i dont care how many “mathmatical” and “scientific” (stupid, as i call them) equations and formulas you can co me up with… we are dealing with HUMAN BEINGS.

baseball is imperfect, and that’s what makes it great. if you could predict it based on one formula, then it wouldnt be fun anymore.

i dont care what the Angels record “should be”, based on some stupid formula. They ARE one of the best teams in baseball this year. That’s the reality. You can BS you’re way through something and tell everybody that somebody shouldn’t be doing as well as they are… but it doesn’t matter.

If that team (the Halos) is better than you want them to be, get the hell over it. I’m sure this guy is just pissed because the Sawx aren’t getting enough love.

I don’t care if it’s luck or residue of design. We’re playing well and winning most series…good enough for me.

Although, I just happen to think we’re good. But if we’re good, you can consider us lucky to be good. So it’s good that we’re both good and lucky. We’re good.

That math crap is stupid. Other than stuff you learn in the 4th grade, it never came into play in my life, and in my opinion it means even less in baseball.

gotta love them…go to great lengths with numbers and fractions and ratios and pythags and etc. etc. to find some loophole on why the halos or any team for that matter should or shouldnt be better than they are… i think i’ll settle for using my eyes and my brain to examine a team. at least keri had the decency to mention all the halo injuries and vladdy’s slump. you think simmons would of mentioned those points ?

you are only as good as your “record” indicates…....and thats what i go by…..screw all the other stats…......if the team is .500…...then they are an average team “in my book” anything above is “above average to great” and anything below is below average to crappy”

Done and done.

is a tool. I have heard many times on XM radio, while entertaining, he is just making shit up. Take away his media medium, his spread sheets, and his ten sided die he is just trying to sell some copy. And he plays fantasy baseball.

Jonah, was also the prognosticator, who declared GA was done, only to see him go on to his rape pillage of the 2nd half last year.

Lastly, Matt, you should stop writing books and being part of the “Beltway” and start dialogging MLB. You have a great talent for writing and explaining the minutiae to “the every man/woman. You are always a breath of fresh air.

Thanks!

never saw a baseball in his entire life.

What can he know about the game?

and this is just another classic case of a writer making the numbers fall into line with a point he is trying to make—grabbing an idea, and then grabbing the numbers needed to support it, play on halos, keep on “defying the odds!”

They just cannot admit they are fanboys who have a deep need to “be right” ... sad.

We have a polarized staff . Most pitchers are performing pretty well. Unfortunately, we have had a few pitchers that have been just gawdawful. However, we have had very little performances in between.

Due to losing our top two pitchers, we have had to reach down for our fifth starter. This also has had a trickle down effect for our long reliever(s).

Our 12th, 13th, and 14th pitchers (Moseley, Adenhart, and Bootcheck) have accounted for 20% (!!) of our earned runs so far this year. All by themselves. Remove them from our stat line, and the staff ERA becomes 3.23, which would be the best in the AL.

Using the Pygtharean model, removing those three gives us a Pythagorean winning pct. of .602. Our current winning pct. is .594, right in line with our expected record.

Is that luck? As Matt stated, our only luck has been bad, trying to replace a 19 game winner and an 18 game winner with the aforementioned three pitchers. And their horrific performance has given the sabermetricians ammunition to attack…

Since 2004, the Angels’ offensive average runs/game and standard deviation:

+------+--------+---------------+
| y    | avg    | std_deviation |
+------+--------+---------------+
| 2004 | 5.1605 |        3.3919 | 
| 2005 | 4.6975 |        2.9919 | 
| 2006 | 4.7284 |        3.1230 | 
| 2007 | 5.0741 |        3.4022 | 
+------+--------+---------------+

The Angels started scoring more runs/game last year, by a quarter of a run over the 2005 and 2006 squads; why that is I’m not sure, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that full seasons of Howie Kendrick, Casey Kotchman, and Reggie Willits’ high-OBP bat were responsible. What also went up was the standard deviation, as the Angels started getting more blowouts. Here’s the same chart Matt built for runs scored per game in 2007 along with the number of games in which that score was achieved, and their won-loss record in such games:

+-------+-------+------+------+
| score | games | w    | l    |
+-------+-------+------+------+
|    18 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    16 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    13 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    11 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    10 |    12 |   12 |    0 | 
|     9 |    10 |    9 |    1 | 
|     8 |     7 |    7 |    0 | 
|     7 |    16 |   11 |    5 | 
|     6 |    15 |    9 |    6 | 
|     5 |    14 |    8 |    6 | 
|     4 |    18 |   13 |    5 | 
|     3 |    24 |   12 |   12 | 
|     2 |    21 |    7 |   14 | 
|     1 |    11 |    0 |   11 | 
|     0 |     8 |    0 |    8 | 
+-------+-------+------+------+

By definition, you can’t win any games where you don’t score. The Angels were tied in three-run games, but above that level, the news was all winning records.That same chart for 2006:

