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October 26, 2010I’m going to warn you up front: I have no idea whether this post is going to make any sense or not. It’s mostly the sort of thing that a baseball fan thinks about once the season is over. That is to say, it might be a waste of my time. More certainly, it will be a waste of your time. Regardless, I plan on getting to some thoughts on the NFL, the bi-polar nature of Pittsburgh, and a baseball statistic that I will invent. How’s that for a tease?
The first warning sign that this would be a weird writing experience should have been my inspiration: George Will. George and I do not tend to see the world the same way. You might even say he and I disagree on nearly everything. But he does write some pretty interesting things about baseball from time to time, and I generally find his take on the sport to be fairly thoughtful.
Anyway, here’s what George Will said that got me thinking:
“Every teams wins 50 games. Every team loses 50 games. You’re playing for the other 62.”*
*The quote comes from Will’s seminal baseball tome, Men At Work, and might actually be ascribed to Tommy LaSorda. I don’t remember off the top of my head.
And, in looking over baseball history, it’s pretty much dead-on accurate. You almost never see a team that didn’t win and lose at least 50 games in a season. This, of course, sent me to the WFNY research headquarters (i.e. “the internet”) to find some numbers. Here are the teams that haven’t won and lost at least 50 games in the same season over the last 10 years:
- The 2003 Detroit Tigers won only 43 games, and lost 119. This was, interestingly, before the stat-world exploded over the notion of “replacement” players, but it has since been noted that if you fielded a team made solely of replacement players, they should win 46 games. That means the 2003 Tigers were worse than your run-of-the-mill AAA team. You might remember, they had a 21-game loser in Mike Maroth. But they also had a 19-game loser (a young Jeremy Bonderman) and a 17-game loser (Nate Cornejo). The team’s winning percentage was .265—the worst of the modern-era and the eighth worst all-time.
- The 2001 Seattle Mariners won 116 games, and lost 46. The team was stacked, to be sure, but, oddly, the only important statistics in which they led the league were on-base percentage, ERA, and Total Zone Rating. They didn’t have huge strikeout pitchers (sixth in the league in K/9) and they didn’t have huge power hitters (fourth in the league in slugging despite leading in batting average). They had also just dumped A-Rod on the Rangers. Was it just one of those lucky, magical seasons in which everything goes right? If so, don’t tell them: they lost to the Yankees in the ALCS in one of the few series where you could legitimately call the Yankees “underdogs”.
That’s it. That’s the whole list. In the last ten years—so that’s 300 ‘team seasons’—only twice has a team won or lost fewer than 50 games. It’s exceedingly rare.
In fact, when I pushed the threshold up to 60 games, more than 95% of all seasons fell within that range.
Which, of course, got my mind spinning. If you can typically expect to “start” an MLB season with 60 wins and 60 losses, you should be able to evaluate a team’s “true talent” by looking at what happens in the remaining 42 games.
I started by concentrating on the AL central, because that’s how we roll ‘round these parts. Check this out. First the actual numbers:
2005-2010 | Wins | Losses | W% |
Minnesota | 527 | 447 | 54.1% |
Chicago | 517 | 456 | 53.1% |
Detroit | 495 | 478 | 50.9% |
Cleveland | 483 | 490 | 49.6% |
Kansas City | 394 | 578 | 40.5% |
From 2005 to 2010, the only team not within 5% of a 50-50 record is the Kansas City Royals—one of the most inept franchises of the last several decades. On the other end of the spectrum, the dominant Minnesota Twins—who have won the division three times in the last six years (and missed winning once by just one game) only has a .541 winning percentage. Your Cleveland Indians are just a hair under 50%.
But what if we “adjusted” those numbers to account for the “automatic” 60 wins and 60 losses? What does the division look like then? We’ll call these figures “adjusted wins” and “adjusted losses”—I’ve just subtracted out 60 wins and losses from each season total, leaving only 42 “adjusted games” per season.
