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I decided to compare each of the six divisions to see which of them was the strongest. I expected the AL East to be the strongest, since it has the Rays, the Red Sox, and the Yankees, and I wasn't disappointed. The rest of the standings were a little surprising, however. Here's the graph I came up with:
As you can see, the AL East leads by a comfortable margin, but a couple of surprises come out. First, what is the NL East doing so far down? The Phillies and the Mets have been in the top ten for the last couple of months. Of course, the Nationals do a lot to bring the average down, but aren't the other teams enough to hold things up? Turns out they aren't - the Braves are currently in 21st while the Marlins are in 17th.
The other surprise, I thought, was that the NL West is only barely in last place. We've known for a long time that the NL West is a weak division (Arizona leads it with an anemic record of 68-65), but shouldn't the AL West be better than it is? Aren't the Angels one of the league's best teams? They have 81 wins! While that's all true, they're only ranked 12th in the SPI standings. (Not good for your division if your first place team is only in 12th.) The other three teams, Oakland, Texas, and Seattle, are ranked 20th, 23rd, and 27th respectively. That does a lot to drag down one really good team. Meanwhile, the recent success of the Colorado Rockies (woo!) has brought the NL West up, though it has come at the expense of some of the other teams in the division.
Long story short, sometimes looking at the numbers in a slightly different way changes the picture.
Time's up! Here are the answers to yesterday's graph question:
Team A was the Tampa Bay Rays, who haven't seen their SPI score drop below 6.500 since early June. Team B was the Milwaukee Brewers, who didn't see their SPI consistently above 6.000 until late July. Both teams have the same number of playoff appearances in the last 10 years (zero). Both teams are looking like they're headed to the playoffs. And yet, everyone seems convinced that the Rays will fold, while everyone seems sold on the Brewers. I don't know about you, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sure, the Brewers are on the rise lately, but even when their SPI score was hovering around 5.5, people still talked about them like a playoff club. If I have to pick one of these two teams to go to the postseason, it's definitely the Rays. Some people may trust their gut instincts on things like this, but as for me, I'd prefer to stick with the numbers.
Side note: I changed the SPI standings to adjusted SPI standings, which weights the last ten games slightly more to account for recent performance. It changed the standings around a bit, but not nearly as much as I expected it to.
Here's a fun test for you. This graph shows the SPI progression of two teams this season. Each entered the season with the same amount of playoff experience in the last 10 years and each is generating about the same amount of playoff buzz right now. Curiously, Team B is usually portrayed as more of a postseason threat than Team A, despite the gap in their SPI ratings.
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to who the two teams are?
Time to answer some questions from my imaginary readers. Let's hit the mailbag!
Why do the SPI standings get shuffled around so much near the top and bottom? It seems like teams in the Also-Rans and the Cellar Dwellers can go up or down by as much as five spots from day to day. What gives?
Randy C., Tempe
Randy, that's a good question. If you take a look at the standings in those divisions, you'll notice that sometimes as many as five teams are separated by less than a tenth of a point. If one team has a particularly good game, they can leapfrog several teams in one go. It's similar to the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. If a team has an off night, they'll probably fall a few spots if they're in a tight race. Meanwhile, Boston can have an off weekend and still stay in third because of their comfortable lead (nearly a full point) over fourth place.
I don't get why you don't factor strength of schedule into the SPI. It seems like a 12-run win over the Nationals shouldn't count more than a one run win over the Cubs. Isn't beating the Cubs a higher accomplishment than beating the Nats?
Jerry, Kennewick WA
You know, I thought about adding a strength of schedule multiplier into the formula, but in the end, I decided against it. Here's why - the best teams are the one that win by the most runs. It shouldn't matter who they beat. If anything, you should expect a good team to destroy Washington this year. They're the worst team in baseball, right? If your team only beats the Nats by one run, aren't you wondering what went wrong there? Shouldn't you be destroying them every night?
If it helps, look at it this way. Suppose you have to bet your life on one team winning one game, and you only have two teams to choose. Team A usually wins by five or six runs a game. Team B usually wins, too, but they almost always need some late-game dramatics to pull it off. Which team are you going to bet your life on? If you're not lying or insane, you're picking Team A every time. Team A is more likely to win than Team B. Doesn't that make them a better team? Isn't that the definition of a good team? More likely to win than their opponent?
You keep talking about the Cubs like it's a foregone conclusion that they'll win the World Series this year. Isn't there a chance someone else will take it?
Ted, Long Island
There's absolutely a chance someone else will win it this year, Ted. It's just not a very good chance. Can you think of an NL team that can beat them in a series without home field advantage? Philadelphia? Milwaukee? The Mets? (I'm not even willing to consider an NL West team here.) I think you're pretty safe pencilling them in for a World Series berth this year, barring any huge upsets. The AL has three teams that could give them a run (the White Sox, Red Sox, and Rays), but even still, I don't see the Series going past six games. Right now, the calculator give the Cubs a 68% chance of winning the Series against their toughest possible opponent, the White Sox. This year, they're just that far ahead of the rest of the league. It's like the Red Sox were last year.
How about those wild card races? Any predictions?
