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Post by blizzards39 on Sept 17, 2021 18:11:09 GMT -5
Cora also stating Houck to pen. She’s 4 man rotation from here boys. All cards in.
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Sept 17, 2021 23:06:44 GMT -5
They have all winter to wonder why Sale skipped the NYY series.
It will take some effort to line up Eovaldi for Tuesday 10/7
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Post by blizzards39 on Sept 18, 2021 0:13:21 GMT -5
They have all winter to wonder why Sale skipped the NYY series. It will take some effort to line up Eovaldi for Tuesday 10/7 I’m much more worried about the Jays than MFY. We just have to win games. And to be honest might be best with RH vs yanks ams Sale vs the poor teams.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 18, 2021 4:03:58 GMT -5
They have all winter to wonder why Sale skipped the NYY series. It will take some effort to line up Eovaldi for Tuesday 10/7 Let's compare the two ways they can do it: 21-Sep Eovaldi vs NYM 4 21-Sep Eovaldi vs NYM 4 22-Sep Sale vs NYM 4 22-Sep Houck vs NYM 24-Sep Pivetta vs NYY 5 24-Sep Sale vs NYY 6 25-Sep E-Rod vs NYY 5 25-Sep Pivetta vs NYY 6 26-Sep Eovaldi vs NYY 4 26-Sep Eovaldi vs NYY 4 28-Sep Sale vs Bal 5 28-Sep E-Rod vs Bal 8 29-Sep Pivetta vs Bal 4 29-Sep Sale vs Bal 4 30-Sep E-Rod vs Bal 4 30-Sep Pivetta vs Bal 4 1-Oct Eovaldi vs Was 4 1-Oct Eovaldi vs Was 4 2-Oct Houck vs Was 2-Oct Houck vs Was 3-Oct bullpen / Sale [4] 3-Oct bullpen / E-Rod [4]
First, Eovaldi is set in stone, and is already lined up for games 1 and 5 of the ALDS, each with an extra day of rest. And he gets three more starts.
Note that if you move Pivetta out of the Yankee series instead of E-Rod, he becomes the starter for game 162 if you need it, and the starter for games 2 of the ALDS instead of game 4.
First thing you notice is that you are adding a Tanner Houck start, which downgrades both the rotation and the bullpen.
Who are you taking a start away from? E-Rod. Unless we need to win game 162, in which case you're taking it away from Sale. And given that we have the tiebreaker against both the Jays and Yankees, how much easier our schedule is, etc., I think the thing to do is to plan that you don't need to win game 162 ... but if you do, you want Sale for that game rather than E-Rod.
Now lets look at the Yankees series. You have done two things. You have swapped in Sale for E-Rod, but you have also made Houck unavailable to pitch in game 1 and likely in game 2. How much of a gain is that, if any?
There's also this: you want to give Houck an extra start in order to pitch Chris Sale against Undecided. It's actually Jameson Taillon's turn, but he's been on the IL since a 9/6 start with a bum ankle and has yet to make a rehab start, and has already missed more than the projected 1 start. If he can't go, it could be Luis Gil, the soft-tosser who baffled us a month ago, who took Taillon's rotation turn. In those 2 starts he's 9.1 8 8 8 8 14, with 3 HR allowed -- .222 / .364 / .472. He's starting today against the Indians, and if he sucks again they may either rush Taillon back or turn to rookie Clarke Schmidt.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 19, 2021 2:23:45 GMT -5
So, I ran the strength of schedule, including average home-field advantage, for the 10-9 stretch of COVID casualty. We played .526 ball against .572 opponents, and that's .597 ball, a 96.7 win pace.
Doing the same thing with the remaining games, and using the .597 versus .427 opponents, you get 8-4 exactly. IOW, going 8-4 would mean that getting everyone back from COVID didn't make us any better.
You have permission to want 9-3.
