I'm not so sure who did the study, but back in the 1980s, someone looked at teams that had very poor 10-game starts (like 1-9, 2-8, and 3-7) and showed that very few of those teams made the post-season. As a fan of the A's, I'm worried about this team's disastrous start. And if this continues, will the sabermetric community continue what has been a love affair with Billy Beane?

I'm not saying that this is all Beane's fault (because I picked the A's to win the West), but I thought he made some mistakes over the winter, like dumping Randy Velarde and signing Mark Guthrie. We all know the A's can walk and hit home runs, but they are very poor at situational hitting and don't advance enough baserunners with outs. It just seems to me that the A's are too much of a "hit or miss" team the way they are currently constructed.

I'm not so sure who did the study, but back in the 1980s, someone looked at teams that had very poor 10-game starts (like 1-9, 2-8, and 3-7) and showed that very few of those teams made the post-season. As a fan of the A's, I'm worried about this team's disastrous start. And if this continues, will the sabermetric community continue what has been a love affair with Billy Beane?

I'm not saying that this is all Beane's fault (because I picked the A's to win the West), but I thought he made some mistakes over the winter, like dumping Randy Velarde and signing Mark Guthrie. We all know the A's can walk and hit home runs, but they are very poor at situational hitting and don't advance enough baserunners with outs. It just seems to me that the A's are too much of a "hit or miss" team the way they are currently constructed.

I'm not so sure who did the study, but back in the 1980s, someone looked at teams that had very poor 10-game starts (like 1-9, 2-8, and 3-7) and showed that very few of those teams made the post-season. As a fan of the A's, I'm worried about this team's disastrous start. And if this continues, will the sabermetric community continue what has been a love affair with Billy Beane?

I'm not saying that this is all Beane's fault (because I picked the A's to win the West), but I thought he made some mistakes over the winter, like dumping Randy Velarde and signing Mark Guthrie. We all know the A's can walk and hit home runs, but they are very poor at situational hitting and don't advance enough baserunners with outs. It just seems to me that the A's are too much of a "hit or miss" team the way they are currently constructed.

I don't know, I think "signature significance" is coming out loud and clear here.

In the 1985 Abstract, James studied "starts" under the Detroit Tigers comment. He was talking about signature significance and he was talking about a .450 team that started out 8-2, saying that wasn't a big deal - yet. But then he talked about, what if they won 2 or 3 more. And he said, bingo, a .450 team doesn't go 11-2 and if you want to check the records of 50 .450 teams, they'd tell you the same thing.

Well I think the opposite can be true too. .550 teams don't go 2-10. It just doesn't happen very often. You've got a team that made a big leap forward last year. Those teams tend to take a step backwards. You've got a team that's been outscored 76-44, the WORST pythagorean record in baseball. This team has issues. Gil Heredia and Barry Zito are getting pummelled. Cory Lidle is the 5th starter. Mecir and Tam are getting hammered too.

I'm not writing them off, but this team needs to show something quick or they are going to be so far behind it won't matter. This team is already 7 behind Seattle for the division and 6 behind Boston and NY for the wild card, 6 1/2 behind Toronto. Those teams are going to be tough to catch from too much further behind, and they'll have to catch 3 of the 4 to play in October. If I were an A's fan I'd be real nervous right now. 10 of their next 13 are against Texas, Chicago and the Yankees. This team could be written off by April 29 if something doesn't change quick.

The probability of a .550 team going 2-10 is .00680, or 147:1. The odds are 127:1 that the team would be 0-12, 1-11, or 2-10. This team has problems.

I don't know, I think "signature significance" is coming out loud and clear here.

In the 1985 Abstract, James studied "starts" under the Detroit Tigers comment. He was talking about signature significance and he was talking about a .450 team that started out 8-2, saying that wasn't a big deal - yet. But then he talked about, what if they won 2 or 3 more. And he said, bingo, a .450 team doesn't go 11-2 and if you want to check the records of 50 .450 teams, they'd tell you the same thing.

