Yes, Royals stink. But do they STINK? (updated)
Posted: June 4th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 36 Comments »
You may or may not have noticed that the Kansas City Royals have been playing preposterously bad baseball for almost a month now. They are 5-19 since May 8th, and they have hit .229, they have struck out three times more often than they walked, they have been shut out four times and they have averaged a hair less than three runs per game, which is plenty bad enough to get you beat 19 out of 24 times.*
*I have updated the numbers so they take into account the Royals loss on Thursday afternoon — their 19th in 24 — and also to clarify a bit in places.
My question today is: What does this mean? And by that I’m not asking, “Does this mean manager Trey Hillman is in over his head?” or “Does this mean the Royals might want to IMMEDIATELY take Mike Jacobs out of the cleanup spot (where he is hitting a juicy .143/.217/.238)?”*
*I had started a long post about how important the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 hitters are in the lineup. This was based on the Royals horrendous 2-3-4 hitters so far this year:
No. 2: .230/.270/.347
No. 3: .254/.309/.430
No. 4: .214/.317/.323
Yeah, you’re not going to do much when your 2-3-4 hitters are THAT bad. I took a look at every team in the American League and came to the unsurprising conclusion that teams with good 2-3-4 hitters tend to score more runs than teams with crappy 2-3-4 hitters. I know … that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t finish the post. It’s not 100% by the way — when I did the analysis, the Twins had the third best 2-3-4 hitters (by OPS) but were seventh in runs scored.
But for the most part, it works … the bottom five teams in OPS for 2-3-4 were also the bottom five teams in runs scored. Look at the 2-3-4 hitters of Seattle, the lowest scoring team in the American League (at least going into Thursday — the Royals are right there with him):
No. 2: .214/.286/.306
No. 3: .241/.311/.375
No. 4: .195/.230/.340
Look at those Mariners No. 4 hitters … Adrian Beltre and Ken Griffey. It’s almost impossible to have No. 4 hitters who are hitting that badly.
No, my question is a larger one, and I’m going to try to explain it a little bit better this time around because it seems a few BRs missed the point. The question is: What does a 5-19 stretch tell us about a team. Is it possible that the Royals — and I’m just using the Royals as a reference point — are a decent-to-good team in a bad spell? Or does it more or less tell us that the Royals stink? Is 24 games enough time to make these sorts of judgments? Is a 5-19 record BAD ENOUGH to make these sort of judgments?
The answer to both of these — I think — is YES, that is a long enough stretch and the record is bad enough to tell us that the Royals are not a good baseball team. It’s POSSIBLE that the Royals are just in a terrible funk and they will come out of it and still finishing .500 or better. But it’s unlikely. That’s what the numbers say to me.
First, we’ll start with less stark numbers: The Royals started 18-11 this year. They were in first place after 29 games. What did this tell us?
Well, actually, it told us very, very little. The truth is, 18-11 is just not a particularly distinctive record. A good team could go 18-11 over 29 games. A bad team could go 18-11 over 29 games. And a mediocre team could go 18-11 over 29 games. Bill James shared with me a spreadsheet that allows me to punch in some numbers and determine the chances of teams at different levels going 18-11 or better.
Here’s what the spreadsheet says — based on TRUE winning percentages. And by “True” winning percentage I mean a team that will finish the season at that winning percentage.
.600 team: 1 out of 2.
.550 team: 1 out of 4.
.500 team: 1 out of 8
.450 team: 1 out of 21
.400 team: 1 out of 74.
.350 team: 1 out of 375
So as you can see, there are no crazy numbers here. There are 133 stretches of 29 games over a season, which means that even a team that finished .400 or so should have at least one stretch during the season where they win 18 of 29 games. And, by looking back, it works this way in practice. The 2006 Chicago Cubs finished with a .406 winning percentage – right around .400. And sure enough, they had an 18-11 stretch July 5th to August 8th. The 2001 Kansas City Royals finished with a .401 winning percentage. They did not have an 18-win, but they did go 16-13 in June that year. The 2000 Chicago Cubs had a .401 winning percentage, and they actually had FIFTEEN stretches of 18-11 or better, including a 20-9 stretch.
Point is that 18-11 start doesn’t tell us much. As you can see, a .350 team (a team that would go 57-105) would probably not go on an 18-11 stretch. So, we can probably make the assumption that the Royals will not lose 105 games this year.
