Well, you may have noticed that the Royals are in the midst of an eight-game losing streak. Again. In my mind, an official losing streak begins at eight because … well, just because, OK? Sheesh, why do I have to explain everything?*
*Yeah, I’m a little grumpy because the Royals losing streak will mean I have to come off my book sabbatical yet again and write about the Royals tonight and probably keep writing about them until they win a game which, as any and every Royals fan can tell you, is a very dangerous game. In 2005, I got held hostage on a 19-game losing streak, one of those losses coming when the Royals blew a five-run lead in the ninth thanks in large part to a dropped pop-up.
No, I think eight is an official losing streak because that means it has lasted more than one week — it’s sort of like when a team bats around and wrecks the scorecard. Any team can lose five or six in a row, big deal. Seven is tough, but hey, then a new week begins. An eight-game plus losing streak is a rare and special thing — you will only get about 13 or 14 of those per season. And an eight-game losing streak is pure suffering …
… but a lot of you would not know anything about that. Since 2002 — here, I’ll give you a little preview of tonight’s column — the Royals have had 11 eight-game losing streaks, the most in baseball. That would be ELEVEN. More than one per year. Since 2004, they’ve had 9 eight-game losing streaks, EASILY the most in baseball. Here are the Top or Bottom 5:
8+ losing streaks since 2002
1. Kansas City, 11
2. Baltimore, 10
3. Colorado, 9
(tie) Detroit, 9 (six of those in 2003)
5. Tampa 8.
8+ losing streaks since 2004
1. Kansas City, 9
2. Colorado, 6
(tie) Tampa, 6
Baltimore, 5
Pittsburgh, 4
I’m sure I will write about those nasty losing streaks tonight (though Banny is ending this thing right here and right now — he knows I’m supposed to be on book sabbatical. He’s coming through).
Here’s what I want to mention now, though.
Teams with zero 8+ losing streaks since 2002
– Boston
– Yankees
– Philadelphia (yeah, Philadelphia)
Yep. How about that? Zero losing streaks for those fans since 2002. None. Nada. Zilch. I don’t even know how you live like that as a fan. It’s too easy.*
*I remember a few years ago, I used to play this computer game called “Civilization” where you were trying to start a civilization in ancient times, and you had to fight off raging hordes and build villages and learn new technologies and all of that … it was a pretty fun game in a geeky sort of way. But what I remember most is that there was this cheat mode on it where you could automatically own all the new technologies and you could have as much money as you wanted … so, basically in cheat mode these raging hordes would come at you with clubs and spears, and you could smite them with military helicopters and guided missiles and atomic bombs. That’s what I think it’s like to be a Red Sox and Yankees fan.
Now, there could be any number of explanations for the lack of losing streaks in Philly, Boston and NY — the most likely being the music of chance. Boston and New York have, of course, have had very good teams since 2002, and the Phillies have mostly been above average, and so the odds are pretty long against an 8-game losing streak. I looked this up once and found that Bobby Cox’s Atlanta Braves went from 1991-2006 without an 8-game losing streak, which seemed incredible to me.
Maybe it isn’t incredible. Using my own meager spreadsheet talents, I figure that if a team plays .550 baseball, there’s about a .0017 chance of having an 8-game losing streak, which is a very low number, even lower than Tony Pena Jr.’s on-base percentage. I’m sure someone with math skills could quantify the odds of losing 8 in a row, but I think the point is that good teams will almost never lose eight in a row, and pretty good teams rarely will.
I’m sure that’s the reason for the lack of losing streaks in those three towns. But there is something else here, something I think worth exploring because Philadelphia is on the list. I wonder if having tough fans helps prevent long losing streaks. I would have no idea how to study this, and I suspect that if someone did study it they would find there’s nothing to it.
But … let’s play along. Boston has not had an 8-game losing streak since 2001. Philadelphia has not had one since 2000. The Yankees go back to 1995, pre-Joe Torre, for their last 8-game losing streak. I think you could argue that these are the three toughest cities when it comes to baseball fans and baseball media*.
*Chicago has tough fans and media, of course, and indeed the White Sox have had only one 8-game losing streak since 2002. So that fits. The Cubs have had four losing streaks since 2002, which is a touch above average, but I think that fits too; haven’t Cubs fans, in many ways, come to accept losing more than fans in Philadelphia, Boston, New York and the South Side? It’s a bleacher party, right? … The Mets have not had a losing streak since 2004, so they sort of fit, though they did have losing streaks in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Anyway, I don’t think the Mets intensity is there with the Yankees.
I wonder if the booing fans, the angry media, the intensive talk shows, the angry Internet boards — I wonder if these things keep the players a bit more on edge. I’m not saying this can make the players BETTER over the long term — I’m not saying boos can turn a 73-win talent into an 89-win team. But we’re not talking about that — it only takes one victory to break a losing streak. And maybe in the angriest towns there is a heightened sense of awareness when the losses start to mount, a greater sense of agitation, a feeling like, “Um, we better freaking go out and win a game already or it’s going to get really ugly around here.”
It’s just a bloggy thought. But I think you look at the teams that routinely fall into losing streaks, you see Kansas City and Baltimore and Pittsburgh and Colorado (until last year) and Tampa (until this year), where the losses have made many fans apathetic, where the intensity of media coverage is down, where the reaction to another losing streak is not necessarily to boo but to turn away.
Look: The Royals in the 1970s and early 1980s were one of the best teams in baseball, and Kansas City was a shockingly intense and driven baseball town (much as Kansas City is now a shockingly intense and driven football town). And from 1975-1985, the Royals had only one eight-game losing streak (that was in 1980, September, when the division was wrapped up and reporters were hounding George Brett as his .400 quest was coming to an end). I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out there.