Well I think the opposite can be true too. .550 teams don't go 2-10. It just doesn't happen very often. You've got a team that made a big leap forward last year. Those teams tend to take a step backwards. You've got a team that's been outscored 76-44, the WORST pythagorean record in baseball. This team has issues. Gil Heredia and Barry Zito are getting pummelled. Cory Lidle is the 5th starter. Mecir and Tam are getting hammered too.

I'm not writing them off, but this team needs to show something quick or they are going to be so far behind it won't matter. This team is already 7 behind Seattle for the division and 6 behind Boston and NY for the wild card, 6 1/2 behind Toronto. Those teams are going to be tough to catch from too much further behind, and they'll have to catch 3 of the 4 to play in October. If I were an A's fan I'd be real nervous right now. 10 of their next 13 are against Texas, Chicago and the Yankees. This team could be written off by April 29 if something doesn't change quick.

The probability of a .550 team going 2-10 is .00680, or 147:1. The odds are 127:1 that the team would be 0-12, 1-11, or 2-10. This team has problems.

I don't know, I think "signature significance" is coming out loud and clear here.

In the 1985 Abstract, James studied "starts" under the Detroit Tigers comment. He was talking about signature significance and he was talking about a .450 team that started out 8-2, saying that wasn't a big deal - yet. But then he talked about, what if they won 2 or 3 more. And he said, bingo, a .450 team doesn't go 11-2 and if you want to check the records of 50 .450 teams, they'd tell you the same thing.

Well I think the opposite can be true too. .550 teams don't go 2-10. It just doesn't happen very often. You've got a team that made a big leap forward last year. Those teams tend to take a step backwards. You've got a team that's been outscored 76-44, the WORST pythagorean record in baseball. This team has issues. Gil Heredia and Barry Zito are getting pummelled. Cory Lidle is the 5th starter. Mecir and Tam are getting hammered too.

I'm not writing them off, but this team needs to show something quick or they are going to be so far behind it won't matter. This team is already 7 behind Seattle for the division and 6 behind Boston and NY for the wild card, 6 1/2 behind Toronto. Those teams are going to be tough to catch from too much further behind, and they'll have to catch 3 of the 4 to play in October. If I were an A's fan I'd be real nervous right now. 10 of their next 13 are against Texas, Chicago and the Yankees. This team could be written off by April 29 if something doesn't change quick.

The probability of a .550 team going 2-10 is .00680, or 147:1. The odds are 127:1 that the team would be 0-12, 1-11, or 2-10. This team has problems.

Or, another way to look at it:

If a team wants to be a .550 team (89 wins), but starts the season 2-10, it will need to win 87 out of the last 150 games, which requires it to be a .580 team the rest of the way, which means playing the equivalent of 93% or a 94 win season.

Or, another way to look at it:

If a team wants to be a .550 team (89 wins), but starts the season 2-10, it will need to win 87 out of the last 150 games, which requires it to be a .580 team the rest of the way, which means playing the equivalent of 93% or a 94 win season.

Or, another way to look at it:

If a team wants to be a .550 team (89 wins), but starts the season 2-10, it will need to win 87 out of the last 150 games, which requires it to be a .580 team the rest of the way, which means playing the equivalent of 93% or a 94 win season.

Sean, with regard to Velarde, he was already signed, to a deal worth about $3 million per season. His contract was supposedly the reason the A's decided to trade him, but he was one of the few good situational hitters they had and a reasonably good defensive second baseman. Even if they wanted to make room for Ortiz (who's off to a miserable start), they could have used Velarde in a utility/platoon role. He can play third base and the outfield, and shortstop in a pinch.

Sean, with regard to Velarde, he was already signed, to a deal worth about $3 million per season. His contract was supposedly the reason the A's decided to trade him, but he was one of the few good situational hitters they had and a reasonably good defensive second baseman. Even if they wanted to make room for Ortiz (who's off to a miserable start), they could have used Velarde in a utility/platoon role. He can play third base and the outfield, and shortstop in a pinch.