Mike D., Brooklyn
You have to admit, they're a lot closer than they looked a month ago. Right now, I like both Boston and Milwaukee to hold on, but we could realistically see either Minnesota or St. Louis sneaking into the playoffs. They're both only a game back. One good or bad week could completely change our playoff outlook.
Got a sports question? Send in an email (theboardoptimistic@gmail.com) or leave a comment to hear Optimistic.'s take!
Over the last week, we've watched the Chicago White Sox go from potential also-ran to administering death to all who oppose them. They've quietly been winning games (five straight, and eight of their last nine), and doing so by large enough margins to overtake the Red Sox for the number 2 position in the SPI standings. Their scoring differential over their last ten games is a staggering 52 runs, nearly double their nearest competitor, and giving them an average margin of over 5 runs a game. That's a far cry from the 0.929 runs per game they're at for the season, but it does lead us to this conclusion - if you have to play the White Sox this season, now isn't the time. Pray for rain.
That said, the other Chicago team is still mighty enough that I'm keeping tabs on how badly they would beat any AL team in the World Series. Their unadjusted SPI rating is nearly 1.5 points ahead of second place. (Their adjusted SPI rating isn't nearly so dominant, thanks to the White Sox, but it's safe to say that recent hot streak won't last. They can't go on winning games by eight and twelve runs a game forever.) Assuming the two teams with the highest SPI ratings - the two Chicago teams - make it to the World Series, we could expect to see the Cubs win more than 66% of the time. (For those wondering, that's a very high expectation for victory.) Even more astonishing is the fact that you could expect a Cubs sweep nearly 9% of the time. Granted, this doesn't take into account the unique situation of having every game in Chicago, so all expectations for road and home winning percentages go out the window, but still, it's eye-opening.
In other news, not that anyone else cares about the Colorado Rockies but me, but the Rox are climbing back up the standings again, thanks to their second win over the Dodgers and their fifth straight. With any luck, they'll continue to rise, although it would take a finish like last year's to get them back into the playoffs. Here's hoping.
Anyone want to take a guess as to what this graph might be? It's a graph of what the SPI predicts each MLB team's win-loss record will be at the end of this season. Putting it in this form lets us see a few things that aren't quite as evident from just looking at the numbers.
Take a look at the upper left and right corners. At the end of the blue and red lines (for wins and losses, respectively), we see a sharp jump. Those sharp jumps indicate the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals, each of whom are our outliers. The Cubs are far better than any other team, and are forecast to win six more games than the runners-up, the Boston Red Sox. At the other end of the curve, we see that the Nationals are far worse than any other team, coming up with seven more losses than the runners-up, the Kansas City Royals. It's interesting enough that we see significant spikes on both ends of the graph, but what's even more interesting is that the worst team in the league ends up being just as bad as the best team is good. The Cubs are forecast to finish at 104-58, while the Nationals are forecast at 58-104. That's an interesting balance.
Does that imply that the good teams in the league are equally balanced out by the bad? Not exactly. The graph shows us that the intersection of the two lines isn't quite at their midpoints, but about 60% of the way toward the right side. Simply put, that means 60% of the teams in the league could be loosely classified as "good," while the other 40% could be classified as "bad." Of course, some "good" teams are better than others, but the classification is enough for our purposes. It shows us that overall, we have more good teams competing with each other and slightly fewer teams getting beaten up on. That makes for a more entertaining league, I think. Better to have more teams worth watching instead of four fantastic teams and 26 terrible ones.
Is there anyone who wants to argue that the Cubs and the Red Sox aren't far and away the two best teams in baseball right now? I know the the Angels have a better record than both of them, and that both teams have a losing record away from home, but these two teams have been on top of the standings for a while now, and they're starting to pull away from the rest of the league. The Cubs have a per game scoring differential of nearly 1.3 runs, which, if they keep it up, will be good enough for third-best of the last thirty years (of World Series champions, at least). Very impressive. Boston isn't far behind, winning their games by .975 runs.
Of course, it's worth noting that over the last thirty years, only four teams have won the World Series with a losing record on the road. I'm willing to bet that either of these teams could overcome that, given their massive scoring differential, but let's put it to the test. Suppose the Boston Red Sox and the L.A. Angels were to meet in the ALCS tomorrow. The Angels would have home field advantage, so four games would be in L.A. and three in Boston. Who would be most likely to win? Our win percentage calculator says that in such an ALCS, the Angels would win 42.2% of the time, while Boston wins 57.4% of the time. Advantage, Boston, even without the home field edge. What about a potential Cubs-Angels World Series? Once again, we turn to the win calculator, and once again, the Angels get home field advantage thanks to their record. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter for the Angels, since they fare even worse against the Cubs. The Angels' chances fall to 34% against the Cubs, with Chicago winning the World Series nearly 66% of the time. (11.6% of the time, the Cubs win in a sweep. Yikes.)
In short, it looks like it's a good year to be a Cubs fan. They're on a pace to steamroll everyone who gets in their path, no matter how attractive a hot team like the Angels or the Brewers (31.5% chance of winning the World Series against the Red Sox) may look now.