There’s another theory too … that managers play a big role when it comes to losing streaks. Buddy Bell, for instance, became renowned for his inability to pull a team out of a nosedive — I would wager that no manager had more losing streaks per capita than Buddy. This theory might explain why the Minnesota Twins have had just one losing streak since 2002, and none since 2004. Minnesota isn’t necessarily a ferocious baseball town, but the Twins are managed by Ron Gardenhire. And I think Gardy is the best manager in baseball.
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76 Comments, Comment or Ping
Andy
You’re awesome Joe.
May 27th, 2008
Vardibidian
I wouldn’t be surprised if managers have a lot to do with losing streaks, and winning streaks too. As a Giants fan, it seemed to me that for all that Dusty was a bad manager (vaddevah dat means) when the team started winning, it kept on winning.
One thing managers should be able to do, in theory, is spot little things that can turn breaks lucky or unlucky. He can’t give a pitcher back his fastball, but he can give him the hook. He can’t keep the third-baseman from booting the ball, but he can throw the late-inning defensive replacement in an inning earlier. Or he can juggle the older players’ rest days so that they aren’t all sitting the same day. Or maybe he really can keep the guys from going out to the strip joint after a loss and get them back to the hotel early. Who knows?
Or maybe the right thing with the team on the losing streak is not to shake it up, to just keep plugging in the lineup and not distract everybody with team meetings and silly maneuvering. Again, who knows?
I will say that if I were a manager, and my team lost five or six in a row, there’s no doubt I’d be making everything worse by trying everything I could think of to scrape out a win. Bunting the guy over in the first, triple-swap-replacements, pinch-hitting with the pitcher. I’d be hiring exorcists and shaving my head and letting the broadcasters pick the relievers, that’s how crazy I’d get. That’s something for me to remember when I get all mad at Bochy (or Alou, or Baker, or Craig, or Altobelli, or Charlie Fox).
Thanks,
-V.
May 27th, 2008
Josh P.
I immediately thought of the Celtics team from last season (pre-Garnet). With Paul Pierce hurt, they embarked on an epic losing streak (18 games?) but the fan base kind of shrugged and openly/tacitly encouraged the losing in the hopes of scoring Greg Oden/Kevin Durant via better positioning in the draft lottery. Same city, different fan mind-set, still consistent with Joe’s overall thesis.
May 27th, 2008
Joe M.
Chicago’s fans and media were the opposite of tough when I left there in 1992. They’ve probably started expecting more since then with the success of the Bulls in the 1990’s, the Cubs collapse in 2003, and the Sox winning the Series in 2005.
May 27th, 2008
Terry
A Civilization reference! I would have graduated from college two years earlier but for that game.
May 27th, 2008
RG
No, no, no, no, no.
Cubs fans hate losing. We do. I hate it. That guy hates it. The girl over there hates it. We hate it just like Royals fans do, or Yankees fans, or the Orix Blue Wave fans. The assumption that Cubs fans ignore losing because Wrigley provides the opportunity for people get to sloshed at games (name me a team whose fans don’t drink at games and I will call you a liar…a dirty, ugly, smelly, pirate-hooker-liar) is absurd. And Joe M. is right, everyone in town holds this team to the highest of standards; if they don’t win the World Series this year, it will be a failure. We do not accept a losing baseball team. Period.
So I beseech you Cap’n Poz, please do not perpetuate that stereotype of the Cubs’ fans of yesteryear. It is a lie.
May 27th, 2008
Tony B
It’s not about fans drinking at games.
At Wrigley, it’s about drinkers attending games. Thank Harry Carey for that.
Win, lose, or rain, Cub “fans” are there for the beer.
May 27th, 2008
Mikey
You know, the only thing I would disagree with here is that the Mets environment isn’t as tough as the Yankees.
For a 500 team with not much starting pitching, there seems to be a real lack of panic among Yankee fans. Personally I think there should be a little more panic, but if you talk to Yank fans I think what you mostly hear is “well, they’re gonna hit” and an expectation that they’ll still slug their way to 90 wins.
Meanwhile the environment at Shea is the most negative I’ve ever seen. It’s horrible and it has been since Opening Day.
If you never looked at the standings and you just went to a game in the Bronx, you’d think the Yankees were in first place. At Shea, you’d have no doubt the Mets were in last.
May 27th, 2008
twayn
Joe,
Regarding the Twins not having an 8+ game losing streak since 2004. I’d be more inclined to credit Johan Santana than Gardy. 2004 was the first year Johan spent a whole season in the starting rotation. Sorry you had to come off your sabbatical, but I’m glad you’ll be writing columns for the upcoming Royals-Twins series.
May 27th, 2008
Mikey
But RG, you have to admit that Wrigley does have more of a college party feel than any other ballpark.
And I say that with admiration. On any given day there are more good looking girls at a Cubs game than at every other National League ballpark combined.
I think the Cubs have great fans. Not much negativity. Intensely hopeful, I’d call them.
May 27th, 2008
RG
Well this Cub fan (and all the fans I know) are there to watch baseball, and hopefully, a victory. Drunks be damned.
May 27th, 2008
Devin McCullen
Hmm. Gardenhire the best manager in baseball? Not really sure I see that one, but that’s a blog post I’d like to read.
