What's the correlation between pythag record and actual record?

The Los Angeles Angels' best player, Vladimir Guerrero, has struggled all season. John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, both Cy Young-caliber pitchers last year, started the season on the disabled list and have already missed more than three months on the DL combined. The infield has likewise been decimated by injuries throughout the year.

Luck?

when i have that kind of LUCK in vegas, i just go home.

I would have guess divine intervention.

Luck?

when i have that kind of LUCK in vegas, i just go home.

Great point GR.

They have great defense, tons of pitching depth, a low-pressure atmosphere and enoguht players that someone's going to be hot.

I always hated the angel's mix and match lineups, I preferred team that ran the same 9 out there everyday, with subs on sundays. Made up some theory about young guys not getting acclimated.
Still it's hard to argue withthe results in LA>

enoguht players that someone's going to be hot.

What does this even mean? Do they have more than 25 on their roster? That's an unfair advantage!

They have superb depth, and there's a good chance that anyone on their bench could go crazy and hit .375 for a month.

At least that's how I saw last years angels.

Are the Angel's still a high Ba team? or have their young guys and signings changed their nature?
Their hitting prospects never really pan out either do they? but their pitchers always exceed expectation. Weird.

Y'know ... I really dislike pythag.

Sure, it gives you some dimension of luck ... even ignoring issues of run distribution, pythag is just a measure of results (in terms of RS/RA), not true talent. As GR correctly points out, the Angels have had their share of bad breaks so far this year. They are pretty clearly the most talented team in the AL West ... even after the A's had Frank Thomas fall in their laps.

That they are still in first is, if anything, a testament that this was a team built to survive some bad luck.

Anyway, for in-season pythag, if you want to interpret as "this team has won more than you'd expect given their actual performance" I can live with that. But team performance over 1/3 of a season is a poor measure of true talent.

I agree, Walt, and don't mean to imply that the Angels are not a good team. They're a good team that's going to become very good once Lackey settles in, Vlad starts hitting and they get Figgins (and possibly Escobar back). It's just jarring how gaudy their record is right now, given how cruddy much of their lineup has been, and how some of their biggest stars have been hurt or ineffective. 40% of the season you do get small sample noise and all that--but SIX games above Pythag, I felt, was so big as to warrant a closer look, especially when the A's are two games below to boot.

We're in early June, and already it looks like the Angels might win the division again, and that for the fifth year in a row, people like me will lobby for them to acquire someone like Adam Dunn, they won't, and they'll be overmatched in the playoffs. The great depth that enables them to overcome injuries becomes less valuable when you just want to win a short series against a great team.

Hope I'm wrong. I'd like to see my man Vlad win one, for one thing.

as of right now, the Angels have scored and allowed the same number of runs, 274. before this season the Scoscia-managed Angels, from 2000-2006, played almost exactly to their pythagorean (2 games over, all told). so there's no demonstated Angel ability to exceed pythag.

surely what one can safely say is that the Angels going forward might do somewhat better at scoring (Vlad, Figgy) and preventing opponents from scoring (Lackey), while on the other hand experiencing a return to normal luck. they're playing .600 ball right now, but they could easily play better, run-wise, the rest of the way while only winning 55% of their remaining games....what's wrong with this thinking?

Their hitting prospects never really pan out either do they? but their pitchers always exceed expectation. Weird.

Call it the PCL effect. If you can pitch in those high elevation parks, you sure as heck can do it at sea level or close to it.

Their hitters aren't exactly disappointing; Casey Kotchman always figured to be a Mark Grace type at the lower end of his expectations, and that's what he's looking like (with maybe a bit more pop and a bit less OBP). Howie Kendrick was hitting .500 before he went down with a hammy injury; he's hit .380 at pretty much every level, and there's good reason to believe he'll get back there soon.

The Angels are way better than the A's right now. I wasn't surprised they took 2 of 3 from us this weekend, and, really, it could as just as easily have been a sweep.


