Greg Hibbard

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5449480

Ok guys, some (hugely crude, probably mathematically wonky) analysis: Tampa Bay went 30-11 to start the season (.732), against teams with a weighted winning percentage of .476 (as of August 9th) The Rays then went 37-33 (.529) over their next 70 games against teams with a weighted winning percentage of .521 The final 51 games the Rays play are against teams with a weighted winning percentage of .490. This is largely due to 9 of those games vs. Baltimore. .476...... .490 ....... .521 .732...... (x) .......... .529 x would be equivalent to an "expected" winning percentage of .663 in their final 51 games (.490 is 31% of the way between .476 and .521, discounting 31% of the distance between 732 and .529 from .732 would be .663) Therefore, we can expect the Rays to go 34-17 the rest of the way, and win 101 total games.

It's not a nice .500 record, though. It's a nice .568 record. Big difference. I wouldn't be happy with a nice .500 record, even with the way we started at 24-33, because I had us penciled in for at least 12-6 in interleague against s*** NL teams, and a few more over as the season went along and we had home series against the likes of Sea and Oak and Bal and KC. I think I would have been happy with 85-87 wins, which I felt would have allowed us to compete for this division with what we had all expected earlier in the year...again, even with the way we started at 24-33. 83-84 wins I would have shrugged my shoulders at. 81-81 is and would have been a real disappointment. This team, even with a 24-33 start, is currently on pace to win 92 games. That's an unreal number of wins, to me. If we were to win 92 games, and if the Twins were to win 93 games, and if we didn't get to the postseason via the WC, yes, I ABSOLUTELY tip my cap. 92 wins is a great season, especially given the Peavy injury and how thin our DH has been. It would be disappointing to have the Twins edge us out again, but I just don't know how we can look at the winning percentage this team currently has as anything but a real positive.

I think greg775 chose a poor way of wording that. Because of the unusual circumstances surrounding this particular season, with the expectations not being high and the relatively poor start, unlike many other years (2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 come to mind) this second half has engendered a much more patient sentiment towards the team from me than in years past. Every late-season loss in 2003 and 2006 in particular was like nails on a chalkboard for me. This season, I was relatively exasperated until about June 15th, with no clue where we would even start organizationally to compete for 2011, and to suddenly feel like we have a legit shot at the division and maybe further, within just 20 days, really IS textbook schizophrenia.

Literally every great team, and every world series winning team, with the exception of a very small handful, has 10-15 or so "bad" losses a year. This year: 1) Texas lost 4 at home vs. Baltimore just before the break. They lost 5 of 6 in their season series with Toronto, who is a decent team, but not THAT good. They just went 4-5 on a west coast road trip to the three worst AL west teams. In a perfect world, they would have probably went 12-7 in those nineteen games, and instead they went 5-14. 2) The yanks lose 2 of 3 at home vs. Seattle, and go just 8-7 in Interleague. Toronto has also given them fits, as they've won just 4 of 9 games against them. You'd expect them to probably go 17-10 over those 27 games, and they went 13-14. 3) Tampa went 7-11 in interleague. 4) The Twins were 8-10 in interleague. I know we've had a lot of "bad" losses early in the season (probably 6-8 games we should have won) but that doesn't mean we can't lose ANY games we're not supposed to win. If you go by the team-by-team grid, I'd say we were "supposed" to be 1 game better vs baltimore so far, 4 games better vs. cleveland, 1 game better vs. tb, 2 games better vs. min, 1 game better vs. oakland, 1 game better vs. toronto. That's a total of 10 games. Conversely, we beat Seattle 9 out of 10, and went 15-3 in interleague, which in my opinion made up for some of that.