May 27th, 2008
Mark H
Living in Philles country, I can attest the fans and media are tough, but I think the difference is hitting. All those Philles teams were build bat first, and mound second. They were throwing junk pitchers on the mound 3 or avery 5 starts, so they didn’t need a favorable pitching matchup to get W’s… They were used to overcoming their own pitching weaknesses, so when they got to the other team’s #3 or #4 pitcher, they’d just mash their way out of a streak.
May 27th, 2008
RG
Mikey - Maybe I just don’t pay attention, but i think that the “college party” atmosphere stereotype might be the most overblown part of it all. If anything, it’s mainly a bleacher thing, and even then it’s relatively small amount of the population. I still maintain that the VAST majority of people at Wrigley (even the insanely hot women) are there to watch baseball over getting tanked.
May 27th, 2008
Daniel
So what’s with the poll at the top? No explanation of that? As an Angel’s fan since the early ’80’s I had to weigh in with my Tim Salmon vote.
Of course, I read “best” as “most valuable to the franchise.” Depending on how you define “best” there are 4 legitimate choices (not counting Danza, who is, obviously, the correct choice, all things considered):
Carew: Was a fantastic hitter who made the All Star team 6 straight years for the Angels, but also was on the decline of his career. Extra points for getting hit # 3,000 in a Halo’s jersey.
Vlad: Almost unquestionably the best hitter to play for the Angels (yes, better than Reggie). Won an MVP with them. But he’s also been there only 4 full seasons and has been a HUGE disappointment in the playoffs.
Ryan: Struck out a ton of dudes with the Angels, threw 4 no hitters with them (iirc), but was never the key piece the Angels needed to get them out of the bottom half of the AL. His ERA+’s weren’t nearly as good as you’d think during those years.
Salmon: Obviously not the best baseball player on the list, but a very good one. And he was Mr. Angel. He was the best player on the team for more seasons than any other player on the list. He gets bonus points for being a good team leader and being a key part in their 2002 WS championship team. I have no regrets voting for Salmon.
May 27th, 2008
Perry
This Cardinal fan had one of his Cub-fan stereotypes neatly confirmed this weekend. I was at a kid birthday party and fell into conversation with an aquaintance, the birthday boy’s dad. He was wearing a Cubs hat so I made some comment about how they were doing and we chatted about that a bit. And it turned out that although he claims to be a big Cub fan he didn’t know which league they were in.
Heh heh heh.
May 27th, 2008
Jim Haas
I, too, would be curious to know why Mr. Poz thinks Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball. In fact, a debate between Poz and Gleeman (the granddaddy of Twins bloggers) could be very informative.
There is no question, however, that Gardy and his wife have made the worst series of hardware store commercials in the history of radio.
May 27th, 2008
Mike Williams
twayn rightly cited Santana for lack of losing streaks in Minny.
The Royals, despite having 3 good stopper candidates (Greinke, Banny, and Meche), have already posted a 7 gamer and an 8 gamer.
I think that sez more about the offensive “offense” than anything else…
May 27th, 2008
Drew
As far as the poll goes, the Beastie Boys locked this one up for me (as if the numbers didn’t bear it out anyway).
“I got mad hits like I was Rod Carew”
May 27th, 2008
Paul White
No offense Joe, but I think your premise is pretty silly. The most obvious thing about your lists of teams that have had a lot of losing streaks is that they are all bad teams. And the teams without losing streaks are good teams. That doesn’t strike me as a particularly compelling revelation. Take any one-, or five-, or ten-year period in baseball history, locate all the significant losing streaks, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find a remarkably close correlation between teams with lots of losing streaks and the worst teams in baseball during that time period.
And, in regard to your probability of a .550 team losing 8-straight games, that really depends on the sample size of games they played while compiling that .550 winning percentage. If they play 20 games and go 11-9, it shouldn’t be too shocking to anyone if they crack off an 8-game losing streak, since 20 games doesn’t tell us much. Plus, even if that was a reliable sample, with that few games played the odds of them losing each game go up more significantly with each loss. After one loss, their chances of losing a game go from 45% to 47.6%. After another loss they have a 50% chance of losing the next game, and so on. Go through an 8-game streak, and suddenly they have a better than 60% chance of losing game number 9, since the team playing that game is no longer an 11-9, .550 winning percentage team. They’re an 11-17, .393 winning percentge team. The team in this example would have a 0.58% chance of losing 8-straight games, while a team that compiled their .550 winning percentage over the season’s first 140 games (a 77-63 record), would be less than half as likely (0.21%) to lose 8 straight.
Sorry to get all mathy on you.
May 27th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
I think you can safely say that Gardenhire is the best manager. Especially since you didn’t say WHAT he was the best at. And you didn’t say he was the smartest manager. Gardy has his plusses, but if you’ve peeked in on any Twins blogs, you’ll find that Gardy’s success is more due to inheriting (what was) a solid Tom Kelly team than due to his managing.
Put me down as a solid Johan Santana vote. And a 2nd place vote for Joe Nathan. Gardy doesn’t make the list.
May 27th, 2008
Mark LaFlamme
Yeah, we’ve got an ugly streak going and it’s like a smear of dog poop nobody wants to look at. And yeah, sportswriters are starting to apply the “lowly” tag again whenever they mention the Royals.
But you know what? I’d still rather be a KC fan than a delicate member of Red Sox nation. KC fans are still booing and still blogging about their heartache. Up here in New England, BoSox fans take it to a more chilling extreme. When things aren’t going well (by Red Sox standards,) they curse briefly and tune out. I’ve seen then switch channels when their team is down three runs in the eighth. It’s pathetic. These pink hats don’t deserve to be fans.
Followers of the Royals are embattled. We endure the taunts of the MLB elite and we suffer through skids like this one. But we’ve got character, dammit, and sooner or later it will be rewarded.
