Open Thread on Strength of Schedule

[Frayed Knot]

Making 2 15-team leagues wouldn't mean that inter-legue has to occur all at once, it would mean that inter-league has to occur every day of the season.
Your proposal: 30 IL games per team; means an approximate doubling of the number IL games played now and approx 2-3 games IL games/day. Is that really what you want?

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd rather have zero, but it's doable.

I see no reason, why, if there is interleague play, it should occur all at once. if the Mets play three times at Fenway, the Sox should play three times at Shea. Home/away symmetry is a good value to retain.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd rather have zero, but it's doable. There is, indeed, away to divide that evenly.

I see no reason, why, if there is interleague play, it should occur all at once. if the Mets play three times at Fenway, the Sox should play three times at Shea. Home/away symmetry is a good value to retain.

Having leagues and division of equal numbers is a very very good value to retain.

[nymr83]

the more likely way of obtaining that is to have 16 teams in each league whenever they eventually expand again with either 8/8 east/west or a stupid (for baseball) 4/4/4/4 like football has. i'd rather keep the divisions larger myself.
with the league the way it is you simply arent going to get a fair schedule.

i'd hate to see interleague play all year long, especially since you want as many division games as possible in september, also you'd eventually get an AL team whining about having to sit their DH the last 3 games of the year in a penant race. I don't like interleague to begin with, but in it's current form it is at least tolerable, i dont think i could stand seeing it all year.

[Elster88]

I say contract so there are enough pitchers to go around.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I've never accepted that expansion and contraction should effect pitchers at a different rate than hitters.

[Elster88]

It's time you accepted it.

[nymr83]

before you complain about pitchers being diluted why not:
1. build ballparks to the dimensioms they had pre-1970
2. use the old baseball (the one where you could rub it and move the covering around) instead of the juiced one
3. force the umpires to call the strike zone as it is written in the rulebook, there are no high strikes called anymore.
4. get rid of the stupid DH, an idea that has polluted the game for far too long.

i think you'll see an approriate drop in scoring if you implement even two of those ideas, especially the DH.

on edit-
5. put the height of the mound back where it was pre-1968.


i don't think pitching has changed at all, i think the rules of the game have steadily changed to favor the hitters.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]It's time you accepted it.

In God I trust. All others bring data.

[Elster88]

I was j/k.

There probably is a way to examine it, but it would involve work.

[Elster88]

Edgy DC wrote: I've never accepted that expansion and contraction should effect pitchers at a different rate than hitters.

affect

[Guest Edgy DC]

True enough.

[nymr83]

[Guest Rotblatt]

The Brew Crew was even tougher than expected at home, and we're now 1 win off the pace I expected, meaning we need to take another one against the Cards or win 2 of 3 from the Yankees.

Yankees are pretty banged up and RJ isn't pitching well, so that proposition isn't quite as daunting as it seemed a few weeks or so. Nonetheless, they still sit ahead of us on the updated Hit List ranking, and while Lima remains on our team, it's tough to cast stones at any other rotations.

NYM: 4th, .606 W%

]Beware of Lima Time: their NL East lead has dwindled to a single game as the Mets have lost five of seven since activating Jose Lima (9.31 ERA and 19 baserunners in 9.2 innings). Even with a rotation decimated by injuries, Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya refuse to consider Aaron Heilman for a start. Heilman's part of a bullpen that's third in the NL in Reliever Expected Wins Added (3.304), which is worth something, but with the way this team is dredging up starters, expect Minaya to start fawning over scouting reports on Dwight Gooden from the Florida Prison League soon.

Cards: 5th, .602 W%

NYY: 2nd, .649 W%

Phils: 17th, .511 W%

]Truckin': Aaron Rowand smashes into a wall in spectacular fashion, making the catch but breaking his nose, fracturing his orbital and heading to the DL for a gain of about 2.84 runs. Enigmatic prospect Cole Hamels (an Honorable Mention on our Top 50 Prospect List this year, #39 last year) tosses five shutout innings in his stellar debut, giving an underperforming rotation a boost. The loosened-up Phillies have won 13 out of 14, tightening the NL East race, but their run differential is still in the red, hence the middling ranking.

Marlins: 26th, .416 W%
D'Backs: 14th, .532 W%

[Centerfield]

]The loosened-up Phillies have won 13 out of 14, tightening the NL East race, but their run differential is still in the red, hence the middling ranking.

Does that mean the Phils have been luckier than their record? And by that Pythagorean stuff we can expect them to slow down pretty significantly?