Yankee SOS is .523. Jays are .475. And the Jays, after going 15-2 against .458 opponents, have split their last 4 games against .486.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 19, 2021 11:21:37 GMT -5
If the Red Sox go 8-4 then the Yankees would have to go 10-3 to catch them and the Jays would have to go 10-4. But the Red Sox only need to finish ahead of one of them, and since they play each other one of them is guaranteed two losses in that series. So if you grant either team two losses: in the remainder of their games, either the Yankees would have to go 10-1 or the Jays would have to go 10-2 to match the Red Sox if the latter go 8-4.
If the Red Sox go 7-5, and again spotting the two guaranteed losses, either the Yankees would have to go 9-2 or the Jays would have to go 9-3 to match the Red Sox' record. And of course the team that won the Yanks-Jays series would still have to play well enough in their other games to catch the Red Sox. (Well, and then there's the A's, but they have the toughest remaining schedule of all.)
I don't know if I made that at all clear! But the upshot is that with the Red Sox slight lead in the standings, plus the fact that the Yankees and Jays play each other, plus their easy schedule, the Red Sox are really in the catbird seat. Hence the 85% playoff probability per fangraphs.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 19, 2021 16:12:18 GMT -5
If the Red Sox go 8-4 then the Yankees would have to go 10-3 to catch them and the Jays would have to go 10-4. But the Red Sox only need to finish ahead of one of them, and since they play each other one of them is guaranteed two losses in that series. So if you grant either team two losses: in the remainder of their games, either the Yankees would have to go 10-1 or the Jays would have to go 10-2 to match the Red Sox if the latter go 8-4.
If the Red Sox go 7-5, and again spotting the two guaranteed losses, either the Yankees would have to go 9-2 or the Jays would have to go 9-3 to match the Red Sox' record. And of course the team that won the Yanks-Jays series would still have to play well enough in their other games to catch the Red Sox. (Well, and then there's the A's, but they have the toughest remaining schedule of all.)
I don't know if I made that at all clear! But the upshot is that with the Red Sox slight lead in the standings, plus the fact that the Yankees and Jays play each other, plus their easy schedule, the Red Sox are really in the catbird seat. Hence the 85% playoff probability per fangraphs.
Might as well update this... If the Red Sox go 7-4, the Yankees would have to go 10-2 to catch them and the Jays would have to go 9-4. But spotting the two losses, either the Yankees would have to go 10-0 or the Jays would have to go 9-2.
If the Red Sox go 6-5, either the Yankees would have to go 9-1 or the Jays would have to go 8-3.
...And that's why the Red Sox are now above 90% playoff odds and the Yankees are at 29%.
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TearsIn04
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Post by TearsIn04 on Sept 19, 2021 19:35:15 GMT -5
Fangraphs odds to make the PS after the MFY bloodbath of the last two days:
Red Sox - 88.8 Jays - 71.1 MFY- 28.7
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Sept 19, 2021 20:38:24 GMT -5
This is also a pretty good indicator of why they're starting Sale vs the Mets. Every game is big at this point. As someone else said, the Yankees are pretty righty heavy anyway.
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 20, 2021 2:49:21 GMT -5
If the Red Sox go 8-4 then the Yankees would have to go 10-3 to catch them and the Jays would have to go 10-4. But the Red Sox only need to finish ahead of one of them, and since they play each other one of them is guaranteed two losses in that series. So if you grant either team two losses: in the remainder of their games, either the Yankees would have to go 10-1 or the Jays would have to go 10-2 to match the Red Sox if the latter go 8-4.
If the Red Sox go 7-5, and again spotting the two guaranteed losses, either the Yankees would have to go 9-2 or the Jays would have to go 9-3 to match the Red Sox' record. And of course the team that won the Yanks-Jays series would still have to play well enough in their other games to catch the Red Sox. (Well, and then there's the A's, but they have the toughest remaining schedule of all.)
I don't know if I made that at all clear! But the upshot is that with the Red Sox slight lead in the standings, plus the fact that the Yankees and Jays play each other, plus their easy schedule, the Red Sox are really in the catbird seat. Hence the 85% playoff probability per fangraphs.