May 27th, 2008
JBish
Joe,
I echo the sentiments of the above commenters who’d like to see you expand on your Gardy for President endorsement there at the end of this post. What I know about Gardy, I know from reading Aaron Gleeman. (like everyone outside the Twin Cities) So, of course, I think he’s awful. Maybe you could elaborate one day?
May 27th, 2008
Jeff
“And I think Gardy is the best manager in baseball.”
Huh? Where did that come from? How did you come to that conclusion?
I think that statement deserves an entire blog post.
I’d be willing to bet that the Twins’ starting pitching has had more to do with avoiding losing streaks than any decisions Gardy has made.
May 27th, 2008
Shaun
So, wait.
A tough media is part of the credit for no losing streaks, but you cite the 1980 Royals, who had a losing streak when the tough media was hounding George Brett?
So does the media help or hurt long losing streaks? I’m confused.
May 27th, 2008
twins fan
The guys at http://www.firegardy.com have a few thoughts about Gardy as a manager … and “best in baseball” isn’t one of them.
May 27th, 2008
SBG
The Twins had very few losing streaks because they were trotting Johan Santana out there every five days.
May 27th, 2008
Seth
I have to point out a couple of flaws in Paul White’s math. He’s confusing probability and proportion. Your premise relies on a team whose “true” winning percentage is .550. Mr. White suggests that a team’s chance of winning would change after each game, which is not true. If you flip a coin ten times, and it comes up tails nine of them, that does not mean that there is a 90% chance that the next flip will be tails.
In terms of sample size, you are correct that the probability of a “true” .550 team losing 8 straight games is 0.17%. Or anyway, if the team plays 8 games, the odds of them losing all 8 is 0.17%. However, if they play 9 games, that makes two chances for 8-game losing streaks, so the odds of such a streak occurring increase to 1-(1-0.0017)^2 = 0.34%. Over a 162-game season, there are 155 chances for an 8-game losing streak. So, for a .550 team, the probability of an 8-game losing streak is 1-(1-0.0017)^155 = 22.96%. Over two seasons, it increases to 40.65%. In 5 years, it spikes to 72.86%.
Because a bad team’s probability of losing a game is higher than that of a good team, the gap between the probability of a good team going on an 8 game losing streak, and the probability of a bad team going on such a streak is going to widen as the number of years observed increases.
A “true” .450 team has a 72.84% chance of an 8-game losing streak in one season, a 92.62% chance in two seasons, and a 99.85% chance in five seasons.
A “true” .600 team has only a 9.66% chance in one season, an 18.39% chance in two seasons, and a 39.8% chance in five seasons.
So basically, though his math is off, Mr. White’s premise remains correct. Over longer study periods, the probability of a bad team having an 8-game losing streak is nearly 1, while the very best teams have only a coin-flip’s chance. So we would expect it to be only the best teams that have avoided such streaks, while most other teams are likely to endure one, sooner or later.
May 27th, 2008
Char
//basically in cheat mode these raging hordes would come at you with clubs and spears, and you could smite them with military helicopters and guided missiles and atomic bombs. That’s what I think it’s like to be a Red Sox and Yankees fan.//
OK, Sox fan here, but that made me laugh.
//Up here in New England, BoSox fans take it to a more chilling extreme. When things aren’t going well (by Red Sox standards,) they curse briefly and tune out. I’ve seen then switch channels when their team is down three runs in the eighth. It’s pathetic. These pink hats don’t deserve to be fans.//
Excuse me. Generalize much? I’ve been a Sox fan for more than 30 years, and I’ve never “tuned out,” thanks very much. And you sure as hell don’t see many fans in Fenway leaving the park when they’re three runs down in the eighth. We know better.
May 27th, 2008
Steve
According to the system I described in the Mets thread, here is the Angels’ top 10:
1. Salmon
2. G. Anderson
3. Downing
4. Erstad
5. Grich
6. Chili Davis
7. Glaus
8. Fregosi
9. Vlad Guerrero
10. Don Baylor
(cut-off for ranking in the rate stats was 3500 PA, but I ranked Glaus with 3479. 11-13 were Carew, Joyner, and Reggie).
May 27th, 2008
Craig
Easy on the rash generalizaton there, Mark LaFlamme. While I would argue that the pink hats attending the games at Fenway could care less as to the product on the field, anyone watching a Red Sox game sure as hell isn’t turning it off in the 8th inning of a 3-run ballgame. Maybe you just hang out with losers.
May 27th, 2008
Steve
Of course, I didn’t put pitchers in there, because in the Mets thread, they were excluded. Ryan, Percival, and Chuck Finley would probably be in the top 10 otherwise.
May 27th, 2008
Jon
Yeh I also need to agree w/RG and say that Cubs fans really do care about winning. The only thing that they aren’t many Cubs fans out there (or surprisingly few in comparison to the crowd at Wrigley.)
A lot of people (I live on the North Side so my opinion is skewed a bit) just like the Cubs because they are the “it” team and don’t really know anything. This also happens nationally because of WGN and their old daily national broadcasts of Cubs games. The Cubs then fall to the “Pink Hat syndrome” of fans who are there because they are the “it” team. They don’t care but there are plenty of obsessives or other fans who do care.
Wrigley gets the reputation as a party stadium because of the Bleachers, which are only a part of the stadium. The rest of the crowd is pretty much standard for any other baseball park.