Sean, with regard to Velarde, he was already signed, to a deal worth about $3 million per season. His contract was supposedly the reason the A's decided to trade him, but he was one of the few good situational hitters they had and a reasonably good defensive second baseman. Even if they wanted to make room for Ortiz (who's off to a miserable start), they could have used Velarde in a utility/platoon role. He can play third base and the outfield, and shortstop in a pinch.

The bad start by the A's certainly puts them in a hole, but...

With the unbalanced schedule, if and when the A's get hot they can make up a lot of ground on their competitors. Having only 4 teams in the division helps enormously. None of the teams in their division is a lock to win 90 games - I wouldn't be surprised if the second place team in this division wins 85 games or less. The 2 teams that exceeded this last year were: the A's themselves and a team which lost the best player in baseball.

Seattle is playing well, but how long is Edgar Martinez going to keep hitting like he is ? They don't really have a strong middle of the order and it remains to be seen how good their starting rotation will be the whole year.

Texas is going to have to bludgeon it's opponents to win. Anaheim has problems all over.

If the A's had started out 20-10 and then went on a 2 for 14 stretch no one would be writing them off. This team is very capable of winning 20 out of the next 30 and getting back into it.

Even if they don't rebound, it won't mean that Beane is any less a "genius". A team that is in reality a .550 baseball team can very easily play .500 ball for a 162 game stretch simply by being unlucky - not even considering the effect injuries might have. The Yankees, with all their manoevering last year, got into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. The moves they made helped, but no one can guarantee that any particular set of moves a team makes will pay off - luck is just too big a factor over the short term.

Bill James addressed the question of luck in an essay for the 1989 Baseball Abstract (pp 28-34) (the first post-James annual) trying to determine how often the best team wins.

It was determined that over a 162 game season, the standard deviation of wins due to talent was 7.13 wins and due to luck it was 6.38 wins. That means that the difference between any given team at the end of the season is likely to be almost a 50/50 mix of luck and talent. Thus, a .500 team can easily finish ahead of a .550 team if the former has a lot of good luck and the latter bad luck.

I believe the A's are a .550 to .580 baseball team in reality, and I expect them to play at that level for the reaminder of the year. They may do better or worse but if they win 57.3% of the rest of their games, they will finish with 88 wins.

The final standings in the AL West this year could look like this:

Oakland 88 Wins, Seattle 86, Texas 84, Anaheim 78.

The thing about signature significance is that it says that a very good team is very unlikely to go 2-10 or whatever. That's because poor teams go 2-10 a lot and the odd good team that does will be drowned out as statistical noise. Can someone remind me how many of the last 12 games in the regular season the Yankees won ? There are over 13 consecutive 12-game stretches in a baseball season: are you telling me it's almost impossible that a really good team is going to go 2-10 in one of them ?

We've seen it before and it'll happen again.

The bad start by the A's certainly puts them in a hole, but...

With the unbalanced schedule, if and when the A's get hot they can make up a lot of ground on their competitors. Having only 4 teams in the division helps enormously. None of the teams in their division is a lock to win 90 games - I wouldn't be surprised if the second place team in this division wins 85 games or less. The 2 teams that exceeded this last year were: the A's themselves and a team which lost the best player in baseball.

Seattle is playing well, but how long is Edgar Martinez going to keep hitting like he is ? They don't really have a strong middle of the order and it remains to be seen how good their starting rotation will be the whole year.

Texas is going to have to bludgeon it's opponents to win. Anaheim has problems all over.

If the A's had started out 20-10 and then went on a 2 for 14 stretch no one would be writing them off. This team is very capable of winning 20 out of the next 30 and getting back into it.

Even if they don't rebound, it won't mean that Beane is any less a "genius". A team that is in reality a .550 baseball team can very easily play .500 ball for a 162 game stretch simply by being unlucky - not even considering the effect injuries might have. The Yankees, with all their manoevering last year, got into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. The moves they made helped, but no one can guarantee that any particular set of moves a team makes will pay off - luck is just too big a factor over the short term.

Bill James addressed the question of luck in an essay for the 1989 Baseball Abstract (pp 28-34) (the first post-James annual) trying to determine how often the best team wins.