[Guest Rotblatt]

Centerfield wrote: Does that mean the Phils have been luckier than their record? And by that Pythagorean stuff we can expect them to slow down pretty significantly?

Yup. Well, more or less.

They've probably gotten lucky (BP projects their record based on adjusted RS & RA and strength of schedule to be 18-20 rather than 22-16--a net gain of 4 wins), so their current rate doesn't really look sustainable. Still, P projects them to play above average ball over the rest of the way (.511 W%) but if Hamels helps to solidify their pitching, who knows?

[Elster88]

Has the Pythagorean record ever matched the actual record?

[nymr83]

well i don't think it normally would match anymore than a batter's batting average will match his expected batting average (a stat i dont really understand) but i think the further you get from the pythagorean record the more likely you are to fall (or climb) back to earth.
put another way, i'm pretty sure that with a large enough sample size (say the past 10 seasons?) if you took every team's record at the 81-game mark their second-half record will more closely approximate their pythagorean record than it will their actual record

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sure, plenty of teams have finished on their Pythagorean projection.

Being that there's only 162 possible records, clustering around the mean is going to be even more concentrated than something like batting average. For king projectors, the most accurate exponent, supposedly, shouldn't be 2, but something like 1.84.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Elster88 wrote: Has the Pythagorean record ever matched the actual record?

BP did a study and found that the margin for error was around 4 wins over 162 games, which is pretty darn good, if you ask me.

They used the Lahman database to run the RS/RA projections for pretty much every team in history to reach that number.

BP has a modified version that they use, which takes into account things like strength of schedule, park factor & quality of pitchers faced. I'd assume they do that because they found the error rate was lower that way, but I haven't actually seen a study on it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Last season's National League with their records, and two sets of Pythagorean records (based on exponents of 2 and 1.84, and the differences from the actual recorrds.

No dead-onnies, but we do learn that Arizona manager Bob Melvin was using some pretty strong medicine to get his team the record they got --- somehow inducing them to give up a large share of their runs in one long weekend against the Mets.

Team	W	L	RF	RA	Pyth(^2) W	Pyth(^2) L	Pyth(^2) Dif	Pyth(^1.84) W	Pyth(^1.84) L	Pyth(^1.84) Dif
Ari	77	85	696	856	64	98	13	66	96	11
Atl	90	72	769	674	92	70	-2	91	71	-1
ChC	79	83	703	714	80	82	-1	80	82	-1
Cin	73	89	820	889	74	88	-1	75	87	-2
Col	67	95	740	862	69	93	-2	70	92	-3
Fla	83	79	717	732	79	83	4	79	83	4
Hou	89	73	693	609	91	71	-2	91	71	-2
LAD	71	91	685	755	73	89	-2	74	88	-3
Mil	81	81	726	697	84	78	-3	84	78	-3
NYM	83	79	722	648	90	72	-7	89	73	-6
Phi	88	74	807	726	90	72	-2	89	73	-1
Pit	67	95	680	769	71	91	-4	72	90	-5
SDP	82	80	684	726	76	86	6	77	85	5
SFG	75	87	649	745	70	92	5	71	91	4
StL	100	62	805	634	100	62	0	99	63	1
Was	81	81	639	673	77	85	4	77	85	4

[Guest Edgy DC]

Biggest shortfall belongs to Willie. That may also be related to that Arizona series of course.

[nymr83]

you need to re-label your chart so that there is a pyth (^2) L collumn not two W columns.

]Biggest shortfall belongs to Willie

thanks for the ammunition! (i already knew that though and believe we discussed it over the offseason)

[Guest Rotblatt]

Well, I think we're going to have to take 2 of 3 against the Yankees.

Frankly, I think we should call tomorrow a gimme for the Cardinals and trot Lima out there until his arm falls off to preserve our bullpen. Not that Marquis is any great shakes, but our bats are going to need to be mighty indeed tomorrow.

[nymr83]

we'll just see how it goes. i agree that if lima gets rocked early you leave him out there until his arm breaks, but lets see if maybe he can manage something like 5 innings 3 runs before we turn to oliver

[Guest Rotblatt]

At the beginning of the month, I said we had to play .500 ball against the top 6 teams on BP's hit list (MFY, STL, MIL, ATL, ARI, WAS). We've done that so far, taking 7-14, with only Arizona left to play in those among those teams. I also said we needed to play .700 against the bottom half and we're off by a bit--we're at .600 after sweeping Pittsburgh and dropping the series against Philadelphia.

To meet my projection of 16 May wins, we're going to have to take 6 of the next 9. After winning 13 out of 14, the Phillies have struggled, getting swept by the Brewers and losing a series against Boston. It'll be the back half of our rotations matching up, which could mean blow-outs decided by the bullpen.