There might have been a time when the Cubs fans didn’t care but those days are over (Though I don’t think that’s true, witness Lee Elia’s rant in the 80s). We’re at 100 years and everybody is nervous and annoyed and wants to win. If you need any more proof look at the newspapers around ‘03 when it looked like we could get to the World Series. Every other question was about the curse and it drove Dusty and all the players bananas. We are hurting and we want to win.
May 27th, 2008
Mike Williams
Watching a team on a losing streak like this is sorta like visiting a friend in a coma - you don’t know when he will come out of it, but you’re sorta compelled to keep visiting and hope today will be the day.
May 27th, 2008
sidd finch
‘But you know what? I’d still rather be a KC fan than a delicate member of Red Sox nation…….. These pink hats don’t deserve to be fans.’
The problem with Red Sox Nation right now is that because they are winning, all the ‘bandwagon’ fans have jumped on. You see as many Boston hats now as you did Y*nkees hats in the ’90’s, Oakland A’s hats in ‘72-76, etc.
The reason the KC fans are so passionate, is that all of the casual fans HAVE tuned out! What you have left are the REAL fans.
May 27th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
Steve, I don’t think the poll is asking for the best player performing as a California Angel; it’s asking for the best California Angels player. If Mickey Mantle played one game for the Angels, he’d be #1.
Still, your list is thought provoking. And as a Twins fan, I hate Brian Downing.
May 27th, 2008
Char
//We are hurting and we want to win.//
I’m sure Cubs fans feel the same way that Red Sox fans felt when so many “pundits” were saying we love to be losers, we revel in it, things will never be the same once you win the WS, yadda yadda.
All a bunch of crap. No fan likes to lose. The only people who think this are not fans.
May 27th, 2008
Mitcho
Did you accidentally drop ‘future True Value Hardware store assistant’ from the middle of “Gardy is the best manager in baseball”?
May 27th, 2008
Jacob
Responding to the call for someone with math skills (of course, somebody will probably come along after me explaining why this method is completely worthless).
Winning Percentages, 2002-2007
Royals: .401
Yankees: .608
Red Sox: .579
Phillies: .529
Probability of a given eight-game series being all losses (=(1-WP)^8)
Royals: .016
Yankees: .00056
Red Sox: .00098
Phillies: .0024
Expected number of eight-game losing streaks from 2002-present (assuming independence, which isn’t really fair, and not counting streaks that bridge two seasons; =980*above prob.)
Royals: 16.2
Yankees: .55
Red Sox: .96
Phillies: 2.38
Probability of having exactly zero eight-game losing streaks (again, assuming independence; =(1-above prob.)^980)
Royals: Snowball in hell
Yankees: .58
Red Sox: .38
Phillies: .09
So the Yankees (and the Red Sox, it turns out) are more likely to have 0 eight-game losing streaks than any other number, so we shouldn’t be surprised by them. The Phillies are a bit more unlikely, but still have a 9% chance. And given that there are probably a handful of other teams that have maintained 53% winning percentages over the last six years, it’s not too surprising that one of them has managed to avoid eight game losing streaks.
The Royals, interestingly, have actually also “overperformed” (16 vs 11). You’d have to look at more teams to figure out if this is luck or if all teams act this way.
May 27th, 2008
Eric Chima
I just have to chime in and agree with the obvious: the teams you listed with 8 game losing streaks are bad teams. The teams you listed without 8 game losing streaks are good teams. I love ya, Joe, but trying to credit that to the fans is silly.
May 27th, 2008
thrillho
Pffffft….Gleeman is to blogging what Jeter is to shortstops. He fantacizes about himself. Seriously, that guy is so full of Gleeman he gets jealous of himself in the shower.
May 27th, 2008
Creston
For you mentioning civilization and admitting that you cheated to make yourself a nuclear superpower who was fighting against bronze age enemies, well, that’s just …
That’s Jeterrific, right there. That’s beyond Awesome.
As for the poll. Rod Carew, people? Really? Are we talking Rod Carew over his entire career? Because his best seasons were with Minnesota. Not with the Angels. But he was still a very good player with the Angels. Excellent at not making outs. Very good to excellent in the field.
But better than Vlad? Seriously?
Carew OPS+ with the Angels. 125-119-132-121-128-101-99.
Vlad
157-154-138-147-110 (bad year for him so far)
Yes, Carew >>>>>>>>> Vlad in the field, but not to that tune.
May 27th, 2008
Creston
As for the losing streaks, come on. Fans have no impact on a game. They can have an impact on a single player, I’m sure. If a player is easily rattled, hearing 50,000 fans screaming his name (in a negative way) isn’t going to help him much.
Pitchers can easily get rattled in Fenway when the crowd starts doing that to them.
But one guy rarely wins or loses a game, and you can’t tell me that a whole team loses faith or gains it because of the fans. I know fans like to pretend they’re some mythical Part-Of-The-Puzzle, but they aren’t. They really aren’t. Unless you consider the owner’s pocketbook a puzzle.
And I’m sorry Joe… Ron Gardenhire? Smartest manager in baseball? Gardy? I can disprove this entire idea with one simple line.
.210/.291/.271
That is what the immortal Nick Punto produced last season in 472 at bats in 150 games. 472 at-bats that were given to him by the Smartest Manager In Baseball.
Not content with being proven that Nick Punto has no business being in the Major Leagues, The Smartest Manager in Baseball has given Nick Punto 49 at bats this season (he’s on the DL now) for a sparkling improvement to .265/.321/.347.
(the funny thing is, that’s actually a HUGE improvement. But it still sucks.)
No esteemed Sir, Ron Gardenhire is NOT the Smartest Manager In Baseball.
May 27th, 2008
Creston
Apology, you said the Best Manager in Baseball, not the Smartest Manager in Baseball. My beef still stands.
