Comments on: A couple of six game winning streaks

By: tomas

tomas — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:46:11 +0000

This is one of those win 1, lose 5-6, win 1,, lose 5-6 teams.

By: joser

joser — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:25:07 +0000

Well, yeah. What are wins and losses anyway? The standings are just numbers. They’re just stats. And we all know that stats only matter to guys sitting in their parent’s basements; they don’t reflect what really matters on a real baseball team, among guys who have actually put on a jock and spit out some chaw. They can’t capture the intangibles in the ballclub, the heart in the players, the grit in their play. They’re just meaningless numbers! In the land of Joe Morgan, we can all be winners if we just want it enough!

By: zugzwang

zugzwang — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:56:49 +0000

mkd — brilliant ideas. Let’s gin up some experts and have hit the media to repeat the mantra that the so-called “standings” do not reflect the essential qualities of baseball teams. Let’s find some metric that we excel at, like, say, balls put in play on pitches outside the strike zone.

By: mkd

mkd — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:06:15 +0000

Cool- somebody beat me to it. The last headline in the Ms Wikipedia timeline reads:

2007-Present: Return to Contention

That’s the spirit! Screw the reality based community. We don’t read history- we make (up) history!

By: mkd

mkd — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:01:46 +0000

If you switch the coolstandings.com settings to “dumb” mode our odds of going to the playoffs jump from 2.4% to 7.7%. Awesome! I’ll bet if you set it to “retarded” it would jump to 14%. And if you set it to “Bavasi” (ie “persistent vegetative state” mode) it would jump to 34.2%. Not even “clump of dirt” mode gives us a better than 50% chance of getting in. We suck.

That’s why I say we need to concentrate all our efforts on willfully rewriting reality. It’s the only way we’re ever gonna get to the playoffs. In fact- I’m gonna go update our Wikipedia entry right now. League Best ERA here we come!

By: joser

joser — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:53:58 +0000

Let’s review the 2001 season, shall we? Overall, that team won at a .716 clip. Its worst months were June and July, when it went .667; in April, when it went .800, it only had one run of 6+ wins (Apr 19- Apr 28, 9 wins). Overall, it had five streaks of 6+ wins (May 9 – May 17, 8 wins; May 23- June 8, 15 wins(!); Sept 5 – Sept 19, 7 wins; and Sept 30 – Oct 6, 6 wins). Of course it had lots of runs of 4 and 5 wins, but the point being — you have to be good to have streaks like that. Oh, yeah: you can’t lose in streaks like that, either.

By: CaptainPoopy

CaptainPoopy — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:05:12 +0000

Geo- While we're not statistically out of it, it would almost take a miracle to get us back in it. Take a look at Coolstandings.com and you'd understand that our odds are quite astronomical. Now, you said;

I’m no math wiz but wouldn’t winning the next three series by 2-1 while the Angels lose the next three by 1-2 put the M’s 4.5 games out on May 25?

The problem with that is, you'd also need the Rangers AND the A's to both go on a losing streak at the same time as the Angels. I just don't see that happening. If the Angels lose 2-3 in a row and we win 2-3 in a row, who's to say that the Rangers or the A's didn't do the same. That means that we're (relatively) still in the same position. In order to pull this off, we'd need a 1995 miracle. Won't happen.

By: geo

geo — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:17:38 +0000

I’m no math wiz but wouldn’t winning the next three series by 2-1 while the Angels lose the next three by 1-2 put the M’s 4.5 games out on May 25? Is that so bad? Or is this thread one big inside joke that I am completely missing? Seriously, this is not sarcasm. 111 games would seem like a lot of time to make up 4.5 games.

By: north

north — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:15:28 +0000

Some Brit named Tolkein did some great fantasy writing too.

By: Sentinel

Sentinel — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:34:55 +0000

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… heh… woooo… that was funny, Derek. Are you gonna be here all week?