Might as well update this... If the Red Sox go 7-4, the Yankees would have to go 10-2 to catch them and the Jays would have to go 9-4. But spotting the two losses, either the Yankees would have to go 10-0 or the Jays would have to go 9-2.
If the Red Sox go 6-5, either the Yankees would have to go 9-1 or the Jays would have to go 8-3.
...And that's why the Red Sox are now above 90% playoff odds and the Yankees are at 29%.
Let me try my hand at this, factoring in the possibility of a Yankees or Rays sweep, and the fact that we have the home field tie-breaker.
If we go 7-4 ...
If the Yankees sweep, there's a 3-way tie if they go 7-2 and the Jays go 9-1. But if there isn't, the Yankees need to go 8-1 to wrest home field and the Jays 10-0. (Of course , if they both do that, we're out.)
If the Yankees win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 8-1 and Jays 8-2. Otherwise, Yankees need 9-0 and Jays 9-1 for home field.
If the Jays win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 9-0 and the Jays 7-3. Otherwise, Yankees cannot win home field and Jays need 8-2.
If Jays sweep, a 3-way tie is impossible, and the Jays need to go 7-3 to get home field.
If we go 8-3 ...
If the Yankees sweep, there's a 3-way tie if they go 8-1 and the Jays go 10-0. But if there isn't, the Yankees need to go 9-0 to wrest home field and the Jays can't.
If the Yankees win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 9-0 and Jays 9-1. Otherwise, Yankees can't wrest home field and the Jays need 10-0.
If the Jays win 2, there's no possible three way tie and only the Jays can wrest home field, by going 9-1.
If the Jays sweep, the sole negative scenario is where the Rays go 8-2 elsewhere and wrest home field.
As tough as it seems, as of now we want the Yankees to take 2 of 3. That can easily change during the Rangers and Rays series. If the Rays win their series at home, that's a huge help for us.
ESPN+ has the Jays / Rays game Monday and ESPN proper has it on Tuesday.
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Post by vokuhila on Sept 20, 2021 2:53:15 GMT -5
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Post by incandenza on Sept 20, 2021 7:09:06 GMT -5
The Yankees were at 97.8% on August 27th...
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 20, 2021 11:19:56 GMT -5
The Yankees were at 97.8% on August 27th... And of course that didn't prevent the media from going gaga over the Jays' 15-2 streak, as if they were destined to stay that hot. Every pennant race projection I saw last week had the Jays waltzing into the first W/C and the Sox hosting the Yankees in a game 163 for the second (while suggesting that the Sox might well be a game better, but why not predict history repeating?).
Yankees lost 7 straight after winning 13 straight and are 5-4 since, but against below-average opponents. We'll know soon how much the Rays have cooled.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 20, 2021 12:05:30 GMT -5
The Yankees were at 97.8% on August 27th... And of course that didn't prevent the media from going gaga over the Jays' 15-2 streak, as if they were destined to stay that hot. Every pennant race projection I saw last week had the Jays waltzing into the first W/C and the Sox hosting the Yankees in a game 163 for the second (while suggesting that the Sox might well be a game better, but why not predict history repeating?).
Yankees lost 7 straight after winning 13 straight and are 5-4 since, but against below-average opponents. We'll know soon how much the Rays have cooled.
In general I think people have gotten a little too googly-eyed about the Blue Jays. They're a good team, certainly, and on the same tier as the current version of the Red Sox. But their offense isn't that amazing (since Schwarber was activated BOS and TOR have identical .356 wOBAs), and some of their numbers are probably goosed by playing most of their home games in minor league ballparks. They're also soft in the defense and bullpen departments.
Also, yes, the whole concept of momentum in sports is very silly.
"The Blue Jays have momentum!"
So they're like a freight train that's built up a bunch of speed, and they will inevitably keep winning?
"Yes, unless they lose momentum, which could happen suddenly and at any time!"