May 27th, 2008
Paul White
“I have to point out a couple of flaws in Paul White’s math.”
Only a couple? I’m pleasantly surprised.
“…Your premise relies on a team whose “true” winning percentage is .550. Mr. White suggests that a team’s chance of winning would change after each game, which is not true. If you flip a coin ten times, and it comes up tails nine of them, that does not mean that there is a 90% chance that the next flip will be tails…
First off, “Mr. White”? Really? Even my kids’ friends don’t call me that.
Second, you’re making two mistakes. First, you, and Joe too it seems, are presuming there is such a thing as a “true” .550 baseball team. Without knowing how many games were played to establish the .550 winning percentage, how do we know if they are a “true” .550 team? Take the 2003 Royals as Exhibit A. After 20 games, they were 16-4, an .800 ballclub, but their run differential already indicated that they were playing over their heads. After those first 20 games, it wouldn’t be possible to call them a “true” .800 team, and they obviously proved that they weren’t. Even after winning 83 of 162 games over the full season, we couldn’t call them a “true” .512 team since they had a negative run differential and should have finished 78-84. So at what point do we say a team is a true reflection of it’s winning percentage? Beats me, but I know it would have to be a hell of a big sample, bigger than one season of games in most cases, all of which makes is a bit risky to equate a team’s current winning percentage to their chances of winning a given game or series of games.
Mistake number two is the coin-flip example, and it’s related to the first issue. As much as I disagree with using winning percentage as a proxy for a team’s probability of winning its next game, if you’re going to equate the two anyway, then why wouldn’t you change the team’s chances of winning as their winning percentage shifts? This isn’t a coin-flip situation, where the outcome of the last flip doesn’t change the 50-50 proposition of the next one. Joe has pegged a team’s chances of winning to their winning percentage, and that’s a moving target from game to game. The odds should shift accordingly. The only way they wouldn’t is if we’ve already established the team to be a “true” .500 team, or whatever, making individual game outcomes meaningless to their odds for the next one, but I think we’ve already established that to be a difficult exercise at best.
May 27th, 2008
TC
I’d like to just piggy-back on what Mark said about the Phillies: it’s absolutely true. Phils have been bashing, more or less, for the past 5 years, but the pitching has been regularly atrocious. Or, at least, some of the pitching has been atrocious. Sure, Paul Abbott and Eric Milton might lay a couple of eggs, but, don’t worry, the Good Vincente Padilla and (the good) Brett Myers can turn things around. Of course, the reverse is true. When Vincente and Cory Lidle weren’t losing games, leave to the bullpen’s gnarly crew.
And thus, since 2000, the Phils only have one winning streak of 8 or more games.
May 27th, 2008
SBG
Well, you may have noticed that the Royals are in the midst of an eight-game losing streak.
Sorry, Joe, this is one of my pet peeves. They are not “in the midst” of an eight-game streak. If the streak ends now, they are at the end of an eight game losing streak. If the streak continues beyond eight games, they are, at this point in time, in the midst of a streak of yet unknown length.
May 27th, 2008
Tony B
Best Angel ever?
Gene Autry.
May 27th, 2008
Daniel
@Rhubarb Runner:
Since Joe seems to have “interesting” in mind for most of the things he puts on this blog, I have to disagree with your definition of “best.” The definition you give (in my opinion) would be the least interesting definition of “best” based on the poll question.
If he wanted to know that answer, who cares whether they played for the Angels? And why would Fregosi or Percival even be on the list, since they’re not even CLOSE to Ryan, Guerrero, or Carew, career-wise. I think you have to take into account their value with the Angels, which makes the question a lot more debatable.
Were Carew’s 7 declining years (while good) with the Angels better than Vlad’s 4.5 years of mostly dominance? Does Ryan get extra points for no-hitters and setting the single season strikeout record? Does Salmon get credit for being the longest tenured Angel on the list AND being a fan favorite? Percival’s 300 saves with the team, etc.?
I think that there are many interpretations of “best” that you can use for the question, but I’m not sure voting for the best overall career is one that Joe intended.
May 27th, 2008
Jack
Vlad Guerrero never played for the California Angels. Therefore he is ineligible.
May 27th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
Daniel - lighten up, I was just being snarky and basing the interpretation on the poll title only. Jack has the right idea.
May 27th, 2008
Daniel
My apologies Rhubarb - Hard to detect snark sometimes and it’s been a long day at work. Plus I jump at the chance to talk about the Angels, since they don’t get much play in a lot of places. I was over-eager to criticize.
May 27th, 2008
Rhubarb_Runner
no apologies necessary. good luck to the Halos, and hope you enjoy Torii as much as we’re enjoying Gomez…
May 27th, 2008
Eric J
No Bobby Grich? His Angels seasons are better than Carew’s, and Carew also had his best years with another team…
OPS+ with the Angels, counting down from best year:
Grich - 164, 145, 142, 125, 123, 119, 112, 109, 100, 98
Carew - 132, 128, 125, 121, 119, 101, 99
Considering Grich played a Gold Glove second base, and Carew spent all his Angels time at first…
May 27th, 2008
Eric J
Also, if Ryan’s going to be on there, Chuck Finley should at least draw a mention…
May 27th, 2008
Ryan
Tickets? You got tickets?
No.
I live close to Wrigley, and spend a lot of team on Clark and Addison.
Tickets? You got tickets?
No.
I love going to the games (when it’s not freezing.) I love the atmosphere of the area before and during the game.
Tickets? You got tickets?
No.