It's still early in the season, and I'm not shocked that pythags are a little out of whack with actual results right now. I imagine that over time it'll straighten out and we won't have a situation with the A's and Angels re: pythag records like we do right now.

Joe Saunders is starting to return to earth, and Garland also will eventually. (Probably Santana, too.)

A few areas of concern:

-The bullpen. While Frankie has converted all but one save opportunities, his strikeout rate is down and his walk rate is way up (granted, he was battling soreness in both ankles in April). Shields just came back from a rib injury. Speier throws strikes but sometimes at inopportune times (off the top of my head I can think of three game-winning taters he served up to Hafner, Longoria and Crawford). The longman has been a disaster, as Chris Bootcheck never appeared in a game without giving up a run and Darren O'Day wasn't exactly inspiring either yesterday.

-The two S's. As Vaux pointed out, Saunders has been playing way above his head (his K/9 rate is down from last year). I believe today's shellacking at the hands of the Rays constitutes the necessary regression to the mean. I think Santana will hold up. The knock on him has always been attitude rather then talent, and he looks like a different pitcher this year than the petulant kid who had to be sent to Salt Lake last year. I wouldn't expect him to regress--after being lights out in April, he's merely been very good in May and June, which is all anyone can hope for from him.

-Garland. Hopefully some ChiSox fans can provide some insight, but I really don't understand how Garland has been effective thus far in his career. He walks about as many guys as he K's, and despite his sinker isn't a bona fide groundball pitcher. You never know which pitcher you're going to get (the one who K'd 8 on Saturday in Oakland, or the one who gave up 7 runs to Oakland in Anaheim in April). All you can ask for is that he eats innings, and I suspect whether or not he gets an extension depends largely on Nick Adenhart's progress at Salt Lake this season.

Reasons to be hopeful:

-The offense. It may seem paradoxical that I'd list this as a positive, since Casey Kotchman has been the only consistent player in the lineup. But the offense is here simply because it's been so bad that there's nowhere to go but up. Unless he's hiding injury, Vlad should return something similar to his career averages (.300 AVG, 20+ HR). While he may be an overpaid fourth outfielder, Gary Matthews simply is not this (.230 AVG) bad. Howie Kendrick just came back from a 42-game injury absence and has yet to regain his timing--once he does I expect him to spray line drives at an alarming rate. Figgy really is the catalyst to the entire Angel offense, and everything should be better once he returns from the DL (if only because he'll fill the Quinlan/Brandon Wood offensive black hole at third).

-At least anecdotally, the defense has been excellent thus far. Casey Kotchman was robbed of the Gold Glove last year by Youk, and Howie Kendrick is an underrated defender. Torii Huntersill has an excellent glove, while Matthews is an excellent corner outfielder (despite not providing enough offense to justify his placement there). Vlad has been passable rather than bad. Hell, even Anderson is displaying uncharacteristic hustle in the field.

-Maicer Izturis is the epitome of an underrated player. While he's a step below Aybar at shortstop, he's at least average if not better with the glove. He's becoming a much more complete hitter; though he lacks Aybar's wheels, Izzy has more pop than while being a far more patient hitter (he must be in the top three in walk rate on the team). I daresay that he's a better offensive player than Orlando Cabrera. Once Figgy returns, Maicer will be a nice complement to Figgy in the nine-hole (where Scioscia likes to put another lead-off type hitter).

-Jose Arredondo has been a welcome shot in the arm for the bullpen. He profiles to be a power/groundball pitcher with a hard sinker, a high-to-mid 90s fastball and a nasty slider. He's been excellent in his short time with the big league club. Better yet, he has shown pretty good composure on the mound for a pitcher his age, performing well whenever Scioscia has thrown him out in high-leverage situations (an improvement given his prior attitude problems in the minors). He can probably be effective wherever Scioscia needs him this season, and may succeed Scot Shields as the setup man if the latter inherits the closer role should Frankie bolt as a free agent.