BUT, as you will see, the 5-19 stretch the Royals are on now is MUCH starker. Very good teams simply don’t go 5-19. Good teams don’t go 5-19. Average teams don’t go 5-19 much either. Well, here are the cold, hard numbers when punched into the Bill James system:
Team’s final winning percentage: Chances of going 5-18 or worse.
.600 team: 1 out of 9,251
.550 team: 1 out of 1,463
.500 team: 1 out of 303
.450 team: 1 out of 79
.400 team: 1 out of 25
Yes … stark. The math says that really good teams — teams that win 60 percent of the time — would only go 5-19 approximately once every 9,251 opportunities, or once every 66 or 67 seasons. So you can pretty much tell that the Royals are not a really good team on a bad run.
The same is more or less true for teams that win 55 percent of the time. They go on stretches this bad once every 12 or 13 seasons. The Royals, almost certainly, are not an 89 win team just playing lousy.
Sadly, the likelihood is that the Royals are not a .500 team either. The math says that the likelihood is a .500 team will not have a stretch this bad … and I actually looked this up. There have been 12 .500 teams since 1985. Here they are:
Cleveland (2008): Did not have a streak this bad.
Milwaukee (2005): Nope.
White Sox (2002): No sir.
Cincinnati (1996): Nopers.
Los Angeles (1993): Absolutely not.
Houston (1992): Didn’t happen.
Angels (1991): No sirree Bobby.
Milwaukee (1989): No.
Montreal (1989): Nay.
Montreal (1988): Negative.
Oakland (1987): Not gonna happen.
Boston (1985): YES!!
Yes, I had to go all the way back to 1985 to find a .500 team that had a 5-19 stretch. And it was a pain in the neck … I just wanted to prove the point that the formula is pretty good a predicting things.
So, here’s what I take from this: The Royals are most likely not a good team caught in a bad stretch. The Royals are most likely a bad team that got off to a misleading good start. But, of course, the numbers don’t have to be right. The Royals could go on a hot streak and turn it all around. There’s plenty of season left to do it. As Bill James says: “This still COULD BE a .500 team. But. . ..they’d better get out of this PDQ if they are.“
Sadly, Bill wrote those words BEFORE the Royals blew a lead and lost 3-2 Thursday afternoon.
* * *
Brilliant reader update: A point from Joel A. “Once in my youth (mid-60’s) the Indians won the first ten games and if memory serves me right, as I am not taking the time to look it up, they finished in last place. I assume the chances of a really bad team winning ten in a row are more than extremely low.”
Actually … low, yes, but not that low. The year you are talking about was 1966, and the Indians did indeed win 10 in a row. They ended up 81-81.
The odds of a .500 team winning (or losing) 10 in a row is exactly 1 in 1024. So according to chance every six or seven seasons, a mediocre team should win 10 game in a row. The odds of it being the FIRST 10 games are, in fact, quite a bit higher, but maybe not … maybe some teams come out of spring training just a little bit ahead of others.
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berkle me cert!
Wait, what about teams that finished .510 or .490?
Does excluding them bolster your argument’s position? Or am I just not understanding this…….are we only considering teams that are exactly Xwins and exactly Xlosses? Isn’t there a statistically meaningful way to make a more cogent point or would it break the world’s most amazing calculator?
Nice write up Joe very insightful. I am a Mets fan but I love reading your columns or blog posts they are always very interesting.
See, the problem I have with this kind of argument is that it takes a completely static view at a ‘team.’ Say for argument’s sake that the Royals right now are a .400 ballclub, and then also say that next week they trade Jacobs for Pujols. Or, alternatively, say that Greinke tears his rotator cuff. Are they still a .400 team in either of those situations? If KC can improve over the next several months, whether by addition, subtraction or internal changes, then they can outplay any estimate of their ‘true’ level. If they’ll do that, I don’t know.
This is just depressing. Way to dash our hopes, Royals.
I agree with Justin. This reminds me of the chance to win on the ESPN gamecasts. First inning home team is supposed to win at a ~55% clip. Leadoff homerun, and now the road team is favored to win. Stats certainly inform, but ballgames, like ballclubs, are dynamic.
yes, i think the royals STINK. sigh.
In the last two games, they have had two guys that entered the games as starters with a 4.44 ERA and a blustery 7.66 ERA — and have left the games with a whopping combined 8 hits and 17 strikeouts — and only 9 baserunners.
