Necessary Records
Winning % needed by M’s to finish one game ahead of Los Angeles in a few different scenarios, and the Angels corresponding win% needed to finish with one less win than listed.
90 wins: .663 (69-35), .524 (54-49)
91 wins: .673 (70-34), .534 (55-48)
92 wins: .683 (71-33), .544 (56-47)
93 wins: .693 (72-32), .553 (57-46)
94 wins: .702 (73-31), .563 (58-45)
If you think the Angels play just over .500 ball the rest of the way, then the M’s only have to play about as well as the 1928 Yankees the rest of the way to beat LA by one game (assuming Oakland doesn’t win 91). If you think the Angels will play a little worse than they’ve played so far, but still be about what we expected them to be before the season, then the M’s need to play more like the 1927 Yankees.
Either way, the conclusion is obvious – trade for Babe Ruth.
The optimism for redeeming the season won’t abate from the M’s org anytime soon. There are too many tickets left to sell. That alone will keep them from giving up anytime soon. However, some of the moves we talk about wouldn’t necessarily be giving up and looking ahead to 2009, they could as easily be trying to improve for the current season, so we can still hope for changes.
As far as the win % needed to catch the Angels, I’d throw in some % figures for 89, 88, 87, even 86 wins. Sure it means the A’s getting caught too, and the Angels would have to play below .500 in some cases, but that’s more realistic than the M’s playing like the old Yankees.
Wait a minute, Edgar and Boone are available – they could turn into the 2001 Mariners!
46 – that is outrageously depressing – but well deserved. hopefully Sexson wont be a member of the 100/100 club (100 k’s and less than 100 hits).
What a loser.
Bring on ‘The Babe’ cause I’m sure he’ll have mass cases of South Pacific,
SP Lager and Niugini Ice! YEAH BABY!!
A guy who refuses to pay child support and tries to lie his way out of it on Judge Judy is a loser. Richie Sexson simply isn’t a very good baseball player anymore.
I see Josh Hamilton has bumped Ichiro! to third in the AL AS voting …
it was up the stairs, thus increasing the difficulty quotient.
So that’s why he got such a high score from the East German judge!
I was kind of wondering about Bavasi’s record as GM when he was with the Angels. I knew that he has never GM’d a playoff team. What I didn’t know is that he has never had a team finish 3rd, either!
Angels (1994-1999): 4th, 2nd, 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 4th
M’s (2003-2008): 2nd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, sure looks like 4th.
So, in 11 years, five 2nd’s, 6 4th’s. Assuming that we finish 4th again this year, that’ll be 7 last-place finishes in 12 years as a GM.
But he’s averaging third place. And dropping.
The M’s are 21-37, .362, which projects out to 58-104. With a $118M payroll, that projects out to $2M/win. That’s Yankees territory. In fact, Yankees $/win the last five years:
2007 … 2.02M
2006 … 2.01M
2005 … 2.19M
2004 … 1.82M
2003 … 1.51M
And note that’s evidence of deep pockets, not bad play: those Yankees teams won well over 90 games each of those seasons. No other team in the history of baseball has wasted that much money in pursuit of fewer wins; the next highest is the 66 win 2003 Mets (1.78M/win) and last year’s 72 win White Sox ($1.51M/win). Spending $2M per win and not reaching even 60 wins would be some kind of spectacular new benchmark in inefficiency.
And frankly, I don’t think the M’s are that bad. I’d like to think they could still pull it together and reach .500, but that’s an increasingly distant prospect. To do that, they’d have to go 60-44 (.577) the rest of the way, which doesn’t sound that difficult unless you’ve been paying attention to the litany of incompetence this team has been demonstrating so far this year.
I would be totally stunned if the M’s made it back to .500 this year. It’s more likely that they’ll lose 100 games….