Oh, and one more stat that I forgot to include: our EqA of .261 is good 13th in MLB, 7th in the NL. .260 is set to be league average, IIRC.

MFS62 Sep 09 2005 03:52 PM

Well if the hitting is "ok" and the pitching/ Team ERA (top 4 in the NL last time I looked) is "ok", does this mean that we now will re-engage in one of our favorite activities, a discussion of the concept of "clutch"? Later

Elster88 Sep 09 2005 08:55 PM

]Neither is the cherry-picking argument (if we take out the 5 best games, etc.). That's not cherry-picking. Basic statistics. The majority of scores fall within a certain range, and you remove the outliers. What you have left AFTER removing the outliers tells you what a score is likely to be on a certain day. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Nymr83 Sep 09 2005 09:50 PM

]Shingo Takatsu how can you put him in the bad category? he threw one bad pitch to one batter because dumbass randolph brought him in (after having not seen a major league batter in over a month) with the bases loaded to face miguel cabrera. that was bad managing not bad player.

Rotblatt Sep 09 2005 11:22 PM

Elster88 wrote: ]Neither is the cherry-picking argument (if we take out the 5 best games, etc.). That's not cherry-picking. Basic statistics. The majority of scores fall within a certain range, and you remove the outliers. What you have left AFTER removing the outliers tells you what a score is likely to be on a certain day. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw Um, randomly deciding to remove 5 games--with the number 5 picked completely abitrarily--has nothing whatsoever to do with outliers or statistics. You don't just say, "I bet there are five outliers!" and get rid of them. You define terms--what offensive output am I measuring? Runs scored? Earned runs scored? Batters reached? OPS? Then you plot all the games out and look for a pattern, from which you find outliers. So yes, it is cherry picking. Which is fine and still fun to look at, but don't pretend it's statistical.

ABG Sep 09 2005 11:40 PM

So...shut down Pedro the rest of the year? Yes, says I.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 09 2005 11:41 PM

I am the last man on Earth you would trust with *performing* statistical analysis, but just for fun, on paper, I took down all the Met score occurances this year. 0 runs 10 times 1 run 15 2 runs 17 3 runs 21 4 runs 17 5 runs 13 6 runs 15 7 runs 8 8 runs 4 9 runs 9 10 runs 4 11 runs 0 12 runs 3 13 runs 0 14 runs 1 15 runs 0 16 runs 1 17 runs 0 18 runs 1 Add it up: Mean runs: 4.51 Mode: 3 EDIT: Median 4.38 Even though we "average" 4.5 runs a game, in more than half of our games this year we have scored 4 runs or fewer and we're most likely to put up 3 runs on any given date. What this says to me is that most nights, this is NOT a strong offensive team.

Elster88 Sep 10 2005 12:04 AM Edited 2 time(s), most recently on Sep 10 2005 12:14 AM

Rotblatt wrote: ="Elster88"] ]Neither is the cherry-picking argument (if we take out the 5 best games, etc.). That's not cherry-picking. Basic statistics. The majority of scores fall within a certain range, and you remove the outliers. What you have left AFTER removing the outliers tells you what a score is likely to be on a certain day. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw Um, randomly deciding to remove 5 games--with the number 5 picked completely abitrarily--has nothing whatsoever to do with outliers or statistics. You don't just say, "I bet there are five outliers!" and get rid of them. You define terms--what offensive output am I measuring? Runs scored? Earned runs scored? Batters reached? OPS? Then you plot all the games out and look for a pattern, from which you find outliers. So yes, it is cherry picking. Which is fine and still fun to look at, but don't pretend it's statistical. I don't think you know what I mean. You find the range under which the majority of the scores fall. If there are some that are outside that range, you discard them. Those that are going to be discarded (if any), are going to be the extreme highs and exterme lows. This is not cherry-picking. I'm not sure how to explain it better without actually doing the math. I'll get around to doing this out one day. I was referring to runs scored, since that's much easier to use than figuring out the OPS for each individual game. ]Um, randomly deciding to remove 5 games--with the number 5 picked completely abitrarily--has nothing whatsoever to do with outliers or statistics. You don't just say, "I bet there are five outliers!" and get rid of them. When did I say this? When did I pick the number 5? I don't know if there are five, less than five or more than five, and never said I did. I can tell you without doing a single calculation that the two games in Arizona are meaningless when trying to figure out the Mets' average offensive production, but those are the only two I am sure of offhand. As an educated guess, I would say there are more than five. Possibly some of the times we were shutout will be eliminated, too, though those are much more likely to be included. ]but don't pretend it's statistical. Yes, it is statistics. It is a way of removing error and reducing the influence of extremes from a measure of average. This is a way (obviously not the only way) to figure out what the average offensive output was for a team over a season. I would argue that it is better than simply taking the runs scored as a total. And for me it's more fun than looking up numbers on a website, which is why I plan to do the math out. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:09 AM