Ah.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 20, 2021 12:52:36 GMT -5
And of course that didn't prevent the media from going gaga over the Jays' 15-2 streak, as if they were destined to stay that hot. Every pennant race projection I saw last week had the Jays waltzing into the first W/C and the Sox hosting the Yankees in a game 163 for the second (while suggesting that the Sox might well be a game better, but why not predict history repeating?). Yankees lost 7 straight after winning 13 straight and are 5-4 since, but against below-average opponents. We'll know soon how much the Rays have cooled.
In general I think people have gotten a little too googly-eyed about the Blue Jays. They're a good team, certainly, and on the same tier as the current version of the Red Sox. But their offense isn't that amazing (since Schwarber was activated BOS and TOR have identical .356 wOBAs), and some of their numbers are probably goosed by playing most of their home games in minor league ballparks. They're also soft in the defense and bullpen departments.
Also, yes, the whole concept of momentum in sports is very silly. "The Blue Jays have momentum!" So they're like a freight train that's built up a bunch of speed, and they will inevitably keep winning? "Yes, unless they lose momentum, which could happen suddenly and at any time!" Ah.
I don't think that's a totally accurate assessment of the Jays. They have had a runs scored/allowed all year showing them to be far superior to how they actually played, but after 125 games or so all you could do but wonder is will this team ever stop underachieving and get their act together. And then suddenly they did. All they're doing is pulling their actual record closer to their talent level based on runs scored/runs allowed. They won't catch up to it, but it explains their sudden talent realization. Doesn't mean that they're a 15-2 team all the time. Just means that a .520 team that should have been playing .575 ball or whatever is finally catching up to it. The Yankees and Red Sox have been overshooting their pythag record all year by 4 games or so all season. Talentwise the Jays are the 2nd best in the division and have been all season long. The Jays hitters benefitted from their ballpark offensively, but then again, don't the Red Sox usually benefit as well? Fenway is a hitters' park. I mean the Sox hit a lot of doubles. Don't think the park has something to do with it? And if the Jays had their hitters' numbers inflated, then their pitchers had their numbers inflated. Going forward, their sweep of Baltimore has put the Sox in the catbird seat of the Wild Card race. Don't know that they're necessarily the favorite to be WC1, but they have a good shot at being one of the two Wild Cards, given that Tor and NY play each other. So Boston is 86-65. I'd project 1-1 against the Mets, 1-2 against the Yankees (feel free to disagree), 2-1 vs Bal, and 2-1 vs Was. So conservatively, that's 92-70, which should get them into the playoffs I'd think. I figure for NY conservatively, 2-1 vs Tex, 2-1 vs Bos, 1-2 vs Tor, 2-1 vs TB (assuming TB clinches best record prior to series). That would get them from 84-66 to 91-71, on the outside looking in. The 2 losses at home to Cleveland were killers. They really need to sweep Texas. They had an easy 10 game stretch they need to win 7 of them meaning they really need to sweep. If not they'll have to sweep the Sox or take the Toronto series or else they're in big trouble. I think Toronto beats TB in TB 1 of 3, takes 3 of 4 at Minnesota (I can see the argument for a split, but the Twins really suck), takes 2 of 3 vs NYY, and then takes 2 of 3 vs Baltimore in Toronto (honestly 3-0 should be a bigger expectation for the Jays at home). So that's 8-5 which brings a 84-65 record to the same 92-70 record as Boston, which would mean that the Sox host the Blue Jays in the Wild Card game and the Yankees would be watching on TV. Of course, all it takes is the slightest gust of wind and all these projections fall apart. A 1 game swing in my guess makes a huge difference, so all of these projections are worth crap, which is probably what all this is worth, but it is fun to see how actual results line up with expectations. Sometimes you're right and the other 99% of the time you're wrong. I conservatively picked the Sox to take 2 of 3 vs Baltimore but let's face it, we all knew a sweep was a real possibility. I'd say the same thing for the final series with Toronto and Baltimore as well, project 2 of 3 but don't be surprised if it's 3 of 3 depending upon who Baltimore pitches. I certainly didn't have the offensively challenged Indians beating the crap out of the Yankees the last two games at Yankees Stadium.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 20, 2021 12:58:35 GMT -5
Run differential does not seem like a good indicator of much. Blowouts in either wins or losses when one team punts the game and stops trying completely, skews everything. And Toronto has been a part of so many of them.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 20, 2021 13:26:18 GMT -5
In general I think people have gotten a little too googly-eyed about the Blue Jays. They're a good team, certainly, and on the same tier as the current version of the Red Sox. But their offense isn't that amazing (since Schwarber was activated BOS and TOR have identical .356 wOBAs), and some of their numbers are probably goosed by playing most of their home games in minor league ballparks. They're also soft in the defense and bullpen departments.