That type of offense isn’t going to win more that .425…
I might add that the bullpen just blew another awesome pitching performance by Meche. Sigh.
I don’t know that I would call it an awesome pitching performance. He did a good job of getting out of jams, but 11 runners in 6+ innings is well short of awesome.
I’m not quite as good at the statistical probabilities as you are, but I will point out the 90 win Brewers from last season went a dismal 4-15 from Sept 1 through the 20th. Its not quite 5-18… but its close.
I think its way past time to move Jacobs. I just went 0-for the series against the Rays and is striking out way way too often. Hopefully things will get better once Butler and Aviles get back from the DL.
Terrible team that happens to have Zack Greinke to perfume it slightly every 5th day.
I wish I could convince myself that there was a market for Jacobs and Guillen. The idea that the Royals needed them was foolish at the start of the season. It’s no less foolish now.
Free Kila!
But..but what about that Jacobs for Pujols swap that Justin brought up? Can’t Dayton Moore make that happen before the all star break?
Once in my youth (mid-60’s) the Indians won the first ten games and if memory serves me right, as I am not taking the time to look it up, they finished in last place. I assume the chances of a really bad team winning ten in a row are more than extremely low.
It’s not like the Roylz were hitting a ton in April, but they seemed to be doing better than last year at putting the ball in play.
Are scouts so good they’ve seen all the weaknesses of KC’s offense or have the Roylz just forgotten how to hit?
I was actually feeling fair-to-middlin’ about Kevin Seitzer as hitting coach. And then some of the guys look like they could achieve the same results and conserve energy by stepping up to the plate without bothering to lug along that pesky heavy bat.
Yes, but those ‘66 Tribesmen had Sudden Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Sonny Siebert, Gary “Ding-Dong” Bell and Steve Hargan as their top 5 starters…Zach Greinke could match any of them for what he has done so far in ‘09 but no one else is consistently close to matching those Indian hurlers for how they pitched that season. That Indian team was a poor run scoring club so they lost a lot of low scoring games, similar to KC this year I guess. At least KC fans can go enjoy a home game in a wonderfully refurbished, beautiful ballpark. The same can’t be said for that big, old open barn of a hellhole off of Lake Erie back in that era.
I’m not sure how you overlooked the 81-81 2005 Washington Nationals. They went 50-31 in their first 81 games and then 31-50 in their last 81 games. From July 4th through July 30th they went 5-18.
Additionally the Nationals are currently on a 4-20 run right now. Oddly enough they are getting great production from their 2-3-4:
2nd: .356/.448/.470
3rd: .322/.391/.550
4th: .271/.395/.563
Those 2005 Nationals also won 10 in a row in June of that year.
I hate “Circle me bert” and “First”… but I thought “bircle me cert” was funny. It did not bother me at all.
I have no idea why. I trouble myself.
KC Royals should be always competitive enough to keep pace with the others. I really like them; they’ve always been my favourite teams in MLB. Just read about them here:
http://www.royalshome.com
That 18-11 sure teased us though, even if it was a fluke (probably anyway). It was a nice story at the time and it was hopeful in an underdog way that they would turn out to be the real deal. But they are falling faster than a piano thrown off the Empire State Building and it’s been sad to watch.
Mr. Hillman, after careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that your new team sucks.
Ha! I can kinda hear Drayton Moore yelling “I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good!”
The worst no. 3 and 4 hitters with runners in scoring position in the AL have to be Alex Rios and Vernon Wells. Nobody can ground out then pop up better with the pressure on than Cito’s pair. Cito, please put Adam Lind in the 4 spot full-time.
Great blog Joe, thanks. p.s. we’re going to torch Greinke tonight for our boy Doc Halladay.
A Jays fan,
too true masterclark (#26) – nice night by Rios. A ground out would have been an improvement. What’s 5Ks called – a double golden sombrero?