2005-2010 | aWins | aLosses | aW% |
Minnesota | 167 | 87 | 65.7% |
Chicago | 157 | 96 | 62.1% |
Detroit | 135 | 118 | 53.4% |
Cleveland | 123 | 130 | 48.6% |
Kansas City | 34 | 218 | 13.5% |
Now we’re getting somewhere. In the games that matter—those 42 that are up for grabs each year—Minnesota has .657 winning percentage over the last six seasons while Kansas City’s is .135. The Indians, obviously, fall a little further below .500 to a .486 winning percentage. For reference, the Yankees actual winning percentage over the last six years is .590. Their “adjusted” winning percentage is .845!
I know what you’re thinking: why in the world are you wasting all of this time? What is wrong with you, Jon?!?! I honestly don’t know. The Indians’ season has been over for less than a month, and I’m already losing my mind.
But one of the reasons I wanted to look at baseball records this way is because I’ve been trying to think about how to compare MLB’s win-loss records to the NFL’s. I know that a lot of people like to divide an MLB record by 10, since there are about ten times as many games in baseball, but it obviously doesn’t work. In baseball, it’s quite rare to find a team with a winning percentage below 40%; but in the NFL, that would make your record 6-10, which happens all the time, and would be considered a success by quite a few Clevelanders I know.
So what to do? How might we compare MLB won-loss records to NFL won-loss records? Well, this was my way of getting there. Since every game in the NFL “matters”, but only 42 games in the MLB “matter”, we’ll just compare the NFL’s actual records to MLB’s “adjusted” records. FUN!!
Let’s look at the AFC Central over the last six years:
2004-2009 | Wins | Losses | W% |
Pittsburgh | 65 | 31 | 67.7% |
Baltimore | 53 | 43 | 55.2% |
Cincinnati | 48 | 47 | 50.5% |
Cleveland | 33 | 63 | 34.4% |
Starting to look familiar? The best team in the division wins about two-thirds of the time, just like the best team in our “adjusted” AL Central. The worst team—they should ring a bell—won only 34% of its games.
So let’s look at this globally. Here are the records for every NFL team over the last six seasons, sorted from best to worst:
NFL | 2004-2009 | ||
W | L | W% | |
IND | 77 | 19 | 80.2% |
NE | 73 | 23 | 76.0% |
SD | 67 | 29 | 69.8% |
PIT | 65 | 31 | 67.7% |
PHI | 57 | 38 | 60.0% |
DAL | 57 | 39 | 59.4% |
NYG | 55 | 41 | 57.3% |
DEN | 55 | 41 | 57.3% |
MIN | 53 | 43 | 55.2% |
CAR | 53 | 43 | 55.2% |
BAL | 53 | 43 | 55.2% |
CHI | 52 | 44 | 54.2% |
GB | 52 | 44 | 54.2% |
JAC | 52 | 44 | 54.2% |
ATL | 50 | 46 | 52.1% |
SEA | 50 | 46 | 52.1% |
NO | 49 | 47 | 51.0% |
TEN | 48 | 47 | 50.5% |
CIN | 48 | 48 | 50.0% |
NYJ | 46 | 50 | 47.9% |
ARZ | 43 | 53 | 44.8% |
WAS | 42 | 54 | 43.8% |
TB | 41 | 55 | 42.7% |
BUF | 41 | 55 | 42.7% |
HOU | 40 | 56 | 41.7% |
MIA | 38 | 58 | 39.6% |
KC | 36 | 60 | 37.5% |
SF | 33 | 63 | 34.4% |
CLE | 33 | 63 | 34.4% |
STL | 28 | 68 | 29.2% |
OAK | 25 | 71 | 26.0% |
DET | 23 | 73 | 24.0% |
No real surprises there. Oakland and Detroit have been the worst teams, Indianapolis and New England the best.
But now let’s compare the NFL’s benchmark of success and failure to MLB’s. And remember: I’m going to be looking at the adjusted record of these teams over the last six years.