Also, yes, the whole concept of momentum in sports is very silly. "The Blue Jays have momentum!" So they're like a freight train that's built up a bunch of speed, and they will inevitably keep winning? "Yes, unless they lose momentum, which could happen suddenly and at any time!" Ah.
I don't think that's a totally accurate assessment of the Jays. They have had a runs scored/allowed all year showing them to be far superior to how they actually played, but after 125 games or so all you could do but wonder is will this team ever stop underachieving and get their act together. And then suddenly they did. All they're doing is pulling their actual record closer to their talent level based on runs scored/runs allowed. They won't catch up to it, but it explains their sudden talent realization. Doesn't mean that they're a 15-2 team all the time. Just means that a .520 team that should have been playing .575 ball or whatever is finally catching up to it. The Yankees and Red Sox have been overshooting their pythag record all year by 4 games or so all season. Talentwise the Jays are the 2nd best in the division and have been all season long. The Jays hitters benefitted from their ballpark offensively, but then again, don't the Red Sox usually benefit as well? Fenway is a hitters' park. I mean the Sox hit a lot of doubles. Don't think the park has something to do with it? Notice that I was referring to the current versions of all these teams. It doesn't much matter that the Red Sox outperformed their Pythagorean thingy when they had Marwin, Franchy, Santana, and a woeful Dalbec in their lineup most games. They made the biggest offensive addition of any of the three teams by getting Schwarber; Dalbec became a totally different hitter; the detritus mentioned above got squeezed out of the lineup; and on top of that their real talent level is even better than it has looked recently because of the covid debacle - yet they've still put up a 123 wRC+ since Schwarber was activated. (wRC+ adjusts for ballpark, so this addresses your concern there.) They also completely revamped their starting rotation by ditching Perez and Richards, adding Sale, and adding Houck in his versatile role as well. They're just a very different team than they were early in the season.
The Jays have added Springer (back from injury) and Berrios, but those additions aren't as significant as the Sox'. I think it is very fair to see these two teams as evenly matched.
You always do this thing of not just making conservative predictions, but making conservative predictions within each series, which compounds the conservatism. (I suppose you'd predict the Red Sox to lose any given series to the Yankees or Blue Jays 2-1; but would you then predict that the Red Sox would go 54-108 over 162 games against those two teams?) This is how you get into a place where you're predicting the Red Sox to do worse than the Yankees over the remainder of their schedule even though the Red Sox have a MUCH easier schedule, and (by your own lights I think?) are a better team.
But the fun thing is that even with your conservative assumptions the Red Sox still end up as the #1 wild card!