This isn't the exact same thread as yesterday, if you're referring to my other post-loss thread. My other thread was referring to overreacting after 1 road loss This thread is referring to the general tone of the board

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Aug 8, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) Greg in 2005 we had a pretty big lead due to a fantastic first half. Nearly choked that away and finally put the thing to rest at the end of the year. We dont have that luxury this year. We need to take care of business when we face cupcakes like this. The formula for winning is usually is beating your divisional opponents, and beating up on cupcakes and then going 500 against good teams. When you drop games against very beatable opponents then you need to make those losses up against some of the better teams. The pattern I hate seeing is the overall team exhale that happens when we pass the deadline, and we get beaten a bit. Then we start to get into April/May baseball mode with our offense because the pressure builds and everyone tries to be a hero. One bat short might be the reason we don't go to the playoffs this year. This team needs to man the f*** up in a hurray and start beating these types of teams. And they better f***ing beat Minny next week. 2 of 3, if not 3 of 3 needs to happen. They are still a few men short. If you can't take care of business at home when your opponent is down a few guys then you need a ball check. Are people really saying this is a typical/pattern second half scuffle by the Sox? The White Sox now have a *gasp* paltry 14-10 record since the break. So typical, for the white sox to be playing .585 s***-ball in the second half... No guys, a typical second half Sox scuffle is something like what happened in '00 and '05 where the team is losing 7 of 9 or playing .480 ball through about 50 games

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2010 -> 03:07 PM) That's my argument. So in other words, first place by more than a game or negativity? Seems like we have a lot of long seasons ahead of us on this message board.

Soxbadger wrote: I really think this is a great post and that it deserves its own thread. Yes, it sucked to lose 2 to the Orioles, and yes it would suck even more to lose 3 games to the Orioles. It really sucked. However, it's become increasingly alarming that this team has literally no margin for error before most of the board thinks they have no chance at well, anything, even sometimes don't even deserve paying attention to for the remainder of the day. The moment the Sox are down against a bad team people are flying off of a bridge in the game thread. Why exactly is that? People rode out a terrible August in 2005, and showed a lot more patience through something like a 5-13 stretch, and this was before the White Sox could even prove they could win a pennant, let alone a World Series. What exactly has changed? More importantly, what exactly was expected from fans going into this season? I think 90% of the board probably had this team winning between 81 and 90 games and in the hunt for the division, but I think most thought they wouldn't necessarily have enough offense. I personally had them in 3rd place at around 81 wins. Now, we are in a pennant race. This team is on pace to win, what, 91-92 games? Would you rather change places with a team like the tanking Rays right now, who someone pointed out earlier started 30-11 and have gone like 4 over .500 since? When we were 9.5 back, the most distressing thing was that a lot of our young talent appeared to be a mirage. Now, it appears that Beckham is a bona fide major leaguer after all, that Quentin actually does have value, that Peavy can in fact pitch in the AL, and that Ramirez is who we thought he was. Our core seems pretty damned good. Now, we are poised to compete for the title in '10, and certainly also be in the hunt for '11. So why all the negativity? Why is their such a low tolerance for anything bad happening?

Faithlessness

"Just can't afford to lose this game tonight..." "will be sitting at home this postseason unless certain players get their act together..." "...that's what good teams do (the twins tying the game)" I would have expected after an uncharacteristic bad loss (one of VERY FEW bad losses in the past 51 games...I think I count 3 maybe 4 total) that people would be a little negative, but are we really this faithless? The team just rattled off 9 of 11 and 38 of 51, and although yesterday was an almost-loss, we ultimately got the job done. You expect a division rival to play hard and put themselves in a position to win...I was not surprised that Detroit didn't just roll over. I'm still pissed at Bobby, obv. Two losses to Baltimore would probably be wholly unacceptable. One loss just isn't, folks...especially on the road. Bear in mind Texas lost 4 straight at home to the Showalter-less Orioles earlier this season...did that sabotage their whole season? Every contender has bad losses. The key is to minimize them. Hopefully we are able to rattle off three straight. When the best you can hope to do at this game is basically win 65% of your games, you're gonna have some bad losses in there. Let's make sure we get after em tomorrow.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 12:22 PM) It's possible but the Indians and Royals are just as likely to cool us off at times as well as the Twins. Just look at our division record. I have more faith we'll beat the Indians and Royals for a couple reasons: 1) even without Youk, the Red Sox are a wayyyy better team than either the Royals or Indians, and should have a greater degree of expected success against the yanks and rays 2) Our Sox are playing like a way different team now than they were when they were scuffling against the Indians earlier this season Also, the weak spot in the Yanks is the starting rotation...I could see them getting lit up a few times.

