Born Under a Bad Sign

[batmagadanleadoff]

What youse all suspected is now official. The Mets are baseball's unluckiest team and The Athletic crunched the numbers from this furshlugginer season to prove it.



https://theathletic.com/2057303/2020/09/15/a-big-week-for-baseball-meet-the-unluckiest-team-in-the-league/https://theathletic.com/2057303/2020/09/15/a-big-week-for-baseball-meet-the-unluckiest-team-in-the-league/

[nymr83]

I was just about to post this. It doesnt make me feel better though.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

When it comes to luck, you make your own/

Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, I think a lot of what gets relegated to the luck column is just stuff that we haven't figured out how to quantify.

[kcmets]

I didn't look it up but I think this quote is sometimes attributed to Branch

Rickey - "Luck is the residue of grand design."

[MFS62]

Yes, but I've heard the Rickey quote without the word "grand".

The second line in my signature says it for me.

V

V

Later

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, I think a lot of what gets relegated to the luck column is just stuff that we haven't figured out how to quantify.

a lot of it for sure, particularly hard to quantify defensive performance and things like going first to third on a single, though that gets quantified somewhat it doesnt show up in box scores.



What I do believe is luck though are batting stats with runners on base/runners in scoring position. The Mets would revert to the mean there over a full season and it would help a lot.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What's really luck is getting a base hit because of a bad hop, or having the ball deflected by a base, or if the fielder loses the ball in the sun or the lights. Or bad calls by umpires.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I didn't look it up but I think this quote is sometimes attributed to Branch Rickey - "Luck is the residue of grand design."

close, but what I consider one of Springsteen's most powerful and underappreciated songs.



[YOUTUBE]yvxLsZ9Myo0[/YOUTUBE]

[Edgy MD]

Edgy MD wrote: Yeah, I think a lot of what gets relegated to the luck column is just stuff that we haven't figured out how to quantify. a lot of it for sure, particularly hard to quantify defensive performance and things like going first to third on a single, though that gets quantified somewhat it doesnt show up in box scores. What I do believe is luck though are batting stats with runners on base/runners in scoring position. The Mets would revert to the mean there over a full season and it would help a lot.

I'm not as confident.

[batmagadanleadoff]

As I see it, there's so much goddamn luck in baseball, more so than in any of the other sports and I don't think that it's even close, that I doubt there's much difference between two teams that finish eight, nine or ten games apart over a full 162 game season. I mean, there's probably some qualitative difference, but nowhere near what most people probably think.



And now they're talking about a zillion playoff teams every season, not just this one. If that happens, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna lose an enormous amount of interest. I'll probably root for the stats but hardly the standings, which, given the state of the Wilpon Mets during the Citi Field era, it's what I do anyway.

[LWFS]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What's really luck is getting a base hit because of a bad hop, or having the ball deflected by a base, or if the fielder loses the ball in the sun or the lights. Or bad calls by umpires.

Placement of a grounder or line drive or flyball-- most of which is out of the batter's direct control-- is tremendously luck-dependent.

[Frayed Knot]

Looked at another way:

- this was the worst team for hitting w/RiSP for the entire July-August part of the schedule

- then, at least briefly, it was the Best hitting team w/RiSP for September

- then came the recent three-game stretch where they went a stunningly putrid 3-for-25

- but when you include the game prior to that three game set plus the one after then it's a five game stretch where they average a not-terrible .250 (13/52) and score 5.4 R/G



All those facts are based on small samples (some smaller than others) which are all within a season of small samples all of which makes it tough to draw any conclusions

particularly about how much is luck vs some kind of inability.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Can the law of averages kick in, like, immediately so the Mets can win ten of their last eleven games?

[kcmets]

Magic 8 Ball says, "PROBABLY, MAYBE"