So after all that I present the executive summary: the offense should make up for whatever regression the rotation may experience, while the defense should hold. Expect the Angels to have a performance similar to last season.

The Pythag record is just a run distribution fluke early in the season. The backend of the bullpen has been amazingly bad. Bootcheck went on the DL yesterday I believe, and before he served up that game winning grand slam against Oakland none of his runs had been given up in a meaningful situation, and even in this case only 1 run of the 4 meant anything.

The Angels offense has been very poor since the end of April (when the injury bug hit the infield) but the pitching has been excellent which has lead to them winning a lot of fairly close games (perhaps one or two more than you'd expect). A handful of the games, like last night's as an example, have gotten out of hand after the backend of the bullpen came in. Saunders lost this game on his own, TB didn't really need O'Day's help. :-)

This team will end up being pretty good if they can get healthy. Escobar may come back to the pen soon and with Arredondo's arrival this pen could be the best we've seen from the Angels in a few years (and we may be able to say good bye to those back end scrubs). I think the offense is pretty good when it has all its parts moving, although I'd like to see Mathews removed...

If I'm not mistaken, the starters before Lackey had an ERA of 7.83 prior to his return. And as the previous poster mentioned, the last man in the pen - Bootcheck - has been equally bad.

The Pythag record is just a run distribution fluke early in the season. The backend of the bullpen has been amazingly bad.

Bootcheck has sucked, but O'Day has provided good work in lower leverage situations. For the most part, the Angels back end of the bullpen seems pretty normal.

They've outperformed their Pythag because of their exceptional play in clutch situations. Here's their OPS+ for/allowed in different levels of leverage:

Batters
High: 113
medium: 98
Low: 71

Pitchers
High: 75
Medium: 109
Low: 98

I don't see that batting split continuing. Beyond outplaying their Pythag record, the Angels also have a better run differential (zero) than would be expected given their raw stats. Their opponents have an OPS 29 points higher than them, and baserunning only makes up for so much. BPro, FWIW, says they should have been outscored by 14 runs thus far.

As #10 said, the Angels will likely improve from here on out without winning at such a blistering pace.

I almost blogged on this today, and wrote a bunch of stuff, but didn't have a conclusion so I spked it ... but the Pythag is just because of a couple blowouts. The Angels in games by an average of 2.38 runs, but lose by an average of 3.58. They've lost games by margins of 12, 9, 7, and 6 twice, but haven't won a game by more than 8 (twice).

Now, maybe good teams aren't supposed to get blown out more than they blow other teams out, but each game is a discrete event. The Angels are 13-8 in one-run games, probably at least partially due to a terrific bullpen. But yesterday they lost by 9 -- right there are 22 games where the team is 13-9, but has been outscored by 4 runs. But that blowout didn't actually take away those wins.

Anyway, I still don't have a conclusion here.

While he may be an overpaid fourth outfielder, Gary Matthews simply is not this (.230 AVG) bad

I don't understand why anyone would think he isn't this bad, this is a bad ballplayer, who rode one catch and a career fluke year to a big payday. 90 ops+ should be the optimistic projection for a 33 year old who has one year raising his numbers up to 96 ops+.

he has an 89 ops+, has been dfa by multiple teams, is 33 years old, has had three out of ten seasons above his league average ops+. He really is this bad, to expect or even hope for more is ridiculous.

Howie Kendrick was hitting .500 before he went down with a hammy injury; he's hit .380 at pretty much every level, and there's good reason to believe he'll get back there soon.

Back to where? I'll go out on a limb and say you don't mean Kendrick is a true 380 hitter.

His early season heroics were due largely to K'ing just once in 38 AB (or whatever it was). Since then he's K'd 9 in 37. His career K-rate now stands at 1 per 6.