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 20, 2021 13:30:54 GMT -5
Run differential does not seem like a good indicator of much. Blowouts in either wins or losses when one team punts the game and stops trying completely, skews everything. And Toronto has been a part of so many of them. Since when does pythag records not a good indicator of the strength of a team? Theoretical record isn't more important than actual record, true. But we use all other should be stats to say what should have happened vs what has happened so it gives a clue as to what will happen but suddenly runs scored/runs allowed isn't a good indicator of how good a team is? I mean, yeah, the Jays pad their stats in blowouts. They're good enough to get into blowout situations probably more often than other teams who have to maximize everything to succeed and their pen probably killed them badly in close situations earlier on in the season. I really don't see how you can honestly say the Jays aren't the team that shouldn't be the second best team in the division. But even if you do agree they should be the 2nd best team in the division doesn't mean they will be. Teams underperform and overperform their talent base all of the time. The random variances are always the charms of baseball.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 20, 2021 14:29:03 GMT -5
I don't think that's a totally accurate assessment of the Jays. They have had a runs scored/allowed all year showing them to be far superior to how they actually played, but after 125 games or so all you could do but wonder is will this team ever stop underachieving and get their act together. And then suddenly they did. All they're doing is pulling their actual record closer to their talent level based on runs scored/runs allowed. They won't catch up to it, but it explains their sudden talent realization. Doesn't mean that they're a 15-2 team all the time. Just means that a .520 team that should have been playing .575 ball or whatever is finally catching up to it. The Yankees and Red Sox have been overshooting their pythag record all year by 4 games or so all season. Talentwise the Jays are the 2nd best in the division and have been all season long. The Jays hitters benefitted from their ballpark offensively, but then again, don't the Red Sox usually benefit as well? Fenway is a hitters' park. I mean the Sox hit a lot of doubles. Don't think the park has something to do with it? Notice that I was referring to the current versions of all these teams. It doesn't much matter that the Red Sox outperformed their Pythagorean thingy when they had Marwin, Franchy, Santana, and a woeful Dalbec in their lineup most games. They made the biggest offensive addition of any of the three teams by getting Schwarber; Dalbec became a totally different hitter; the detritus mentioned above got squeezed out of the lineup; and on top of that their real talent level is even better than it has looked recently because of the covid debacle - yet they've still put up a 123 wRC+ since Schwarber was activated. (wRC+ adjusts for ballpark, so this addresses your concern there.) They also completely revamped their starting rotation by ditching Perez and Richards, adding Sale, and adding Houck in his versatile role as well. They're just a very different team than they were early in the season.
The Jays have added Springer (back from injury) and Berrios, but those additions aren't as significant as the Sox'. I think it is very fair to see these two teams as evenly matched.
You always do this thing of not just making conservative predictions, but making conservative predictions within each series, which compounds the conservatism. (I suppose you'd predict the Red Sox to lose any given series to the Yankees or Blue Jays 2-1; but would you then predict that the Red Sox would go 54-108 over 162 games against those two teams?) This is how you get into a place where you're predicting the Red Sox to do worse than the Yankees over the remainder of their schedule even though the Red Sox have a MUCH easier schedule, and (by your own lights I think?) are a better team.
But the fun thing is that even with your conservative assumptions the Red Sox still end up as the #1 wild card!
C'mon man. I've only done the series by series projections since the end of the season came upon the horizon. It's not like I said, here's 50 series, let's handicap them and add them up. We're at the point it's a handful of series. The end of the season is close in sight. Yeah, I'm trying to be conservative. I mean, I projected the Sox to win 2 of 3 although we all knew that the way the pitching lined up at home, they had a real chance for a sweep, but still you can't "expect" 3 wins out of 3 even though anything less would have felt like a disappointment. In none of my projections did I project a sweep. I tried to be reasonably conservative, although you can quibble with some of my picks. I didn't do anything drastically different than what Fangraphs does. They figure out their odds (that understandably would differ from mine, yours, anybody's really), crap happens, and they readjust daily as the real games finalize and