37-18

Dr. Wayne Simon wrote:
> Giants out hit the phils in their house 37-18, and outhit them every game of
> the series. Yet the giants ended-up going 1-2 in a series they were so
> close to going 3-0. Hopefully the young team will make most of their
> mistakes early and then come on like gangbusters.

They've won some games this year in which they were outhit. Things even out.
Their expected W/L is 12-20 right now, so overall they're lucky to be where they
are.
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

"Jamal Bernhard" <noone.RemoveThis@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:l1OTj.1768$nW2.1362@nlpi064.nbdc.sbc.com...
> Dr. Wayne Simon wrote:
>> Giants out hit the phils in their house 37-18, and outhit them every game
>> of the series. Yet the giants ended-up going 1-2 in a series they were
>> so close to going 3-0. Hopefully the young team will make most of their
>> mistakes early and then come on like gangbusters.
>
> They've won some games this year in which they were outhit. Things even
> out. Their expected W/L is 12-20 right now, so overall they're lucky to be
> where they are.


You are probably exactly right, but that sounds like the rationalization
talk of a supporter of a team of losers.
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

Dr. Wayne Simon wrote:

>>> Giants out hit the phils in their house 37-18, and outhit them every game
>>> of the series. Yet the giants ended-up going 1-2 in a series they were
>>> so close to going 3-0. Hopefully the young team will make most of their
>>> mistakes early and then come on like gangbusters.
>> They've won some games this year in which they were outhit. Things even
>> out. Their expected W/L is 12-20 right now, so overall they're lucky to be
>> where they are.
>
> You are probably exactly right, but that sounds like the rationalization
> talk of a supporter of a team of losers.

Thank you.
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

They lost one game on bad defense and another game on a phantom balk.
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<benf802961 RemoveThis @aol.com> wrote in message
news:4b08c03f-a5ad-492b-8bf1-565cd4781003@a9g2000prl.googlegroups.com...
> They lost one game on bad defense and another game on a phantom balk.

Exactly.

The pythagorean theory, or any form of calculation of expected W-L, are just
estimates, not exact science. Since the Giants are just 2 games over the
expected W-L, I'd consider the expected W-L to be a good estimate in this
case, instead of treating it as an exact science and calling the Giants
lucky.

And Bill James didn't even take bowling night into account...
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

Awesome Lincecum wrote:

> The pythagorean theory, or any form of calculation of expected W-L, are just
> estimates, not exact science.

It's not meant to be exact science, but like any expected value it has a smaller
margin of error as the sample size increases. If a team's record is better than
their pythag, it means they have won more games than a "typical" team that has
scored and allowed the same number of runs. Some teams can get away with this
for awhile, but unless a team is "special" in some way (i.e., the team is
particularly good at winning close games, or the team has one pitcher that
continuously gets shelled, like Zito) it can be a dangerous trend, and in the
long run the chances are that the team's winning % will go down if the pythag %
does not go up.

> Since the Giants are just 2 games over the
> expected W-L, I'd consider the expected W-L to be a good estimate in this
> case, instead of treating it as an exact science and calling the Giants
> lucky.

I guess I shouldn't have called the Giants "lucky" at this point -- being within
2 games of the expected W-L is a perfectly acceptable margin of error. (Atlanta
is the only team that is more than 3 games off from their expected W-L right now
with a record of 15-15 but an expected W-L of 19-11, so they might definitely be
considered "unlucky".) What I meant is that going forward we really can't expect
the Giants to maintain a winning % of .438 if their expected W-L% remains at .375.

Think about flipping a coin. If you flip it 20 times, your expected result (or
"estimate", if you want to call it that) is 10 heads (50%). Of course that
doesn't mean you will get exactly 10 heads when you flip the coin. But as the
number of flips increases to 50, 100, or (in this case) 162, the chances of
being significantly off from 50% heads goes way down. It's not difficult at all
to get 12 heads in 20 flips (60%) , but it's *very* hard to get 97 heads in 162
flips (60%).