Far be it for me to question the work of Misters Posnanski and James, but isn’t this the wrong direction to look at the probabilities? The odds given are in the form ‘what are the chances that a team with true talent level X (as measured by finishing record) goes on a 5-19 run’. While these probabilities certainly are suggestive, I think the calculation to run to address if the Royals STINK is to calculate the probability that the Royals true talent level will be less X (as measured by finishing record or winning percent) given that they went on a 5-19 run. If I’m not off base, this is a doable calculation (it involves looking at the probabilities given in this article for every conceivable finishing record and then weighting them) for someone with more tools than I…
Hi Joe, I think you may have made an error. Despite the fact that there are 133 stretches of 29 games over a season, they are not independent of one another, and so it is not correct to say that a .400 team, which would win 18 of 29 games 1 out of 74 times, should likely do so at least once over the course of a season. For instance, if you knew that they had in the first 29 game stretch of the season gone 12-17, then you would also know in the next 29 game stretch that they had not won 18 of 29 as well – the outcome of one of the 133 stretches is partially dependent on the outcome of other stretches. For a .400 team to likely have one stretch of winning 18 of 29 games, the season would have to be much longer – long enough to have 74 independent stretches of 29 games, or 2,146 games.
I had forgotten that yesterday’s game was a day game, so first looked at it in the 7th inning, when they were up 2-0. In the box score I saw, Royals: 7Ks, 0BB, Rays: 1K 5BBs, and I knew they were going to lose. Ended up 9 to 5 in strikeouts, but when 1 out of 3 outs doesn’t even put the ball in play, whew, that’s bad!
It seems as if for the last 10 years, whoever the Royals have strikes out way more than league average. If Russell Branyan were on first instead of Billy, would he have 90 strikeouts right now?
Joe, minor quibble — There are 134 29-game stretches in a 162-game season. The first one starts with game 1 and ends with game 29, the second one starts with game 2 and ends with game 30, and so forth until the last one, which starts with game 134 and ends with game 162.
I just love this stuff; in fact, I have my own spreadsheet for exactly this kind of calculation. I wonder how much it looks like the one Bill James shared with you.
David #29 –
In spite of your totally awesome first name , I must say that you are overcomplicating this. Nobody has said that these 29-game stretches are (or need be) independent of one another. Think of it this way: if I were asked to select ANY 29-game stretch of a season, how many choices would I have? The answer is 134, as described above.
You are indeed correct that if we are talking about mutually exclusive 29-game stretches, there are not that many. But the “mutually exclusive” part is not a piece of this puzzle. I used to think about it the way you have, until I realized that we are talking about a moving window of 29 games, not discrete blocks of 29 games.
Put it another way: does Joe’s method give us meaningful and reasonable results? Yes, it does — and as I mentioned above, I have been doing these kinds of calculations myself for quite a while.
And, yes, as currently constitued (i.e., barring that Pujols for Jacobs), the 2009 Royals suck.
“Pujols for Jacobs trade” in the last graf, of course. My brain sometimes goes faster than my fingers.
Hi David in NYC,
Thanks, both your name and city are fantastic. However, I’m not convinced that Joe’s argument is sound. For example, he says that a .600 team would win 18 or more out of 29 games one out of two times. So by Joe’s logic, in a 30 game season (which would have two 29-game stretches) a .600 team should have one streak of winning 18 of 29. However, because these two 29 game stretches are not independent of each other, that is not the case. If the team does not win 18 of 29 in the first stretch, then the chances of them doing so drop dramatically – the only way they could do so is if they had lost the first game, won 17 of the next 28, and then won the last game. So in a 30 game season, you would not expect a .600 team to have a streak of winning 18 of 29, despite the fact that there are two 29 game stretches and the chances of them doing so for a 29 game stretch is 1 in 2.
By definition, a .600 team in a 30 game season has to win 18 games. Sorry, David, but you absolutely would expect a .600 win team to have a 1 in 2 chance of going on an 18 for 29 tear.
Joe, I’ve got to say that after watching Joe Torre manage in LA for a year plus, I’m sold. The Dodgers have the best record in baseball even though they’re like 13th in home runs. They do it on little ball, lots of pitches, get into the opposing bullpen as a strategic choice. They take the most pitches in baseball. Another thing Torre does is leverage their patience (and choking up) by putting on lots of hit and run plays. This shows confidence in players to make contact, puts pressure on the defense, and usually avoids the double play. So it’s time to be sold on the value of walks.
Seems to me, though, you’d want to look at the 5 – 19 teams that ALSO had an 18 – 11 stretch in order to consider the odds of the Royals “true” winning percentage being .500. Doesn’t make much sense to consider the two pieces of evidence independently of one another. I’m no stat expert, but seems like some Bayesian probability is in order here.