Minnesota's cooled off the Brewers a bit, taking 2 of three on their home turf, but Milwaukee remains a solid team.

After that, we face a surprisingly good Arizona team, who have won 6 of their last 10.

Gonna be a tough road to hoe, but we've faced the worst of it--St Louis & the Yankees--and came out relatively unscathed.

Time to build a little distance with a strong finish.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Hit List rankings for 5/21 are up, and we've flip-flopped with the Cardinals.

Phillies phell to 18th (.498 W%), and BP notes that their Defense Efficiency Ratio is second to last in the NL at .679 (we sit at 5th with a .716).

The floundering Marlins dropped to 28th (.372 W%) after going 0-7 leading into Sunday. They've gone 3-11 in one-run games, so are getting a bit unlucky, but they're still a bad team and we need to mop the floor with them.

The D'Backs slithered their way to 8th (.559 W%). Their two-headed CF monster, Byrnes/DaVanon, is batting a combined .328/.379/.528. Brandon Webb's been dynamite, but the rest of their rotation has really struggled. We'll need to hit them early and often.

We need to win 5 out of the next 8 to stay apace, which means winning our current series and the next two.

A quick look ahead: June will be tough. 13 games against the Giants (17th, .509), =red]Dodgers (7th, .579), =red]D'backs (8th) & =yellow]Phillies (18th) before finally getting a three-day reprieve against the =blue]Orioles (23rd).

It goes downhill from there, as we square off against the Reds (14th, .519), =red]Blue Jays (9th, .552), =red]Red Sox (6th, .585) & =red]Yankees (2nd, .616) for 11 games.

June is hands-down our toughest month of the year.
- 17 away games, all against teams better than .500
- only 10 home games
- only 2 days off, and they're both in the middle of road trips
- Sox @ Boston
- MFY @ Bronx

Finding a way to stop the leaking of our rotation is going to be key to doing well in June. If we manage that, we MIGHT be able to win half our games. If not, our offense is going to have to be relentless.

[Guest Rotblatt]

It's do-or-die time for the Mets tonight. If they win, we'll have met my predicted win total for May at 16. If they lose, well, um, I'll be dissapointed, and you KNOW they want to avoid that.

We're guaranteed to have played better than .500 ball, which means that, according to the standards I set on May 1, we won't have underperformed, even with a loss.

Still, May wasn't a particularly difficult month in retrospect--in fact, I'd call it around average. We caught the Phillies while they were hot, but the Yankees were injured, kind of balancing each other out.

Another series win against a tough opponent could help us hit a nasty June running.

And on that topic . . .

Prospectus Hit List 5/28

Mets: 4th, .601 W%

Giants (16th, .510), 3 games H
Dodgers (7th, .579) 3 games A
D'backs (8th, .567), 4 games A
Phillies (18th, .486), 3 games A
=blue]Orioles (23rd, .427, 3 games H)
=orange]Reds (14th, .527), 4 games H
Blue Jays (9th, .562), 3 games A
Red Sox (5th, .597), 3 games A
Yankees (2nd, .613), 1 game A

27 games total.

Brutal. Only one truely bad team, and 5 bonafide good teams, all of whom we face on their home turfs. In order to top .500 this month, we're going to need to feast on the Giants, Phillies, Orioles & Reds, and play tough against the rest.

Now that we've solidified our rotation to a certain extent, I'm conservatively predicting 14 wins--.615 W% against the above 4 teams, then .429 W% against the Dodgers, D'Backs, Blue Jays, Sox & Yankees.

Anything under 13 wins, and we'd be underperforming. Anything over 15, we've either caught fire, gotten some breaks, or both.

July: 4 v. PIT, 3 v. FLA & 6 V. CHN. Light month. We'll need to capitilize.
August: Similar to May, but without the MFY
September: Light. 7 v. FLA, 3 v. PIT, 6 v. WAS

[Elster88]

I don't consider myself bitter or spiteful. I'm happy with this team's performance this year, and the front office deserves much of the credit.

But I hope in the Baltimore series that Benson starts against Duque and that we lose 13-0. I'm not 100% sure why I feel that way. But I do. I want to win the other 2 games in the series. If Benson doesn't start against Doo K then I want to sweep Baltimore. But if that matchup happens I want a huge loss and a shut out by Benson.

[Elster88]

Who DH's in the AL parks this year? Lo Duca, to give his knees a rest? Valentin?


If Nady is healthy by then, do they keep Milledge up and maybe let one of them DH (or Floyd, even)?