there becomes less projected games. I'm not claiming to be Nostradamus. Nobody has a perfectly working crystal ball. I'm trying to give reasonable projections and then adjust as things evolve. I'm not trying to back into results that favor any of the three teams. I'm just adding it up and seeing where it lands. I mean, the Yankees probably should have won 2 of 3 given they were at home against Cleveland, a team that can't hit for crap, yet they got pounded 2 of 3, which sent their new projections a game under what I had and drops them into a team on the outside looking in. The Sox winning the final game against Seattle in Seattle where they hadn't won a series in 8 years and taking that extra game against Baltimore pushed their projections ahead of NY. A couple of days ago I would say that they Sox were iffy. Now I would say they're in the driver's seat, but if they get swept by the Yankees that would significantly change things. Even losing 2 of 3 could be problematic if the Yankees can sweep Texas or figure out a way to handle Toronto 2 of 3 (although that would harm Toronto and help the Sox). My sense is that if the Sox beat the Yankees 2 of 3, the Yankees are probably dead. The fact of the matter is you can nail just about almost all of the series accurately but be off on just one, and it can be the difference between a Wild Card spot and being eliminated, as a one game swing in either direction for a team can change things. Again, the purpose isn't to say, see I'm right, it's to have a guess at what happens (everybody's guess is as good as mine), then see how close you come and see where the surprises are along the way.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 20, 2021 14:31:21 GMT -5
Run differential does not seem like a good indicator of much. Blowouts in either wins or losses when one team punts the game and stops trying completely, skews everything. And Toronto has been a part of so many of them. Since when does pythag records not a good indicator of the strength of a team? Theoretical record isn't more important than actual record, true. But we use all other should be stats to say what should have happened vs what has happened so it gives a clue as to what will happen but suddenly runs scored/runs allowed isn't a good indicator of how good a team is? I mean, yeah, the Jays pad their stats in blowouts. They're good enough to get into blowout situations probably more often than other teams who have to maximize everything to succeed and their pen probably killed them badly in close situations earlier on in the season. I really don't see how you can honestly say the Jays aren't the team that shouldn't be the second best team in the division. But even if you do agree they should be the 2nd best team in the division doesn't mean they will be. Teams underperform and overperform their talent base all of the time. The random variances are always the charms of baseball. It's worth noting pythag, but I still wouldn't put a ton of meaning behind it because there is zero clutch involved in making a 17-2 game into an 18-2 game. And yeah, it's great to get into that scenario, but exactly why haven't they matched their pythag record other than they are padding their stats in blowouts and not doing nearly as well in close games?
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 20, 2021 14:37:27 GMT -5
Since when does pythag records not a good indicator of the strength of a team? Theoretical record isn't more important than actual record, true. But we use all other should be stats to say what should have happened vs what has happened so it gives a clue as to what will happen but suddenly runs scored/runs allowed isn't a good indicator of how good a team is? I mean, yeah, the Jays pad their stats in blowouts. They're good enough to get into blowout situations probably more often than other teams who have to maximize everything to succeed and their pen probably killed them badly in close situations earlier on in the season. I really don't see how you can honestly say the Jays aren't the team that shouldn't be the second best team in the division. But even if you do agree they should be the 2nd best team in the division doesn't mean they will be. Teams underperform and overperform their talent base all of the time. The random variances are always the charms of baseball. It's worth noting pythag, but I still wouldn't put a ton of meaning behind it because there is zero clutch involved in making a 17-2 game into an 18-2 game. And yeah, it's great to get into that scenario, but exactly why haven't they matched their pythag record other than they are padding their stats in blowouts and not doing nearly as well in close games? A lot of close games though involve luck where one thing can swing the outcome either way. A lot of the 1 run games is more luck than skill. We see those kinds of things swing either way time after time. Of course an inferior team is more likely to beat Toronto in a closer game than in a blowout. It's almost like the inferior team has to play their A game to barely beat the superior team while a superior team will exploit the inferior team in the way you describe.
