Were the 1994 Expos Just Lucky?

Estimating the “real” skill level of a team

Phil Birnbaum – www.philbirnbaum.com

The W-L Record and Luck Imagine a .500 team’s record as a

series of 162 coin tosses Heads=Win, Tails=Loss Standard Deviation of wins = 6.3

games In a 30-team league, 5 teams will be

better than 87-75 1.5 teams will be more extreme than

94-68 or 68-94, just by chance

Statistical Evidence of Luck Suppose a team is lucky and wins

more games than its talent. How does this happen?

Can break down into five non-overlapping ways:

Five Ways to be Lucky Hitters having unexpected “career years” Pitchers having unexpected “career years” Team scoring more runs than expected by

their batting line Beating “Runs Created” estimate, perhaps by clutch hitting

Team allowing fewer runs than expected by the opposition’s batting line

Getting out of jams while opposition “chokes”

Team winning more games than expected by its Runs Scored/Runs Allowed

Pythagorean Projection -- scoring runs in games where they’re most needed

Players Having Career Years Players can play over their heads Shows up in a player’s career stats as a “career

year” Example: Jim Clancy, 1982 From 1980 to 1984, Component ERAs were:

3.60, 4.71, 3.36, 3.96, 4.05 Estimate Clancy was 31 runs better than

expected in 1982 At 10 runs per win, the 1982 Jays were “lucky”

by three games because of Clancy’s career year

Players Having Career Years This is new research Algorithm to take the previous two years and

next two years, and estimate what the player “should have” done in the middle year

Rough idea: average the four years, regress to the mean, and adjust for playing time

Work in progress – probably not too accurate, but good enough to distinguish lucky from unlucky in most cases

Hopefully similar to examining each case “by hand”

Algorithm available on request

The 1994 Expos The 1994 Expos went 74-40. Were

they lucky or unlucky? And by how much?

We’ll go through the five steps.

1994 Expos Hitters having career years

Overall, the Expos hitters created 76 runs more than expected

Moises Alou +25, Wil Cordero +18, Larry Walker +16

Mike Lansing –8 had the worst off-year

1994 Expos Pitchers having career years

Overall, the Expos pitchers were 49 runs better than expected

Butch Henry +20, Jeff Fassero +10, Ken Hill +9

Kirk Rueter –8 had the worst off-year

1994 Expos Expos undershot their runs created

by total -29 runs Expos opponents undershot their

runs created by 3 runs Expos overshot their Pythagorean

Projection by 2.85 wins, or 28 runs

1994 Expos Add it all up

+76 = hitters’ career years +49 = pitchers’ career years -29 = runs created +3 = opposition runs created +28 = pythagorean projection

Total: +128 runs

1994 Expos The Expos were lucky by +128

runs That’s 12.8 wins – call it 13 wins Instead of 74-40, we estimate their

real talent was 61-53

1994 National League East Actual Luck Projected

Expos 74-40 +13 61-53

Braves 68-46 + 1 67-47

Mets 55-58 + 4 51-62

Phillies 54-61 - 3 57-58

Marlins 51-64 - 1 52-63

Fun Stuff Which were the luckiest and

unluckiest teams from 1960-2001? Some results surprising to me – for

example, the unluckiest team …

The 1995 Toronto Blue Jays The 1995 Blue Jays

Hitters were –72 Pitchers were –50 RC –43 Opposition RC –6 Pythagoras –24

Total: -196 runs in only 144 games The Jays were 56-88 – should have

been 76-68

Top Unlucky Teams

62 Mets 40-120 61-99 -21

79 A’s 54-108 74-88 -20

95 Blue Jays 56- 88 76-68 -20

87 Indians 61-101 81-81 -20

98 Mariners 76- 85 95-66 -20

…

69 Expos 52-110 66-96 -14

Luckiest Teams The luckiest team, 1960-2001 was,

by a very wide margin …

The 2001 Seattle Mariners The 2001 Seattle Mariners

Hitters were +127 Pitchers were +116 RC -21 Opposition RC +3 Pythagoras +49

Total: 273 runs! The Mariners were 116-46; should have been 89-73 That same year, the Angels were 11 games unlucky,

and should have been 86-76 The Angels finished 41 games behind Seattle – should

have been only 3 games 38 game difference from just luck!

The Luckiest Teams

01 Mariners 116-46 89-73 +2798 Yankees 114-48 92-70 +2260 Pirates 95-59 76-78 +1992 A’s 96-66 77-85 +1985 Cardinals 101-61 83-79 +1862 Dodgers 102-63 84-81 +18…

94 Expos 74-40 61-53 +1393 Blue Jays 95-67 88-74 +7

The Best Teams Which were the best teams in

terms of talent? That is, after all the luck was

stripped out, which teams remained truly great?

The Best Teams Only 3 teams from 1960-2001 had an

expected talent of 100+ games This seems too small, but makes sense

– for instance, there are many players who go 2-for-4, but none who are truly .500 hitters

But 21 teams were expected 100-game losers

The Best Teams1969 Baltimore Orioles 102

1998 Atlanta Braves 102

1997 Atlanta Braves 100

1970 Baltimore Orioles 99

1974 Los Angeles Dodgers 98

1975 Cincinnati Reds 98

…

1992 Toronto Blue Jays 95

1982 Montreal Expos 92

The Worst Teams1965 New York Mets 54

1977 Toronto Blue Jays 54

1972 Texas Rangers 57

1969 San Diego Padres 57

1977 Seattle Mariners 57

1971 San Diego Padres 58

1964 New York Mets 58

…

1970 Montreal Expos 65

Lucky and Unlucky Players Unusual seasons are not always luck; can be

Playing injured Cheating (Norm Cash) Sudden maturation Sudden loss of effectiveness (Steve Blass) Learning a new skill or new pitch

For instance, consider the unluckiest player from 1960-2001, who cost his team 6 games by playing below expectations …

Dave Stieb, 1986 Component ERA:

1984, 2.77 1985, 2.75 1986, 5.86 1987, 3.78 1988, 2.81

Why did Stieb have a bad 1986? I couldn’t find any evidence of injury. Could it

really have been just bad luck?

The Unluckiest Players1986 Dave Stieb -601999 Jeff Fassero -561997 Albert Belle -531997 Scott Brosius -501973 Steve Blass -501980 Dennis Lamp -481962 Ron Santo -471997 Sammy Sosa -45

…2000 Roy Halladay -411971 Carl Morton -38

The Luckiest Players1972 Steve Carlton +631980 Mike Norris +601961 Norm Cash +601963 Dick Ellsworth +581993 John Olerud +581996 Ed Correa +541970 Billy Grabarkewitz +541991 Cal Ripken +52 …1978 Ross Grimsley +461970 Cito Gaston +46

Slides/spreadsheets will be at:

www.philbirnbaum.com/luck.pptwww.philbirnbaum.com/luckall.xlswww.philbirnbaum.com/players.xls