So if the Giants expected W-L% stays at .375, they are in some sense flipping a
coin that comes up "W" 37.5% of the time. it will be difficult for them to keep
their actual winning % much higher than this as the season progresses. I think
it's unlikely they will be able to finish with their current winning % of .438,
which would be 71-91 and a difference of 10 wins from the expected W-L of 61-101
(.375).
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

"Awesome Lincecum" <Lincecum DeleteThis @sf.giants> wrote in
news:68avegF2s8oh9U1@mid.individual.net:

>
> <benf802961 DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote in message
> news:4b08c03f-a5ad-492b-8bf1-565cd4781003
@a9g2000prl.googlegroups.com..
> .
>> They lost one game on bad defense and another game on a phantom balk.
>
> Exactly.

Of course, the former is part of the team -- it's a really bad defensive
team.

> The pythagorean theory, or any form of calculation of expected W-L,
> are just estimates, not exact science. Since the Giants are just 2
> games over the expected W-L, I'd consider the expected W-L to be a
> good estimate in this case, instead of treating it as an exact science
> and calling the Giants lucky.

It's a big oversimplification (one that I've certainly made, so I'm as
guilty as anyone) to just call a team "lucky" if they outperform their
Pythag. First of all, there are lots of things that we might call luck
(such as bad umpire calls, or balls that hop over the fence with a
runner on first, or balls that just hit or miss the foul pole) that
don't show up at all in the Pythag vs. actual record comparison. And
even for the stuff that matters to the Pythag discussion, "luck" is only
one way to look at it.

OTOH, what is also true is that (overall, if not in every case) is that
RS/RA is a better predictor of future W/L than current W/L is.

OTOOH, last time I looked the Giants were doing worse in RS/RA than they
were in their raw stats lines, and the raw stats lines are an even
better predictor than RS/RA.

> And Bill James didn't even take bowling night into account...

Well, that too.

JHB
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

Jamal Bernhard wrote:

> So if the Giants expected W-L% stays at .375, they are in some sense
> flipping a coin that comes up "W" 37.5% of the time. it will be
> difficult for them to keep their actual winning % much higher than this
> as the season progresses. I think it's unlikely they will be able to
> finish with their current winning % of .438, which would be 71-91 and a
> difference of 10 wins from the expected W-L of 61-101 (.375).

Just for reference, only three teams last year finished more than 5 wins away
from their expected W-L: Seattle, StL, and Arizona (with deltas of 9, 7, and 11
respectively).
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

"JW" <JohnW.TakeThisOut@clearwire.net> wrote in message
news:khfv14hlpd8qfjqtf6novsqinrimael021@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 5 May 2008 01:11:47 -0400, "Dr. Wayne Simon"
> <wayne.simon.TakeThisOut@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Giants out hit the phils in their house 37-18, and outhit them every game
>>of
>>the series. Yet the giants ended-up going 1-2 in a series they were so
>>close to going 3-0. Hopefully the young team will make most of their
>>mistakes early and then come on like gangbusters.
>>
>
> That's what learning is all about and it makes the losing a bit more
> tolerable as a result. Even if they don't rise much above third place
> in the division, they'll have had a pretty good season when you
> compare it to the predictions before the season started.

In the little league, Pony league etc. good sportsmanship is key. It is
what I guess we want to teach our kids, grand kids. But in the Majors,
winning is what it is all about. Within the parameters of not cheating.
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

"Jonathan Bernstein" <jhb DeleteThis @socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:Xns9A964F8E27461jhbsocratesberkeleye@207.115.33.102...
> "Awesome Lincecum" <Lincecum DeleteThis @sf.giants> wrote in
> news:68avegF2s8oh9U1@mid.individual.net:
>
> >
> > <benf802961 DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:4b08c03f-a5ad-492b-8bf1-565cd4781003
> @a9g2000prl.googlegroups.com..
> > .
> >> They lost one game on bad defense and another game on a phantom balk.
> >
> > Exactly.
>
> Of course, the former is part of the team -- it's a really bad defensive
> team.

Sure, but 5 unearned runs in one game is still unlucky.