Hey! My little chart is fun! Did you know the Mets score 3 runs or fewer in 45% of their games?!?

Elster88 Sep 10 2005 12:11 AM

I like your chart, though in a nutshell that's what I was going to do, only using some fancy terms and more specific calculations I learned in one of those boring "stats as a scientific measure" classes way back in freshman year. Give me some of my thunder back. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Elster88 Sep 10 2005 12:13 AM

ABG wrote: So...shut down Pedro the rest of the year? Yes, says I. I like this idea. Let him go back to that beach and sleep for three days or whatever he keeps talking about. ____________________________ This post had the designation 159) Bob Shaw

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:19 AM

I did the hard part. Maybe you can make a chart or something (I tried, only to become frustrated that excel doesnt recognize "0" as a variable or something. I never use excel.

Nymr83 Sep 10 2005 09:41 AM

]You find the range under which the majority of the scores fall. If there are some that are outside that range, you discard them. Those that are going to be discarded (if any), are going to be the extreme highs and exterme lows. This is not cherry-picking. its cherry-picking because you are removing the best games without removing the worst ones. nowhere did i see out 5 worst games removed as well. saying that our blowouts dont count but getting blown out does isn't fair.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 10:16 AM

Let's move on from taking away the blowouts (which came up merely as a quick and dirty way to examine the team's scoring). Those scores are included in the figures I did on the other page, but I think it's easy to see their effect in pumping up the total and mean average scores. But we still score 4 or fewer in more than half our games and most often score 3.

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 10:38 AM

That's a good start! Nymr's right--you have to remove ALL outliers. The problem is that we've been shut out 10 times, meaning we have to "own" those games. Which is why it would make sense to try and measure some other offensive output per game--maybe runners reached or total bases or something--preferably with runs as a heavily weighted variable, so that those truly anonomous games (where we hit a ton and score a lot of runs or don't hit at all and don't score at all) ALL get removed. Rather than do that, though, which seems awfully complicated to me, I'm going to do what JD did with one or more teams (we'll see how long it takes!) so we can compare. I'm starting with the Phillies and will probably stick with the NLE and maybe Houston.

Elster88 Sep 10 2005 10:45 AM

The reason you may not remove the shutouts is because they may fall within the range which the majority of the scores fall. Example: 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 15 The range here would obviously be 0 to 3, so you remove 15 only. Obviously when the numbers are crunched for the Mets the zeroes may get removed, they may not.

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 10:48 AM

Okay, so the Phillies average 4.61 Runs/Game. Their Mode is 1. In 53.1% of their games, they scored 4 runs or fewer (compared to 57.5% for us), and, if we're going by mode, they're most likely to score 1 run than 4 on any given date. Mode's pretty weak, though, so I'd just as soon ignore it. Anywya, by your criteria, the Phillies aren't much more consistent offensively than we are. Unless I'm missing something. On to the Marlins.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 11:15 AM

Well, a 3% advantage in the "4 runs or more" would equal 4 games (that is 3% of 139 games). The Phils have 5 more wins than us.

