Whether you live in Seattle or St Albans, this is not a good time to be a Mariners fan. The team has a woeful record (15-26 as I write this), at least relative to some bold predictions of postseason baseball. But after reading Matt’s two-part piece on Ichiro’s bad luck (part one and part two are here), I was left wondering if other elements of unluckiness are at work.
One thing to notice is the team’s 1-9 record in 1-run games. While there is undoubtedly some room for teams to be “good” or “bad” in close games (through the astuteness of the manager or the small-ball skills of the hitting line-up), a record this lopsided must be at least in part a result of some serious bad luck. Right?
Bill James developed a method, known as Pythagorean expectation, for estimating how many games a baseball team should have won, on average, based on the number of runs they have scored and conceded. The original and simplest formula (winning percentage equals runs for squared divided by the sum of runs for squared and runs against squared) suggests that the Mariners should have a 17-24 record at this moment based on their runs scored and allowed. In other words, bad luck has “robbed” the Mariners of just two wins. Maybe I could add an extra win to account for Ichiro’s bad luck. But even then, I’m still a fair way short of getting my team above .500.
As I write this, the Mariners are tied with the Texas Rangers 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Rangers have just shown poor small-ball skills in bunting into a 3-6-4 double-play, which was an attempt to get a lead-off walk into scoring position. Time to find out if they will be made to pay…
3 comments
They got there in the end Joe! A 4-3 victory in 12 innings, with Jarrod Washburn picking up his first ever save and the M’s winning despite Ichiro going 0 for 6. Maybe your luck is about to turn?
Joe! I didn’t know you were a fellow Mariners fan! After pulling myself together following my football team’s (Reading) final-day exit from the Premier League I thought it was about time to dedicate myself to some Major League spectatorship. Only to realise that Seattle has already confounded the optimists who dared to dream of building on the team’s first non-cellar finish (and indeed winning record) in four years.
A quick glance on the fan blog USS Mariner sees words such as “terrible”, “awful” and “painful” populating fans’ reviews of games. Combine that with Seattle’s ability to bring in a strong performer just in time for his downturn in form/luck season (this year Erik Bedard) and it’s going to be a long season. To make matters worse, my National League soft spot is San Francisco…
Yep – it’s not something to shout about from the rooftops right now, or even to whisper in a dark cellar for that matter.