Article: Jays just 0.6% chance of making playoffs

[dagger]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/b ... d/follows/

The website sportsclubstats.com, which uses an algorithm based on a team’s record and remaining schedule to calculate how teams will close out the season, computes that the Blue Jays have a 0.6 per cent shot at making the playoffs. The website’s findings show that the Red Sox have an 86-per-cent chance of making the playoffs, best in the American League.

According to data supplied by the Elias Sports Bureau in New York, over the last 30 years, only three teams that started the season at 9-17 or worse were able to rebound to make the postseason. Blue Jay fans will be heartened to know that Toronto was one of those teams. It was 1989, the year Cito Gaston replaced Jimy Williams as manager after the club stumbled to a 12-24 start.

[OhMyBosh]

This club just can't catch a break. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

[J-Roc]

Might as well start comparing to 1989.

When I take a look at the losses over those first 36 games, I see a lot of tight games. Good sign? Does it mean changing the manager could make the difference?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams ... ores.shtml

Can someone break out the splits of those first 36 vs the start to this season? Is our offence more anemic? More question marks with pitchers? How was the competition doing that season?

Damn, I loved that 1989 team.

[RINSE]

obligatory.

[Santoki]

Might as well start comparing to 1989.

When I take a look at the losses over those first 36 games, I see a lot of tight games. Good sign? Does it mean changing the manager could make the difference?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams ... ores.shtml

Can someone break out the splits of those first 36 vs the start to this season? Is our offence more anemic? More question marks with pitchers? How was the competition doing that season?

Damn, I loved that 1989 team.

That '89 team also won the division with 89 games. I think you probably need to get to around 92-93 wins to even be in the wildcard this year. That 4 game difference is massive.

[JoeyBats]

Going to keep hope until were mathematically eliminated.

[MikeM]

I never thought in a million years that a baseball team (162 games!), let alone one like this, would have their season ended this quickly.

I thought at least if we don't make the playoffs, I'd have something to watch in August. I can't even make it to May lol.

[Yeezus_]

So hypothetically we go on a 5 game winning streak, that 0.6% chance remains the same?

[RapsFanInVA]

So hypothetically we go on a 5 game winning streak, that 0.6% chance remains the same?

The model says it's ridiculously unlikely that we win 5 games in a row, since right now we win one for every two losses. But if we win 5 in a row, our odds will increase.

[Avenger]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/stats-show-jays-have-just-06-per-cent-shot-of-making-playoffs/article11624442/#dashboard/follows/

The website sportsclubstats.com, which uses an algorithm based on a team’s record and remaining schedule to calculate how teams will close out the season, computes that the Blue Jays have a 0.6 per cent shot at making the playoffs. The website’s findings show that the Red Sox have an 86-per-cent chance of making the playoffs, best in the American League.

According to data supplied by the Elias Sports Bureau in New York, over the last 30 years, only three teams that started the season at 9-17 or worse were able to rebound to make the postseason. Blue Jay fans will be heartened to know that Toronto was one of those teams. It was 1989, the year Cito Gaston replaced Jimy Williams as manager after the club stumbled to a 12-24 start.

I'm as dissapointed as anyone with the start of the season but this isn't how things work, that is a horrifically written article where the author doesn't bother to grasp elementary level statistics and probability.


Let me ask people this, if you flipped a coin 30 times and it lands on heads 20 times does that mean there's something wrong with the coin? Is it just inherently more likely to land on a heads? Ofcourse not, probability theory says that's completely normal. With Reyes gone for 3 months, the Jays are a high 80 win team, somewhere between 85 and 90, that's the talent level on paper. The Blue Jays are basically a coin that lands on a W about 54.3% of the time and lands on an L about 45.7% of the time.

It is pretty normal for an 88 win team to go through a 9-17 stretch and make no mistake about it a 9-17 record sucks but every half decent team since the invention of Baseball has had a 9-17 or a similarly poor stretch at some point in the season. That's just how it is, there's no reason to get too worked up about our bad stretch just because it happens to be coming at the beginning of the season. Now i can't guarantee you that this bad stretch isn't representative of our true talent but talent almost always wins out, talent on paper will translate to wins on the field.

If someone wants to give me 165 - 1 odds(which is what 0.6% translates to) on the Jays making the playoffs i will take you up in a heartbeat, hell just give me 50 - 1.

[raps4589]

So I guess Angels aren't making the playoffs either

[Santoki]

So I guess Angels aren't making the playoffs either

Probably not. Their pitching sucks too.

[Randle McMurphy]

That model is assuming that the way we's played so far is our true talent level and that we'll continuing playing like that going forward (which I don't think anybody believes is the case).

The Jays' odds may be lower now (this model, which gives the Jays a 50/50 chance of winning each game going forward, has them at 11.6%: http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp), but not as low as this article suggests.

[Yosemite Dan]

Might as well start comparing to 1989.

When I take a look at the losses over those first 36 games, I see a lot of tight games. Good sign? Does it mean changing the manager could make the difference?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams ... ores.shtml

Can someone break out the splits of those first 36 vs the start to this season? Is our offence more anemic? More question marks with pitchers? How was the competition doing that season?

Damn, I loved that 1989 team.

Big difference with the 89 team is they knew how to win because they had won a division so they had that winning arrogance that had been earned the prior 4 years where they always contended. The core was also together longer. This team already has those 2 things working against them as well as a yokel for a manager who doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

[kwamebargnani]

You ask baseball analysis to predict their end-of-season record, i bet it would be around .500. This team is going nowhere with so many holes.

[Parataxis]

The website sportsclubstats.com, which uses an algorithm based on a team’s record and remaining schedule to calculate how teams will close out the season, computes that the Blue Jays have a 0.6 per cent shot at making the playoffs. The website’s findings show that the Red Sox have an 86-per-cent chance of making the playoffs, best in the American League.

