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Primate Studies — Where BTF's Members Investigate the Grand Old Game Tuesday, November 03, 2015Loser Scores 2015The World Series is over, and that means it’s time for my annual foray into the World of the Losers. The fine print: Bill James came up with Loser Scores after the 2010 season, in an effort to measure how the Pirates’ string of losing seasons compared to other lengthy stretches of bad baseball. I’ve updated the totals every year since then. You compute Loser Scores in this fashion: 1. A team that has a losing season adds to its Loser Score the total of games under .500, plus the number of consecutive seasons that the team has been under .500. Updated Loser Scores through 2015: Team 2014 W L Diff Streak 2015 Pittsburgh 420 98 64 34 3 260 Colorado 187 68 94 -26 5 218 Houston 233 86 76 10 1 200 Seattle 155 76 86 -10 1 166 Milwaukee 114 68 94 -26 1 141 Miami 108 71 91 -20 6 134 Cubs 182 97 65 32 1 132 San Diego 108 74 88 -14 5 127 Minnesota 128 83 79 4 1 111 Cincinnati 67 64 98 -34 2 103 Baltimore 148 81 81 0 4 89 Arizona 71 79 83 -4 2 77 Philadelphia 35 63 99 -36 3 74 White Sox 55 76 86 -10 3 68 Mets 87 90 72 18 1 60 Washington 83 83 79 4 4 46 Atlanta 5 67 95 -28 2 35 Boston 21 78 84 -6 2 29 Cleveland 42 81 80 1 3 28 Oakland 0 68 94 -26 1 27 Detroit 0 74 87 -13 1 14 Tampa Bay 9 80 82 -2 2 13 Texas 29 88 74 14 1 12 Toronto 31 93 69 24 2 1 Kansas City 333 95 67 28 3 0 Yankees 0 87 75 12 23 0 St. Louis 0 100 62 38 8 0 Dodgers 0 92 70 22 5 0 Angels 0 85 77 8 2 0 San Francisco 0 84 78 6 2 0 For the ninth consecutive year, the Pirates remain on top of the list. But their Loser Score of 260 is Other than the five-year stretch between 1997 and 2001, when the Mariners were awakening from their doldrums and the Tigers and Pirates were just starting a descent into theirs, a Loser Score of 260 has never led MLB - until 2015. The nine-year stretch for the Pirates is the longest single-team stretch since the Mariners had a 13-year run from 1984 through 1996 (with a tie with the Indians in 1993). If the Pirates keep winning next year and the Rockies keep losing, there will be a new leader in 2016. As I noted in one of the discussion threads, the Royals’ drop from 333 to zero on winning the World Series is the third-largest drop ever, behind the 1914 Miracle Braves (531) and the 1969 Mets (371). Some other items of note from this year’s list:
The Cubs extended their string of non-zero seasons to 69, with their last zero coming in 1946. The Pirates and Brewers have the second-longest non-zero streaks of teams which have had at least one zero; both had their last zero in 1992. |
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1. Mike Emeigh-- MWE
The comment on the Royals being the 3rd biggest reset ever - wow. I mean it makes sense. There aren't too many people that would have said this team was about to be a 1-run loss from *back-to-back* World Series titles at the start of 2014.
Where does the Pirates 160 point change rank historically? That seems like a pretty huge margin to make up for a non-WS-winning year. Or is that kind of thing actually sort of common for teams at the bottom as they start to recover?
Pittsburgh is on an uptick, and though they're still high I think nobody's surprised now when they contend. Toronto I'm surprised to see so low. 2015 was a recharge for them but they'd been in the wilderness for a long time – though I suppose rarely flat-out terrible. They chugged along going 83-79 for decades at a time.
The Yankees' streak of 23 straight non-losing seasons is pretty amazing in this day and age. How many years have we been predicting that next year is their year to finally have a rebuilding season?
The compression in Loser Scores is one more data point suggesting a changing of the guard in MLB. Bill James wrote an article a couple of years back that proposed a method for determining whether baseball has transitioned into a new era. At that time, I think, the current era had started in 1992 or 1993 (James called it the Camden Yards era). I should go back and rerun his methods, but I think there's no question that we are now at the start of a new chapter in baseball's history.
-- MWE
-- MWE
I think that era ended around 2012, give or take a year, and we've been in a new era since. Could be wrong. Might be a few more years till we know for sure where to draw the line.
The method for determining era boundaries was, like many of James's methods, based on a weighted system where events were awarded points, and then when 100 points (I think, I'm going from memory here) had been achieved, a new era starts. Again, I'll have to look at the method when I have time.
-- MWE
James did write the article in 2012. The Camden Yards era did start in 1993.
James doesn't describe the specifics of how he allocates points to events, but he indicates that as of the middle of 2012 there had been 74 points accumulated since 1993. The method requires 3 conditions to be satisfied before an era can be declared to be closed:
1. An era must have lasted at least 10 years;
2. At least 100 points must have been accumulated over the era;
3. There must be a separation of at least 10 points between years - to prevent drawing a line between two years where there is little difference between the years; i.e. moving from 98 to 100 points doesn't justify drawing a line, but moving from 90 to 100 would, or moving from 98 to 108.
Since the middle of 2012, we've had the following events:
1. The transition in the Commissioner's office from Bud Selig to Rob Manfred;
2. The new CBA kicking in, with its changes to the amateur draft and to free agency;
3. The emergence of the Pirates, Royals, Astros, Mets and Cubs as competitive franchises, and the decline of the Red Sox, Tigers, Phillies, and (to a lesser extent) Yankees;
4. The A-Rod and Ryan Braun suspensions;
5. The wave of front office changes which have lessened the importance of the traditional "GM" role - as teams like the Dodgers, Cubs, Blue Jays, etc. bring in big names with titles like Director of Baseball Operations while still keeping a GM;
6. The arrival of the next generation of superstars: Trout, Harper, Bryant, maybe Machado, Correa, Sano;
7. Increasing use of defensive shifts;
8. James mentioned in the article that the MLB ERA dropped below 4 in 2011. It's been below 4 in four of the last five years, although just barely in 2015.
I'm sure I could think of more. Whether that gets us to the magic 100-point level I don't know; James has already awarded points for the end of the steroid era in 2005, but I think that the A-Rod and Braun suspensions are watershed events in their own right.
I'm tempted to draw a line at the end of 2014, and to declare 2015 as the start of a new era in baseball. But I think we'll know better at the end of next year.
-- MWE
Also, from 2011-2012, the MLB average K/9 jumped from 7.1 (which I think was already a record) to 7.6, and has been higher than that every year since.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/bat.shtml
In 2010, Runs, Hits, Doubles per game all dropped noticeably to levels not seen in some time, and all of those categories have stayed below their 2010 level since then. 2011 was the year walks dropped below where they'd been since 1968, and they haven't been back up to the 2011 level since. The new strikeout record was first set in 2008 (and every year since) but the really big jump came in 2012. My hazy guess is that shifts for more than just a few batters started to be a thing for a few teams in 2011-2012 as well but I might be off on that. Those strike me as the big changes in the new era: shifts, more strikeouts, less walks, hits and runs. And the Giants winning every other World Series. So I'd say the '93 era ended in 2009.
As a lifelong Bucco fan I am eagerly looking forward to the removal of the Pirates from your top position
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