I went to quite a few games towards the end of the year last season, when the Cubs were in the playoff hunt. Fun.
Tickets? You got tickets?
No.
That being said, the drunks that take over the area after the game are boorish and obnoxious. It’s not a fun place to be after a game, especially a night game. You see a ton of fights started without provocation. A friend of mine got decked by some meathead as he was walking to work for no reason.
Tickets? You got tickets?
No.
Also, the 3,000 ticket brokers are slightly annoying.
May 27th, 2008
Dave B.
A vote for Brian Downing on the Angels list. I just seem to remember him crushing the Red Sox. How about Lyman Bostock? Any love for him from a “what might have been” perspective?
Oh, and there’s a cheat mode in Civ? Don’t tell my 10 year old son, who picked up the sickness from me. God, what a great way to waste an entire weekend that game is.
May 27th, 2008
Rob
Rod Carew’s career as an Angel is best known as Day games taken off after night games, sitting out any and ALL tough lefties, as well as NEVER getting that pristine White uniform in the least bit dirty, be it on the basepaths or in the field—a far cry from how he established himself earlier as a Twin Running hard, stealing home, playing Gold Glove Caliber 2nd base). But hey, if you OPS and OBP guys want to argue the merits as Carew as potentially the best Angel ever—knock yourselves out, we real baseball fans who saw him play back then know better.
May 27th, 2008
MattieShoes
Math be damned. I wrote a quick and dirty script to simulate 1,000,000 seasons with a .550 ballclub to see how many streaks they’d have. It doesn’t count between-seasons streaks, so losing the last four of one and then the first four of the next would be two four game streaks.
In those million seasons, there were 144,461 losing streaks of 8 or more games (roughly half of those ended after 8 games, and the longest stretched to 22 games). So that makes roughly one 8-or-more-game losing streak every 6.92 seasons
a .600 ballclub would expect an 8-or-more game losing streak every 16.4 seasons. So their expected win percentage has a huge effect on how often this “should” happen.
The Royals with their .346 win percentage in 2005 would expect 1.82 per year.
So I grabbed the win percentages of the Royals from 2002-2008
2002 - .383 - 1.26
2003 - .512 - 0.26
2004 - .358 - 1.62
2005 - .346 - 1.82
2006 - .383 - 1.26
2007 - .426 - 0.79
2008 - .412 - 0.92
So we’d expect something like 7.93 streaks of 8 or more losses since 2002 for KC. So I suppose 11 streaks of 8+ losses is a bit surprising but it’d take more work to figure out just how surprising.
May 27th, 2008
MattieShoes
So I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I modified the script to run 1,000,000 iterations of the 7 year span using the appropriate win percentage for each year, and see how many 8+ game losing streaks would occur in that span.
The answer is eleven times is not really that surprising at all. There’s roughly a 16% chance that given those win percentages over those 7 years, you’d have eleven or more eight-plus-game losing streaks. The worst of the million simulations had 23 streaks of 8 or more losses in a row. There’s roughly a 2% chance of 17 streaks of 8 or more losses, and also a 1.8% chance of only one eight+ game losing streak. The odds of the Royals having zero in that span was around 0.2%
May 27th, 2008
MattieShoes
And because I’m anal-retentive, I ran the same script on the Yankees. Of the one million simulations, 48.6% had zero 8+ game losing streaks. Their worst simulation was eight 8+ game losing streaks. If I ignore 2008 and just use their very dominant 2002-2007 stretch, they had zero streaks of 8+ losses 72.7% of the time and their worst simulations had 5 streaks of 8+ losses (eighteen times in a million simulations)
Philly is a bit more surprising but still, they had zero streaks of 8+ losses from 02-08 over 25% of the time when I ran the simulation.
If I were really anal-retentive, I’d get their schedules for each year and calculate each game using home and away win percentages (you’re more likely to have an 8 game losing streak on a long road trip, neh?) but I suspect the numbers would be about the same.
Okay, I promise, I’m done.
May 27th, 2008
Eric J
Umm, Rob… I’m as big an OPS or OBP guy as you’ll find most places, and Carew probably wouldn’t be among my top 10 Angels. His Angels tenure was probably worse than everyone else’s in the poll, and a few who weren’t (Grich and Downing, for example). His top half-dozen years or more were all in Minnesota, and it confuses me that people think of him as an Angel at all. Personally, I voted for Fregosi, who’s one of the more underrated players in a while.
May 27th, 2008
Daniel
Carew’s 7 seasons with the Angels (OPS +): 125, 132, 119, 121, 108, 101, 99
Salmon played basically 11 full seasons with the Angels, so taking out the top and bottom two seasons: 132, 125, 134, 142, 135, 133, 122.
You give Carew credit for playing a premium defensive positon, but I’m not sure that fully counters the run production. Carew was also a pretty bad basestealer by the time he got to Anaheim (not sure about other baserunning stats), so he doesn’t get extra credit for that.
Anyway, as I mentioned above, Salmon also gets extras for the WS win and the entire-career-with-the-Angels thing, which pushes him ahead.
Downing would have been a good choice as well though: 13 full seasons with the Angels, middle 7 OPS+: 118, 132, 126, 119, 130, 128, 118.
Salmon still has him beat, especially when you consider that Downing was AWFUL in his 3 playoff appearances with the Angels.
I’m biased since I’ve been an Angels fan for the 25 years I’ve been alive, but mainly remember from about 1988 onward, so some of the older guys escape my appreciation. I’m still pushing for Salmon…
May 28th, 2008
Curtis
I am amazed that Garret Anderson didn’t even get a mention here. Maybe the name misspelling (or is it mine?) through people off?