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Post by foreverred9 on Sept 20, 2021 14:59:18 GMT -5
Since when does pythag records not a good indicator of the strength of a team? Theoretical record isn't more important than actual record, true. But we use all other should be stats to say what should have happened vs what has happened so it gives a clue as to what will happen but suddenly runs scored/runs allowed isn't a good indicator of how good a team is? I mean, yeah, the Jays pad their stats in blowouts. They're good enough to get into blowout situations probably more often than other teams who have to maximize everything to succeed and their pen probably killed them badly in close situations earlier on in the season. I really don't see how you can honestly say the Jays aren't the team that shouldn't be the second best team in the division. But even if you do agree they should be the 2nd best team in the division doesn't mean they will be. Teams underperform and overperform their talent base all of the time. The random variances are always the charms of baseball. It's worth noting pythag, but I still wouldn't put a ton of meaning behind it because there is zero clutch involved in making a 17-2 game into an 18-2 game. And yeah, it's great to get into that scenario, but exactly why haven't they matched their pythag record other than they are padding their stats in blowouts and not doing nearly as well in close games? These stats that focus on looking at the forest rather than the trees can always get nit picked when trying to look at each individual tree. Additionally, human instinct is biased to explaining away one side of the distribution and not give fair weighting to the other side. We tend to normalize luck when it's in our favor, but avoid talking about luck when things are going bad (which we can see in the gameday threads). Agreed on the close games, the most glaring thing to me with the Jays regarding their pythag relative to the Sox and Yanks is their performance in 1-run games. The Sox and Yanks are both 26-18 while the Jays are 14-15. 3 more wins there would have them leading the wild card race, and I would argue it's the pythag metric that helps us identify this issue.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 20, 2021 21:37:53 GMT -5
Rays hang on to win 6-4 after Jays score twice in the 9th and leave the bases loaded after final batter goes up 3-0 in the count and strikes out.
Meanwhile the Yankees hang on to beat Texas 4-3.
So the Jays are 1.5 games out and NY is 2 out. The Jays have 1 more loss and the Yankees are now even in games played and have 2 more losses.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 20, 2021 22:04:05 GMT -5
It's worth noting pythag, but I still wouldn't put a ton of meaning behind it because there is zero clutch involved in making a 17-2 game into an 18-2 game. And yeah, it's great to get into that scenario, but exactly why haven't they matched their pythag record other than they are padding their stats in blowouts and not doing nearly as well in close games? These stats that focus on looking at the forest rather than the trees can always get nit picked when trying to look at each individual tree. Additionally, human instinct is biased to explaining away one side of the distribution and not give fair weighting to the other side. We tend to normalize luck when it's in our favor, but avoid talking about luck when things are going bad (which we can see in the gameday threads). Agreed on the close games, the most glaring thing to me with the Jays regarding their pythag relative to the Sox and Yanks is their performance in 1-run games. The Sox and Yanks are both 26-18 while the Jays are 14-15. 3 more wins there would have them leading the wild card race, and I would argue it's the pythag metric that helps us identify this issue. The Sox are 7th in bullpen WPA, the Yankees are 10th, and the Jays are 18th. That goes a long way to explaining the 1-run game results.
OPS+ by leverage, high, medium, low, followed MLB rank in parens:
.759, .788, .818 (8, 4, 1 by a wide margin) Jays .756, .682, .757 (10, 27, 4) Yankees .831, .775, .756 (1 by a wide margin, 6, 5) Red Sox
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 20, 2021 22:18:02 GMT -5
Update:
If we go 7-4 ...
If the Yankees sweep the Jays, there's a 3-way tie if they go 6-2 and the Jays go 9-0. But if there isn't a 3-way tie, the Yankees need to go 7-1 to wrest home field and the Jays can't. If the Yankees win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 7-1 and Jays 8-1. Otherwise, Yankees need 8-0 and Jays 9-0 for home field. I believe this is the only scenario where we don't play on 10/4 or 10/5 if we go 7-4.
If the Jays win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 8-0 and the Jays 7-2. Otherwise, Yankees cannot win home field and Jays need 8-1.
If Jays sweep, a 3-way tie is impossible, and the Jays need to go 7-2 to get home field.
If we go 8-3 ...
If the Yankees sweep, they need to go 9-0 to wrest home field and the Jays can't.
If the Yankees win 2, there's a 3-way tie if the Yankees go 8-0 and Jays 9-0. Otherwise, we have home field.
If the Jays win 2, they have to go 9-0 to wrest home field and the Yankees can't.
If the Jays sweep, they need to go 8-1 to wrest home field.
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