It was determined that over a 162 game season, the standard deviation of wins due to talent was 7.13 wins and due to luck it was 6.38 wins. That means that the difference between any given team at the end of the season is likely to be almost a 50/50 mix of luck and talent. Thus, a .500 team can easily finish ahead of a .550 team if the former has a lot of good luck and the latter bad luck.

I believe the A's are a .550 to .580 baseball team in reality, and I expect them to play at that level for the reaminder of the year. They may do better or worse but if they win 57.3% of the rest of their games, they will finish with 88 wins.

The final standings in the AL West this year could look like this:

Oakland 88 Wins, Seattle 86, Texas 84, Anaheim 78.

The thing about signature significance is that it says that a very good team is very unlikely to go 2-10 or whatever. That's because poor teams go 2-10 a lot and the odd good team that does will be drowned out as statistical noise. Can someone remind me how many of the last 12 games in the regular season the Yankees won ? There are over 13 consecutive 12-game stretches in a baseball season: are you telling me it's almost impossible that a really good team is going to go 2-10 in one of them ?

We've seen it before and it'll happen again.

The bad start by the A's certainly puts them in a hole, but...

With the unbalanced schedule, if and when the A's get hot they can make up a lot of ground on their competitors. Having only 4 teams in the division helps enormously. None of the teams in their division is a lock to win 90 games - I wouldn't be surprised if the second place team in this division wins 85 games or less. The 2 teams that exceeded this last year were: the A's themselves and a team which lost the best player in baseball.

Seattle is playing well, but how long is Edgar Martinez going to keep hitting like he is ? They don't really have a strong middle of the order and it remains to be seen how good their starting rotation will be the whole year.

Texas is going to have to bludgeon it's opponents to win. Anaheim has problems all over.

If the A's had started out 20-10 and then went on a 2 for 14 stretch no one would be writing them off. This team is very capable of winning 20 out of the next 30 and getting back into it.

Even if they don't rebound, it won't mean that Beane is any less a "genius". A team that is in reality a .550 baseball team can very easily play .500 ball for a 162 game stretch simply by being unlucky - not even considering the effect injuries might have. The Yankees, with all their manoevering last year, got into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. The moves they made helped, but no one can guarantee that any particular set of moves a team makes will pay off - luck is just too big a factor over the short term.

Bill James addressed the question of luck in an essay for the 1989 Baseball Abstract (pp 28-34) (the first post-James annual) trying to determine how often the best team wins.

It was determined that over a 162 game season, the standard deviation of wins due to talent was 7.13 wins and due to luck it was 6.38 wins. That means that the difference between any given team at the end of the season is likely to be almost a 50/50 mix of luck and talent. Thus, a .500 team can easily finish ahead of a .550 team if the former has a lot of good luck and the latter bad luck.

I believe the A's are a .550 to .580 baseball team in reality, and I expect them to play at that level for the reaminder of the year. They may do better or worse but if they win 57.3% of the rest of their games, they will finish with 88 wins.

The final standings in the AL West this year could look like this:

Oakland 88 Wins, Seattle 86, Texas 84, Anaheim 78.

The thing about signature significance is that it says that a very good team is very unlikely to go 2-10 or whatever. That's because poor teams go 2-10 a lot and the odd good team that does will be drowned out as statistical noise. Can someone remind me how many of the last 12 games in the regular season the Yankees won ? There are over 13 consecutive 12-game stretches in a baseball season: are you telling me it's almost impossible that a really good team is going to go 2-10 in one of them ?

We've seen it before and it'll happen again.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.

My attempt to revive a long-dead thread...

The A's have just swept the Yankees. Their record is 18-22. They started off 2-10 and are 16-12 since then.

I think it's very unlikely they will catch Seattle, given their phenomenal start and obvious strengths. But I do think they will be in the fight for the wildcard. The Yankees who are second in the wildcard standings are now 22-19 - Oakland is 3 and a half gams behind them. If Minnesota comes down to earth then you might see a battle between Oakland, NY, Minnesota and possibly Toronto for the wildcard.

Let's wait until the All-Star break before we start writing-off teams with as much talent as the Atletics.