May 28th, 2008
PatGLex
Twins fan and Posnanski blog reader here. I chuckled at the last line of your column. If you hop over to the comments sections of the Star Trib baseball bloggers you’ll find lots of folks ready to throw Gardy off the bus for not putting Nathan in earlier, or benching Delmon Young before now. (Just like the idiot Kentucky basketball fanatics who drove Tubby Smith to Minneapolis.) I guess good people are only respected by the out-of-towners…. KC is a good team and I’m sure the Royals will come out of their funk soon (like after the Twins leave town).
May 28th, 2008
Rodney
Can I just note for Joe that Minnesota isn’t a town?
Jeez, it’s bad enough I have to deal with the dome, now I can’t avoid having people think my state is so small it’s merely a blip on the radar.
Just kidding. Thanks for the blog, Joe.
May 28th, 2008
Eric J
Carew did not play a premium defensive position while he was with the Angels. He played 6204 innings at first base as an Angel, and 6 innings at second base. (He also DH’d a good amount). Bobby Grich played second the entire time Carew was with the team. And he was a better hitter over the same years.
May 28th, 2008
JeffSol
I voted for Salmon, but thinking about it now, it seems obvious to me that Grich is the right answer, and not having him on the list is immensely puzzling…
May 28th, 2008
Seth
Paul (sorry, I work in an academic universe, it’s my instinct to start off formally),
I think we’re just having a miscommunication here. It seems to me that you’re the one who is linking winning percentage to probability. I (and it was my assumption that this was the case for Joe as well) am just referring to a hypothetical team that has a given probability of .550 of winning any individual game. It looks like winning percentage because, well, that’s how winning percentage is written, but I did not mean a team that has won 55% of their games.
I recognize that we can never know a team’s “true” winning percentage, but that’s not the point. Even if we flip a coin (to go back to that anology) 1,000 times and get heads 510 times, the coin’s “true” probability of landing heads is still .50 rather than .51 (discounting ridges and whatnot). I also recognize that assuming a team has a consistent .550 probability of winning a game discounts all types of factors quantifiable and otherwise, such as momentum, weather, home field, starting pitcher, injuries and so on. The point of my exercise, however, was to break it down to the basic mathematical principles in a quick and dirty fashion.
So no, actual winning percentage is not being considered (or at least, I’m not considering it). I do not consider a team that wins 16 of its first 20 games to be a “true” .800 team. Moreover, as you clearly also realize, we cannot ever know a team’s “true” probability of winning a given game. This is why I’m dealing in hypotheticals.
I think the root of our disagreement stems not from our interpretations of the math involved, but from our interpretations of Joe’s post. You seem to think that Joe is tying future winning probability to historical winning percentage, whereas I assumed otherwise. I think that you and I can both agree that to do so would be incorrect.
Unfortunately, only Joe can tell us what he actually meant, and I don’t get the sense that he reads this far down in the comments.
So perhaps I can, with my apologies, retract the part where I initiated my last comment with a reference to yours, and just merely say that, under the assumptions I’m using, the rest of the math (I think) holds true.
May 28th, 2008
Eric J
All right, one more futile effort on my part to stave of Rod Carew’s apparently inevitable victory:
Saying that Rod Carew is the best Angel ever is like saying Pete Rose is the best Phillie ever. They were both greatly diminished from their best years by the time they joined the teams in question, and had both moved to first base, greatly reducing their defensive value. Also, both played in the same infield as a player who would be a much better choice as the team’s best player.
Of course, Pete Rose is not a Phillie - he’s a Red. Likewise, Carew is not an Angel; he’s a Twin. He’d be a reasonable choice as the best Twin/Senator position player ever; he’s not even close as an Angel.
May 28th, 2008
Paul White
Seth,
No apology or retraction necessary. I think you’ve identified the disconnect correctly, and your math was never the problem. I read “.550″ and, this being primarily a baseball blog, saw that as a winning percentage, which we agree isn’t the greatest proxy for a team’s probability of winning their next game. Perhaps Joe intended something else. (Joe - You out there? Wanna chime in here?)
May 28th, 2008
buck
I checked each year and:
In 2004: 10 game stretch that was 2-8, both wins Santana.
In 2005, lost 2, Santana beats the Yankees, loose 6 more in a row.
Also in 2005 there were two other potential stretches, both involving Carlos Silva, one 10 game stretch were the Twins won only his two starts. And he started the 7th game that ended the 6 game slide mentioned earlier.
2006, no where near a 8 game loosing streak.
2007, a 10 game stretch where the Twins only won Boof’s 2 starts. 1 stretch were Santana’s win was in the middle of a potential 8 game loosing streak.
Make of that what you will.
May 28th, 2008
bryan
Looks like there are a number of MN fans like myself that have to look to Joe and KC to get their fix of high quality sports writing. Joe, you can add me to the list of folks interested in hearing more about why you think Gardy is the best.
May 28th, 2008
Chuck
*Civilization*…man, that brings back some truly faded memories.
And when a losing streak is ongoing, you feel like it’s endless. Semantics abou whether you’re in the “midst” of it are pointless.
That said, with any luck it will end in an hour or so…
May 28th, 2008
erik
Well, there it is, another blown 5-run lead in the ninth… sigh… It’s really really not easy to like these guys anymore. Can’t bring myself to give up, but it’s not easy. I mean, I’d happily play for the veteran minimum and go 0 for 4 every night with the occasional HBP or CS or E. I’d save the team some money, and soak up the criticism, thereby taking the pressure off of my team-mates… Mr. Baird, what do you think?
May 28th, 2008
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