For his career, Kendrick has hit 364 on-contact -- high, but possibly sustainable -- leading to a 307 BA. Seems unlikely he's a good bet to do better than that going forward. His ISO has consistently remained around 130. He's been a little better at taking a walk but is still awful at it. He had a flukily high BABIP last year but I don't see any real signs of development in Kendrick as a hitter yet. There are hints sure (the K-rate is down this year overall) but I'm not sure he's getting any better than this. What I might have thought is that he'd add power but we haven't seen any signs of that yet.

And on reflection, I'm not sure that 364 on-contact is sustainable because he's so reliant on BIP (i.e. he doesn't hit HRs). He's got a 380 BABIP -- I'm gonna guess that might be the highest ever and there's no way he can sustain it. Some quick BABIP comps:

Gwynn 345
Carew 361
Boggs 348
Cobb 372

And given his higher K-rate, that translates to "just" a 307 BA. I'd say Kendrick has little hope of being a regular 300 hitter. Barring a jumpn in HR-rate, even if he has a BABIP in the Gwynn/Boggs range, you're talking a 275-280 BA overall. With low walks...

The Angels are a very good example of a good team playing poorly but winning games. This is in contrast to the White Sox (a mediocre team playing well and winning games), A's (a mediocre team playing well but not winning games), the Yankees (a good team playing poorly and not winning games).

I like this game.

How much can you take from his early MLB career in terms of projecting him going forward? He has yet to play a full season, so I think you really need to start with his minor league numbers and work your way from there.

The talk of him being a perennial batting champion may be a bit much but it seems that its a bit extreme in the opposite direction to say he has little hope of being a .300 hitter. I kind of believe that he will end up somewhere in the middle. He seems like a unique player, in that he reminds me an awful lot of Vlad Guerrero but without the ability to hit the ball 150 feet over a fence at any given time. I'm not sure what the numbers look like, but he seems to go through long stretches where the ball just comes off his bat very hard all over the field, but he rarely gets under these pitches.

#20 -- no, I don't think he'll hit .380 at the major league level (though I do think there's a good chance he'll get a batting title at some point). I do think he's going to hit for very good average. He's probably the platonic ideal of the Angels' offensive strategy, such as it is.

#22 -- K-rates seem pretty projectable. To be a 300 hitter with that K-rate he needs a high (but sustainable) BA on-contact. However, if he's not going to develop power (and this is the real question) then that's all BABIP. I am more than willing to project that the chances of Kendrick posting (I'm guessing) the highest BABIP in baseball history are very, very low no matter what his minor-league track record is. :-)

See also Matt Kemp.

Kendrick might well develop power (he showed it in the minors) but we haven't seen any signs yet at the ML level. If he develops power, he'll get walked more which will also help. But it's a lot to ask -- the BABIP isn't sustainable so to become a star hitter he needs to lower his K-rate, jump his power and jump his walks. Basically, if like me you believe he can't hit 300 regularly, he needs to become a guy who puts up a line like 280/350/480 to be a "star" -- i.e. be a completely different type of hitter than what we've seen so far.

But fair enough, I shouldn't speak as if his future is set in stone. The sample is small and there are reasonably wide error bars around that K-rate and there's a big difference between K'ing 1 per 6 vs. 1 per 5 vs. 1 per 7. Alas, even in the minors, he never topped 109 games in a season. At age 22, between majors and minors, he played 141 and that's the closest he's come to a full season. Doesn't seem he's a good bet to stay healthy.

And none of that means he won't be a good player. An OPS+ in the 105-110 range for a 2B is well above-average. Folks here seem to like his defense. But the chances that he'll be a regular 300 hitter seem very low.

ACK!! IGNORE SOME CHUNK OF WHAT I'VE SAID.

I mis-calculated Kendrick's BABIP. His BABIP is 362. His on-contact BA (career) is 372. Now I still can't imagine he can maintain a 362 BABIP but it's more believable than 380 and obviously not the best of all-time. Sorry about that.