> > The pythagorean theory, or any form of calculation of expected W-L,
> > are just estimates, not exact science. Since the Giants are just 2
> > games over the expected W-L, I'd consider the expected W-L to be a
> > good estimate in this case, instead of treating it as an exact science
> > and calling the Giants lucky.
>
> It's a big oversimplification (one that I've certainly made, so I'm as
> guilty as anyone) to just call a team "lucky" if they outperform their
> Pythag. First of all, there are lots of things that we might call luck
> (such as bad umpire calls, or balls that hop over the fence with a
> runner on first, or balls that just hit or miss the foul pole) that
> don't show up at all in the Pythag vs. actual record comparison. And
> even for the stuff that matters to the Pythag discussion, "luck" is only
> one way to look at it.
>
> OTOH, what is also true is that (overall, if not in every case) is that
> RS/RA is a better predictor of future W/L than current W/L is.

Not saying it's a bad predictor. Just saying it's not exact science.
Within 2 games is very good. Actually, one can even say that if the
predicted W/L matches the actual W/L exactly, *that's* luck.

> OTOOH, last time I looked the Giants were doing worse in RS/RA than they
> were in their raw stats lines, and the raw stats lines are an even
> better predictor than RS/RA.

So does that mean going by the raw stats the Giants are about where they
should be?
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

"Dr. Wayne Simon" <wayne.simon.DeleteThis@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> In the little league, Pony league etc. good sportsmanship is key. It is
> what I guess we want to teach our kids, grand kids. But in the Majors,
> winning is what it is all about. Within the parameters of not cheating.

Not always. For a rebuilding team, there are things more important than the
W. If a team is shitty, it doesn't matter much if they win 65 games or 69
games.
 >> Stay informed about: 37-18 

Awesome Lincecum wrote:

> Not saying it's a bad predictor. Just saying it's not exact science.
> Within 2 games is very good. Actually, one can even say that if the
> predicted W/L matches the actual W/L exactly, *that's* luck.

Well, I think you are saying that because the chances of an exact match are
small (looks like about 10% to me). But that would be like saying every team is
always "lucky" to get the number of wins that they do, because at the beginning
of the season the chances that they would end up with exactly that many wins was
small. I don't think that's generally what is meant by "luck".

In reality, any outcome that falls within the expected margin of error should
not be considered "luck" (either good or bad). I've never really looked into X
W-L as a predictor before, so out of curiosity I took a closer look at last
year's season:


wins - Xwins | frequency
--------------------------------
-10 |
-9 |
-8 |
-7 |
-6 | 1 (Giants, we were the worst!)
-5 | 2
-4 | 2
-3 | 4
-2 | 3
-1 | 5
0 | 3
1 | 1
2 | 2
3 | 1
4 | 1
5 | 2
6 |
7 | 1
8 |
9 | 1
10 |
11 | 1 (Arizona)


I also looked at 2006 in case '07 was an anomoly, but the two years were pretty
similar. It seems about 90% of the teams finish within 5 wins of their expected
number. So perhaps we could say that the Giants were "unlucky" to have won only
71 games last year, and Seattle, StL, and Arizona were definitely "lucky" to
have won so many (that is, unless we have reasons to explain why these teams
were particularly good at winning close games and/or particularly prone to
blow-outs).

The difference for the Giants may be 2 games right now, but it's unlikely to be
more than 5 games by the end of the season. So, the Giants better increase that
X W-L % of .375 a little bit or they are likely to lose 96-106 games.
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"Awesome Lincecum" <Lincecum.TakeThisOut@sf.giants> wrote in news:68bt9aF2shibvU1
> "Jonathan Bernstein" <jhb.TakeThisOut@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote in message

>> OTOOH, last time I looked the Giants were doing worse in RS/RA than
>> they were in their raw stats lines, and the raw stats lines are an
>> even better predictor than RS/RA.
>
> So does that mean going by the raw stats the Giants are about where
> they should be?

Yup.

Now, there's another piece to it, which is whether the way they've
"really" played so far (as reflected in the raw stats lines) is a good
predictor for how they'll play the rest of the way; especially early in
the year, *that* kind of luck is probably a much bigger deal for most
teams, most years, than any pythag stuff. I don't know how that applies
to the Giants, though.

JHB
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