QUOTE (Real @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:50 AM) Pretty sure you misunderstood his post, he meant for boston to beat the Yankme's and Rays to add losses to their record Yes. Let me clarify - Boston is good enough to be a serious spoiler, and all division rivals are always a threat even if they have no shot to win the division. If Boston gets hot against its two rivals, the central could come into the WC picture, especially if the Sox and Twins stay hot.

The real hidden juice is BOSTON, guys. Boston needs to take 7 of the remaining 10 with NY, and 4 of 6 against the Rays. Tampa has 7 left with the Yanks. One team just needs to beat the other 6/7 times.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 08:41 AM) A truer statement may not have uttered in this thread. Bobby has had some great outings, but so has Linebrink, Threets, and even Williams. The big difference there is that Bobby's job is to close games. It's a high pressure situation, and the closer has to be sharp every time out. Every closer in the game will blow saves. Bobby isn't sharp...a lot. A team should have a lot of confidence in their closer, and aside from Ozzie's misleading statements, I think he's the only one who has confidence in him. Bobby has a big ERA (and I don't care what Steve Stone says, it DOES matter) and his WHIP is quite chunky, too. Those numbers do not belong to a great or even good closer. Every closer in baseball is not sharp every time out. If Bobby had two bad outings, we'd overlook it. Three, half the board jumps ship. Four, everyone is overboard. I'm not saying I disagree with removing him, but the margin of error here is nada at this point.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 07:48 AM) There was a long stretch of time where I think most everyone would have agreed that Bobby's best pitch, his out pitch...was that curveball. And the people crying foul over Bobby hanging a curve were begging him to throw one the past two weeks. Well, he f***ing threw one....

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 03:29 PM) For one day and one day only, I will adore Mark Kotsay (and his wife). I echo this sentiment but would adore his wife for more than one day

KOTSAY!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 08:18 AM) I don't think his fastball velocity and ability to throw the curve ball are dictated by the calendar. If he's throwing a 96-97 mph fastball with late movement for strikes and following it up with a curveball from the same arm motion, he'll be successful. If he's down at 93, can't throw strikes, and doesn't want to throw the curveball, he might as well pitch in garbage time. It's been five straight calendar years that Jenks has STUNK in July (08 is the exception, but he only made 5 appearances and still had an almost 4.00 ERA). It seems like there's something to that.

3 straight perfect saves in a row, 4 straight appearances without a run earned (only a hit given up in the fourth)... is he back? Jenks seems utterly cursed over his career during the month of July...1-6, 6.31 ERA, 1.68 WHIP In all other months combined he has a career 2.93 ERA and 1.16 WHIP...and his best month is August with a 1.19 ERA and .775 WHIP Hopefully Ozzie looks at those monthly splits and platoons him in September though...Jenks has a 4.58 ERA and a .271 BAA in the last month+ (inc Oct games) of the season...

page 1 of a 17 page soxtalk joint right here, folks hopefully kotsay can come out of it, as it appears we are stuck with him

Kotsay is still in the clubhouse if he is a bench player.

If either team wins game 1, there is a 50% chance the same team wins game 2 there is a 50% chance the other team wins game 2 therefore, after game 1 is concluded, there should be close to a 50/50 chance either team wins game 2, if their skill level is relatively similar.

I'm beginning to think this may be similar to the Birthday paradox.

expectationally, 50% of the time a split should occur 50% of the time a sweep should occur it doesn't matter who is doing the sweeping - 26.2% of the time it is occuring. Seems like an anomaly. It can be argued that the anomaly is explained by the decisions regarding the second event being influenced by the outcome of the first event.