MLB | 2005-2010 | ||
aW | aL | aW% | |
NYY | 213 | 39 | 84.5% |
BOS | 196 | 56 | 77.8% |
LAA | 195 | 57 | 77.4% |
PHI | 171 | 81 | 67.9% |
MIN | 167 | 87 | 65.7% |
STL | 164 | 88 | 65.1% |
ATL | 159 | 93 | 63.1% |
CHW | 157 | 96 | 62.1% |
NYM | 146 | 106 | 57.9% |
LAD | 140 | 112 | 55.6% |
TOR | 136 | 116 | 54.0% |
DET | 135 | 118 | 53.4% |
TAM | 130 | 122 | 51.6% |
TEX | 130 | 122 | 51.6% |
OAK | 128 | 123 | 51.0% |
SDG | 127 | 125 | 50.4% |
CHC | 125 | 125 | 50.0% |
MIL | 126 | 126 | 50.0% |
FLA | 123 | 128 | 49.0% |
CLE | 123 | 130 | 48.6% |
COL | 122 | 130 | 48.4% |
SFG | 114 | 138 | 45.2% |
CIN | 108 | 144 | 42.9% |
HOU | 101 | 151 | 40.1% |
ARI | 100 | 152 | 39.7% |
SEA | 82 | 170 | 32.5% |
WAS | 52 | 199 | 20.7% |
BAL | 51 | 200 | 20.3% |
KC | 34 | 218 | 13.5% |
PIT | 28 | 223 | 11.2% |
Again, the order of the list shouldn’t be surprising. The fact that the Yankees and Red Sox are the best teams and Kansas City and Pittsburgh are the worst is beyond obvious. That’s not what I’m looking at.
The point, rather, is the last column, and how it might relate to conversations about “parity” and competition. If it’s true that in baseball, you’re basically guaranteed of 60 wins and 60 losses, that means that in those 42 games that “count”, the worst team in baseball (Pittsburgh) wins only 11% of the time. In football, the worst team wins 24% of the time. Does that settle the debate? Is there more parity in the NFL than MLB?
I don’t know. I’ve lost my mind, remember?
Let’s look now at the most successful teams in both sports.
The best team in baseball—the New York Yankees—has won about 85% of its “meaningful” games over the past six years. They are followed by the Boston Red Sox (.778 aW%) and the Los Angeles Angels of et cetera (.774 aW%).
In the NFL, the top three franchises over the past six seasons have been the Colts (.802 W%), the Patriots (.760 W%), and the Chargers (.698 W%).
Pretty similar, actually. The lows in MLB are slightly lower and the highs slightly higher once we adjust the numbers, but in both sports, good teams win about 80% of their meaningful games. Further, the NFL has five teams that have won less than 35% of its games over this span; MLB has had six. I think the adjustment might be a meaningful one.
What that meaning actually is? That’s certainly beyond me, but it was fun putting these numbers together.
A few more observations before I go:
- The Colts are obviously the Yankees of the NFL. And I suppose that sounds like it might be taken as a compliment by some. The converse though? I’m going to start calling the Yankees “The Indianapolis of Baseball”. I’m expecting some confused looks.
- Boston is the only city in the top five of both lists. Can someone find Bill Simmons and kick him in the face? Enough with the whining and the curses already.
- Pittsburgh is the only city to appear in the top five of one list and the bottom five of the other (though St. Louis isn’t too far off). So the next time you meet a Steelers fan, be sure to mention the Pirates. And kick him in the face too.
- The Indians’ (.486 aW%) closest NFL equivalent over the last six years? Would you believe it’s the New York Jets (.479 W%)? There has to be some Eric Mangini/Mark Shapiro/In-law joke to be made about this.
- The Browns’ (.344 W%) closest MLB equivalent over the last six years? That would be the Seattle Mariners (.325 aW%). I don’t know about you, but I #BlameBranyan.
20 Comments
Good stuff.
I tried plotting the percentages, but couldn’t tell what it meant.
all this is really close to meaning something important..i just can’t figure out what.
@ hans — it means that bad teams typically lost games when the good teams won them. It also means that baseball is almost worthless to watch because big market teams buy up all the talent and no one, not even the commissioner, will stand up to them.
Can’t get much better than numbers a face-kicking. Excellent stuff.
It also means:
DOLAN IS CHEAP! WE NEED A NEW OWNER…
Sorry, just wanted to beat some to the punch…
I blame Branyan.
Good read on a slow work day for me… thanks Jon. I would take it to mean exactly what was insinuated… the people who think there is parity in baseball are wrong. Parity exists in football because of the salary cap. It doesn’t really exist in baseball or basketball (although the soft cap is a very tricky way to make you think teams like Minnesota, Cleveland, and Memphis can compete for a title).