It looks like the adjusted SPI is proving to be a more accurate predictor of a team's success than the unadjusted version was. Of the eight teams that would make the playoffs if the season ended today, seven of them are in the top seven. (Arizona, the outlier, comes in at a distant 17th.) Milwaukee and Tampa are riding significant hot streaks to carry them into the upper reaches of the SPI. Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia have each amassed enough runs to be safe for some time. And MInnesota and Los Angeles are starting to look like legitimate threats in the postseason. Here's how things would shake out if the playoffs started today, with each team's SPI rating in parentheses:
ALCS
Los Angeles (5) vs. Boston (2)
Tampa (3) vs. Minnesota (7)
NLCS
Chicago (1) vs. Arizona (17)
Philadelphia (6) vs. Milwaukee (4)
Maybe it's just me, but all of those look like really good series to me - even the Cubs-Diamondbacks series. If things keep up at this rate, we're in for a really good (and Yankees-free!) postseason.
I've made a couple of discoveries in the last few days by playing with the SPI and seeing what I could come up with. Here are the new tools that I've come up with.
Adjusted SPI. This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but I didn't want to expend the energy necessary to make it. I added a function that calculates a team's SPI over its last ten games, then factors that into its overall SPI rating. This gives teams on a winning streak a boost to reflect recent performance, while holding back teams that aren't doing so well. I wanted to find a way to take into account how a team is doing currently, since a team that has been bad for most of the year but is playing good recently should be rated higher than the current SPI format would place them. Adding this into the SPI ratings shakes things up considerably. The Chicago Cubs, already dominating the league, earn an extra full point, widening the already considerable distance between them and the Red Sox. The Chicago White Sox and Oakland A's, both slumping, see their ratings drop considerably. While the unadjusted SPI is still the best measure of a team's overall performance and potential, the adjusted SPI more accurately reflects how a team is likely to do over the course of their next few games, which brings us to the next new tool.
Series percentage calculator. By plugging two teams' adjusted SPI ratings into this calculator, you can see each team's forecasted success in an upcoming series. For example, let's consider the series between the Padres and the Mets. By plugging each team's SPI ratings into the calculator, we see that the Mets have a 68.9% chance of winning each game, and a 77% chance of winning the series (either winning two or three games). So far, the Padres and the Mets have each won one game, with the final game being played today. (The Mets lead 2-1 in the top of the 6th.) The calculator predicted a 44.3% chance of the Mets winning the series 2-1 and a 20% chance of the Padres winning 2-1. Based on that, we can see that the Mets are more than twice as likely to win this game than the Padres.
Neither of these tools are foolproof, not being based in actual statistics, but I think they correspond pretty closely with what we can see happening in the league. I'll continue to play with them and post updates as I see fit.
While I'm aware that this blog's readership hovers around zero, my legions of imaginary readers have often asked me how I determine which teams belong in which categories. It's a good question, and you'll be pleased to know that it's not simply random or arbitrary. I'll break it down for you.
The Contenders. These are teams whose SPI ratings indicate that they are legitimate challengers for the World Series. They also tend to be teams with SPI ratings higher than 8.000. I calculated the SPI ratings of the past 30 World Series champions (back to the 1977 Yankees) and found that the average World Series winner rates an 8.179, after outliers are removed. (I took out the 1998 Yankees (12.510 SPI) and 1987 Twins (5.050) to get a clearer picture of championship talent.) I shifted the cutoff down to an even 8.000 to include more teams, and if a team is close enough to the cutoff (like the Phillies, with a 7.960 SPI rating), I add them in, too. Sometimes a team is far enough ahead of the rest of the pack to warrant a new category - "The Juggernaut." With the Cubs more than a full point ahead of their nearest competitor, I feel they deserve the title.
The Sleepers. These are teams that could conceivably sneak into the playoffs and make some noise, but I wouldn't put any money on them winning a championship. I generally include teams with SPI ratings between 7.999 and 6.500. Ten of the last thirty World Series champions have had ratings in that range (most recently the 2005 White Sox, 7.735 SPI), so a champion from this point range isn't unheard of, but it is somewhat less than likely. Interestingly enough, many of the teams that generate significant media attention as the Next Big Thing (recently the Rays and the Angels) tend to come from this group.
The Also-Rans. These are teams that will finish with a winning record, but not make the playoffs. I generally list teams between 6.499 and 5.500. (5.500 represents a team with equal amounts of wins and losses and a zero run differential.) Only one World Series champion in the past 30 years has fallen into this category - the 2006 Cardinals, widely regarded as one of the worst champions in history.
Barely Above Water. These tend to be teams struggling to keep a winning record. Their SPI ratings are between 5.499 and 4.500. One World Series champion - the 1987 Twins, 5.050 SPI - came from this group.
Cellar Dwellers. Self-explanatory. SPI lower than 4.499, unless circumstances warrant the creation of an extra group (like with The Contenders), such as this year, when I created an extra group just for the Washington Nationals, who have dazzled the league with their mediocrity. The Nationals, though clearly the worst team this year, are nowhere near the worst. The Diamondbacks and the Tigers have each achieved negative SPI rankings in past years, so the Nationals, though bad this year, are far from historically bad.