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 12:02 PM

Marlins average 4.48 runs per game. In 56% of their games, they scored 4 runs or fewer. ]Well, a 3% advantage in the "4 runs or more" would equal 4 games (that is 3% of 139 games). The Phils have 5 more wins than us. So that 3% defecit is enough to take us from a good offense to a bad one, in your estimation? Remember, I'm only trying to show that we're an average offensive team.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:03 PM

Astros 140 games, 592 RS Mean: 4.22 Median: 4.55 Mode: 4 4 runs or fewer: 57% 3 runs or fewer: 41%

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:06 PM

]So that 3% defecit is enough to take us from a good offense to a bad one, in your estimation? It is my intuitive suspicion that the Mets "average" offense most nights is actually below average, but let's try and step away from what "we're trying to prove" and see what the numbers show us.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:21 PM

Nationals 142 games, 554 runs Mean: 3.9 Median: 3.0 Mode: 3 4 runs or fewer: 66% 3 runs or fewer: 50%

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 12:32 PM

This is kind of grueling for me, so I'm taking a break. I keep fucking up and then having to figure out where I did. So far, I'm not convinced that there's anything significant in the differences, but let's see what you come up with!

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:41 PM

Braves 141 games, 674 runs Mean: 4.78 Median: 4.95 Mode: 5 4 runs or fewer: 50% 3 runs or fewer: 35%

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:45 PM

Somebody better than me at math has to apply a standard deviation to these figures, which would take care of the outliers by showing how far out of the standard bell curve they lie. I'm taking the rest of the day off too.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 10 2005 12:50 PM

of the completed teams so far: % of games scoring 4 runs or fewer: Braves: 50% Phillies: 53.1% Marlins: 56% Astros: 57% Mets: 57.5% Nationals: 66%

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 01:16 PM

We should also see how closely that percentage correlates to RS/game. Braves: 50% (674 RS, 4.78 R/G) Phillies: 53.1% (658 RS, 4.67 R/G) Marlins: 56% (634 RS, 4.50 R/G Astros: 57% (592 RS, 4.23 R/G) Mets: 57.5% (631 RS, 4.48 R/G) Nationals: 66% (554 RS, 3.90 R/G) Generally, it looks like teams that have scored more runs have more a higher percentage of games where they've scored more 4 runs or more.

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 08:36 PM

Cubbies: 60.3% of four runs or fewer. They average 4.48 R/G--same as the Mets. edited for typo

Rotblatt Sep 10 2005 10:05 PM

Milwaukee 55.3% at 4 runs or fewer. 4.51 Runs per game. San Diego 57.1% (4.29 R/G) So far: Braves: 50% (4.78 R/G) Phillies: 53.1% (4.67 R/G) Brewers: 55.3% (4.51 R/G) Marlins: 56% (4.50 R/G) Astros: 57% (4.23 R/G) San Diego: 57.1% (4.29 R/G) Mets: 57.5% (4.48 R/G) Cubs: 60.3% (4.48 R/G) Nationals: 66% (3.90 R/G) Well, that makes 2 teams worse in RS who have scored 5 runs or more more often than the Mets, with only 1 team better or as good as them with a worse percentage. That being said, the difference to me seems pretty slight. Marlins with a 1.5% advantage (2 games), Brewers with a 3 game advantage, but both of them have scored slightly more runs overall than we have, so it's not too surprising. Astros with a slight advantage (under a game) but given how few runs they score, it's a suprise. Cubbies have been really inconsistent and hit better at home, so no real surprise there. Nats are just a bad team offensively, so again, no surprise. And I'm done for the night.

Edgy DC Sep 10 2005 10:30 PM

It's just easier, cheaper, and less risky to first look at upgrading the bad positions toward average, instead of the average positions toward excellent. Excellence is also the occasional residue of mere goodness. That said, Cliff Floyd's disappearance today definitely makes me re-think where the Mets are on the plus side of average.