So it's essentially a predictive model that says that how things have been is how things will be? Big whoop. There's not much analysis to that.

[Skin Blues]

Might as well start comparing to 1989.

When I take a look at the losses over those first 36 games, I see a lot of tight games. Good sign? Does it mean changing the manager could make the difference?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams ... ores.shtml

Can someone break out the splits of those first 36 vs the start to this season? Is our offence more anemic? More question marks with pitchers? How was the competition doing that season?

Damn, I loved that 1989 team.

Big difference with the 89 team is they knew how to win because they had won a division so they had that winning arrogance that had been earned the prior 4 years where they always contended. The core was also together longer. This team already has those 2 things working against them as well as a yokel for a manager who doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

I don't know if this is sarcasm or not... #TWTW

[raps4589]

This team is terrible

[Schad]

Might as well start comparing to 1989.

When I take a look at the losses over those first 36 games, I see a lot of tight games. Good sign? Does it mean changing the manager could make the difference?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams ... ores.shtml

Can someone break out the splits of those first 36 vs the start to this season? Is our offence more anemic? More question marks with pitchers? How was the competition doing that season?

Damn, I loved that 1989 team.

That's actually not a bad reference point, for two reasons...one, the start they had, and two their endpoint. We may need slightly more than 89 wins to make the playoffs, but that team also dug themselves a slightly-larger hole.

Did the math (in my head, so consider this to be accurate to +/- 50 runs); they had a run total of 148 for and 162 against, which means that they were impressively unlucky...hell, take the last two games out of the equation and their runs for/against were even despite a record of 12-22. They blew people out, and then lost a tonne of close games...the sort of thing that evens out over the course of the year, especially with the quality bullpen that they possessed, and in time they indeed ceased losing them.

In terms of close losses, they had 3 wins by one run, and another 2 by two runs; conversely, they had a ridiculous 12 one-run losses, back with 5 two-run losses. So, by percentage of total games, we have:

8.3% of games won by one run.
13.4% of games won by two runs or less.
33.3% of games lost by one run.
47.2% of games lost by two runs or less.

In one run games, they lost 80% of the time; in games decided by two or fewer losses, they 77.3% of the time. That's insane.

How do we compare? Right now, we have 3 wins by one run, 7 losses. We have 4 wins in games decided by two runs, against 4 losses. We're a little more equal in that department, though still getting jobbed to some extent, but we're not backing it up with the blowouts. Consequently, there's a huge difference in run differential: their runs for/against ratio was .914, whereas we're at .759. They were getting unlucky; we kinda suck.

That said, luck does matter, even if you kinda suck. The 1988 team weren't losing games because they lacked competitive spirit or some such, they were losing because runs were (or weren't) scoring at the opportune moment. As the season wore on that changed, they won, and they made the playoffs in something of a down year (ah, for the days where the AL East was the weaker division). We're still hitting around 35 points of BABIP below our opponents...tighten that by 15-20 points and it certainly won't turn us around wholesale, but it'll help close the gap.

We might've been 50/50 to make the playoffs coming into the year; we're probably closer to 25/75 now. But it's still very much a possibility...will need to do well against the other contenders to batter down the playoff entry line, though.

Big difference with the 89 team is they knew how to win because they had won a division so they had that winning arrogance that had been earned the prior 4 years where they always contended. The core was also together longer. This team already has those 2 things working against them as well as a yokel for a manager who doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Yeah, we don't have anyone who knows how to win because they've made the playoffs before. I mean, other than this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, and of course this guy who made the playoffs in six consecutive seasons. Might've missed one or two, and left off Laffey, because **** Laffey.

[dennistokyo]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/stats-show-jays-have-just-06-per-cent-shot-of-making-playoffs/article11624442/#dashboard/follows/

The website sportsclubstats.com, which uses an algorithm based on a team’s record and remaining schedule to calculate how teams will close out the season, computes that the Blue Jays have a 0.6 per cent shot at making the playoffs. The website’s findings show that the Red Sox have an 86-per-cent chance of making the playoffs, best in the American League.

According to data supplied by the Elias Sports Bureau in New York, over the last 30 years, only three teams that started the season at 9-17 or worse were able to rebound to make the postseason. Blue Jay fans will be heartened to know that Toronto was one of those teams. It was 1989, the year Cito Gaston replaced Jimy Williams as manager after the club stumbled to a 12-24 start.

I'm as dissapointed as anyone with the start of the season but this isn't how things work, that is a horrifically written article where the author doesn't bother to grasp elementary level statistics and probability.


Let me ask people this, if you flipped a coin 30 times and it lands on heads 20 times does that mean there's something wrong with the coin? Is it just inherently more likely to land on a heads? Ofcourse not, probability theory says that's completely normal. With Reyes gone for 3 months, the Jays are a high 80 win team, somewhere between 85 and 90, that's the talent level on paper. The Blue Jays are basically a coin that lands on a W about 54.3% of the time and lands on an L about 45.7% of the time.

It is pretty normal for an 88 win team to go through a 9-17 stretch and make no mistake about it a 9-17 record sucks but every half decent team since the invention of Baseball has had a 9-17 or a similarly poor stretch at some point in the season. That's just how it is, there's no reason to get too worked up about our bad stretch just because it happens to be coming at the beginning of the season. Now i can't guarantee you that this bad stretch isn't representative of our true talent but talent almost always wins out, talent on paper will translate to wins on the field.

If someone wants to give me 165 - 1 odds(which is what 0.6% translates to) on the Jays making the playoffs i will take you up in a heartbeat, hell just give me 50 - 1.

Would you put a $1000 on it in a heartbeat? Of course you wouldn't because the Jays are not good.