I think it means Larry Dolan needs to make a “What Should I Do?” commercial.
“Should I be who you want me to be?” [cut to shot of Mark Cuban]
“Should I spend like the Yankees?” [cut to shot of Dolan makin’ it rain in a strip club]
“Should I give in to the fight?” [cut to shot of Travis Hafner striking out]
“Should I keep grinding?” [cut to shot of Eric Wedge’s moustache]
“Should I WAKE UP?” [cut to shot of Dolan sleeping during game in 2009]
I think we’re on to something here…
For some reason this reminds me of the scene in A Nightmare Before Christmas where Jack is conducting scientific experiments on Christmas ornaments.
and yes, I know that population can be misleading. Obviously Detroit is large yet financially is in bad shape, etc. I just looked at it this was so I thought I’d post it for any other numbers nerds.
@VP, who thinks there is parity in baseball? I will kick them in the face
@Rick, lol
@oribiasi, or maybe it means baseball is worthless to watch because only 26% of the games matter. NOW WE JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHICH ONES!!!
Nice piece! And I second the kick Bill Simmons in the face request!
Btw, you should try to agree with George Will more – he’s very wise. I’ve read a bunch of his books – dude gets it.
I “wasted some time” too and compared your list to city population ranks. Pretty much getting nowhere, but maybe it shows the “big-market” advantage isn’t as clear cut. But probably not, haha.
Here it is by division since records reflect playing division opponents more often:
(ranking: 1=biggest population in division, 2=second, etc)
AL: Central 5,1,2,4,3
East 1,3,2,5,4
West 1,2,4,3
NL: Central 4,1,3,5,2,6
East 2,3,5,1,4
West 1,3,5,4,2
AFC: North 4,1,3,2
South 3,2,4,1
West 1,2,3,4
East 2,1,4,3
NFC: North 3,1,4,2
South 1,2,3,4
West 3,1,2,4
East 2,3,1,4
and overall…
MLB: 1,15,3,10,26,27,20,5,1,3,8,13,28,12,25,11,5,19,21,24,18,14,29,7,9,17,20,16,22,30
NFL: 12,14,7,30,6,8,1,17,25,13,15,3,32,11,20,16,27,18,29,1,5,19,28,31,4,22,21,10,23,26,24,9
haha, numbers!
can we save our best pitchers for those 42 games? if they are spaced out enough, we might be able to have Carmona start half of them.
seriously though, good stuff and I like the adjusted wins idea.
you may have a bit more luck mainstreaming your idea if you go with a 46/46 ‘WARteam’ baseline and draw conclusions from there. But 95% is pretty good…
@ hans:
I actually thought about doing that, and for some reason, didn’t do it. The problem, if I recall, was that 46 is a good baseline for how many games all teams will WIN, but I didn’t feel comfortable assuming that’s also the baseline for how many games all teams LOSE. Further, I wanted to skew the numbers as much as possible (to make it look more like football), so I went with the highest possible assumption (60 games rather than 46).
In retrospect though? I think you’re right: that would be the way to do it.
Another possible measure of parity: # of different teams winning the championship of their league. The figures below represent the number of unique teams that have won the championship of their league in the last 10, 20 and 30 years.
(League) – 10 years – 20 – 30
MLB: 8 – 12 – 18
NFL: 7 – 13 – 15
NBA: 5 – 7 – 8
EPL: 3 – 4* – n/a (EPL founded in 92, so no data for 30 years)
NHL: 8 – 11 – 13
What does this say? Well, the MLB isn’t so bad, and roughly comparable to the NFL. The NBA is awful. The EPL is worse, and if you ever encounter someone who seriously argues that relegation is a good idea in the NFL/MLB/NBA/etc… you can feel free to immediately discard their opinion.
Keep in mind that the Yankees have won 7 times since the Free Agent Era began some 35 years ago. So while some people may complain that the Yankees “win all the time”, it’s just… not true at all. By comparison, in a similar time frame the Steelers AND the 49ers have won 5 super bowls.
Is there a way to compare the size of a team’s media deals (TV, radio, whatever) with their ranking here? That might be a better comparison than straight “market” population. Also be interesting to see comparisons with payroll, for the baseball at least.