Spacemans Bong Sep 11 2005 03:01 AM

="Edgy DC"]It's just easier, cheaper, and less risky to first look at upgrading the bad positions toward average, instead of the average positions toward excellent. Excellence is also the occasional residue of mere goodness. That said, Cliff Floyd's disappearance today definitely makes me re-think where the Mets are on the plus side of average. He only disappeared today for you?

Rotblatt Sep 12 2005 02:07 PM

Well, JD, unbeknownst to me, SoSH had a similar thread goin' on and after 3 days of rooting through data in a more sophisticated way than us, here's the inital result for the AL: ]My thought was that "consistency" is not an attribute that implies either more or less runs, but that it moved the run profile to a more valuable shape. If that were true, then you'd expect "consistent" teams (as indicated by the %stdev metric here) to tend to outperform their pythagorans. Sadly, I can't really see that's true. <!--c1--> CODE <!--ec1--> %st BP_Diff dif1 dif2 dif3 BOS 0.57 12 3.3 3.2 2.2 TBA 0.60 -18 2.4 -2.8 -5.4 CHA 0.62 7 6.7 10.2 10.5 BAL 0.63 -45 1.6 -4.8 -5.8 TEX 0.63 -2 -2.1 -6.6 -8.1 MIN 0.65 -9 -1 -0.1 -0.5 NYA 0.66 -16 2.9 0.9 -0.4 SEA 0.66 31 -6.1 -0.8 -3.8 CLE 0.66 -23 -0.7 -3.4 -2 ANA 0.67 8 -0.9 3.5 2.6 TOR 0.68 14 -5.5 0.1 -1.2 DET 0.70 -11 -1 -4.6 -4.9 KCA 0.73 17 -4.5 -4.1 -6.2 OAK 0.73 27 -3.3 -1.2 -1.9<!--c2--> <!--ec2--> correl bp 0.327504361 correl dif1 -0.64534997 correl dif2 -0.294767694 correl dif3 -0.258967357 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php %st = the %stdev metric employed earlier, or stdev/average runs BP Diff = the difference between actual runs and BP's expected runs Dif1, Dif2, and Dif3 are the deltas between actual wins and W1, W2, and W3 (which are various and increasingly complicated ways of estimating expected wins). At bottom are the correlations between each of the last 4 columns and the %stdev column. I don't see anything of value here. Does anyone else? Maybe the %stdev metric doesn't measure consistency meaningfully, or maybe consistency really just doesn't have much value? Or is so evenly distributed among teams that none of it really matters. I'm not very good with stats, so am wide open to suggestions here. If anything it's a negative correlation -- but that might be messed up by the fact that there's interleague play, and the AL teams have underperformed relative to the NL teams (even while beating them more often overall). At least, in W3, which adjusts for strength of schedule, AL teams are down -24. Probably NL teams should be mixed in here, but I didn't want to combine them originally. Should go back and do other years, but this is pretty time consuming. I'm not quite sure how he got there, otherwise I'd try & replicate it for the NL, but maybe he'll go ahead and examine the NL data and throw that in there. Cribbing is MUCH easier than doing it yourself.

seawolf17 Sep 14 2005 01:21 PM

I figured this was the best place to put this, because it's just too sad to make its own thread. Magic Number Watch Mets Division Elimination: 7 Mets WC Elimination: 12

sharpie Sep 14 2005 02:00 PM

Do we really need it?

Yancy Street Gang Sep 14 2005 02:05 PM

I don't think we need it. Hopefully, if the Yankees get close to elimination, that might be a fun number to track. But we know the Mets are out of it. There's no need to track the math.

Rockin' Doc Sep 14 2005 03:42 PM

We don't really need a number to track when the Mets are "mathematically" eliminated from the playoffs. For all intents and purposes they were eliminated by the time they left Atlanta.