J-Roc wrote: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.shtmlCan 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.
