In the throes of the NFL season and endless scandals, many Seattle Mariners fans can be forgiven if they didn’t actually see Fernando Rodney walk four hitters in the 10th to lose the game to the Oakland A’s over the weekend. Although it is pretty difficult to walk four batters in one inning, Rodney hasn’t blown an inordinate number of saves over the course of the season. It’s just that these meltdowns are magnified tremendously in the heat of the race for the playoffs.
But that particular loss got me to wondering if this season for the Mariners has been a “lucky” one or an “unlucky” one. For long time Mariners fans who haven’t had a taste of meaningful baseball in September for well over a decade, the season must seem very lucky, indeed. I, on the other hand, as a recent transplant from cities without professional sports, have thoroughly enjoyed the season but tend to feel as though this group has underachieved somewhat, squandering historic pitching, and falling short of what they might have achieved.
One way to measure “luck” in a baseball season is to compare the actual wins and losses to a formula created by the godfather of sabermetrics, Bill James, that measures how many wins and losses the team “should” have had. In its simplest form, James’ Pythagorean expectation formula looks at runs allowed and runs scored, does some fairly simple math, and arrives at expected wins.
Over time, the formula has been refined to a point where a variation of about three wins from the actual record and the expected record is the norm. Variations larger than three wins in either direction can be indicators of good or bad “luck” at best, or good or bad managing at worst.
According to ESPN’s expanded standings that uses Pythagorean expectations, as of Tuesday morning, the Mariners have underperformed their expected record by SEVEN wins. Instead of 80-69, the Mariners “should” be 87-62.
Only one other team in all of baseball has a larger margin between actual wins and expected wins – the Oakland A’s. The A’s actual record is 83-66. It “should” be 94-55.
If we rearrange the standings in the AL based on the Pythagorean expectation formula, the Baltimore Orioles would still be winning the East, the Detroit Tigers would still be winning the Central, but the A’s would be winning the West, and the Los Angeles Angels and the Mariners would be virtual locks on the two wild card spots.
The Kansas City Royals, who currently hold the second wild card spot by two games, have outperformed their expected win total by five games and would be trailing the Mariners by 10.
Now, of course, teams play actual games and not expected games, but as the Mariners odds of making the playoffs have dropped from around 65% to about 20% in the last week, its difficult not to begin thinking about what might have been.
I’m still optimistic as we race towards the last week of the season, maybe a few “lucky” bounces will go the Mariners way.
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