+-------+-------+------+------+
| score | games | w    | l    |
+-------+-------+------+------+
|    15 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    14 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    12 |     4 |    4 |    0 | 
|    10 |     7 |    5 |    2 | 
|     9 |     6 |    6 |    0 | 
|     8 |    10 |    8 |    2 | 
|     7 |    10 |    9 |    1 | 
|     6 |    16 |   11 |    5 | 
|     5 |    16 |   12 |    4 | 
|     4 |    27 |   15 |   12 | 
|     3 |    22 |   11 |   11 | 
|     2 |    18 |    4 |   14 | 
|     1 |    15 |    1 |   14 | 
|     0 |     8 |    0 |    8 | 
+-------+-------+------+------+

What really pops out at you is the large number of high-scoring games at the upper end of the scale in 2007. Also, the Angels’ pitching kept them in lower scoring games (13-5 in four-run games in 2007 but 15-12 in four-run games in 2006).

Now, the standard deviation chart for the Oakland A’s:

+------+--------+---------------+
| y    | avg    | std_deviation |
+------+--------+---------------+
| 2004 | 4.8951 |        3.2671 | 
| 2005 | 4.7654 |        3.4472 | 
| 2006 | 4.7593 |        2.9665 | 
| 2007 | 4.5741 |        3.3716 | 
+------+--------+---------------+

Oakland in 2006 was actually more consistent than any of these recent years for the Angels. They were doing it by scoring more runs toward the higher end of the scale, as this scatter chart makes clear:

+-------+-------+------+------+
| score | games | w    | l    |
+-------+-------+------+------+
|    15 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    13 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    12 |     4 |    4 |    0 | 
|    11 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    10 |     3 |    3 |    0 | 
|     9 |     8 |    7 |    1 | 
|     8 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|     7 |    20 |   16 |    4 | 
|     6 |    16 |   13 |    3 | 
|     5 |    27 |   22 |    5 | 
|     4 |    19 |    8 |   11 | 
|     3 |    22 |    7 |   15 | 
|     2 |    16 |    4 |   12 | 
|     1 |    10 |    3 |    7 | 
|     0 |    11 |    0 |   11 | 
+-------+-------+------+------+

Where the Angels had a mode of four runs/game, the A’s had five. Also, the A’s needed to score a lot of runs, because they were losing everything south of four runs, and they were only breaking even at four runs last year:

+-------+-------+------+------+
| score | games | w    | l    |
+-------+-------+------+------+
|    17 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    16 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    15 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    14 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    13 |     1 |    1 |    0 | 
|    12 |     3 |    3 |    0 | 
|    11 |     2 |    2 |    0 | 
|    10 |     2 |    1 |    1 | 
|     9 |     6 |    4 |    2 | 
|     8 |     4 |    4 |    0 | 
|     7 |     8 |    6 |    2 | 
|     6 |    20 |   14 |    6 | 
|     5 |    17 |   12 |    5 | 
|     4 |    20 |   10 |   10 | 
|     3 |    30 |    8 |   22 | 
|     2 |    21 |    5 |   16 | 
|     1 |    13 |    1 |   12 | 
|     0 |    10 |    0 |   10 | 
+-------+-------+------+------+

all that damn stat does is make good teams look worse and bad teams look better.

its bullshit and completely meaningless in my mind.

Garret Anderson owned him 3 games later.

Pitching has carried the team, but you would have to sit and watch every game to discover the superior defense of the Angels that keeps opposing teams from scoring those few extra runs that could beat us. The other thing is very aggressive base running, the taking of chances that all add up over time to an extra runs scored more often than not which is Sothball 101.
Folks like Jonah Keri and a million jealous fans from opposing teams are not aware of these things, and for lack of any real explanation they just attribute Angel wins to luck.

41 – 29, if I added up correctly, which gives them a theoretical record against us of something like 6 – 3, right? That’s what the theory predicts, so how could it be otherwise?

I hereby declare Oakland the Presumptive Theoretical AL West Champions of April – June 2008.

I should point out, however, that some of us used a similar “luck” argument about Seattle towards the end of last year (before the Red Moon Massacre), when they were cruising along uninjured and performing way above expectations.

is the same idiot who had to print a retraction on Garret Anderson sucking last year after he went ballistic in the last couple months of the year.

Sliderule maven whips out and pieces together reams of greenbar reports showing numerical support for his notion of reality! Ignores mountain of other information, including actual results, which fail to support to his conclusions!!

Thanks, Matt. A Jonah smackdown really needs to come around more than once a year…

Let’s be clear about this. The best teams are those that score significantly more runs than they allow, which is to say they have superb pitching and superb offense. Their record in 1-run games won’t matter because they won’t play many of those – their pitching will shut out opponents while the offense blows them out. The Angels currently have good pitching but lousy offense, and accordingly they are playing over their heads.

Going forward, two things are likely. 1) The Angels start playing more like their Pythagorean win expectation projects – their final record is closer to 81 wins than 90+ wins. Or 2) The Angels start scoring more runs / allowing fewer, and their Pythagorean record moves more into line with their performance.

Based on their current record, the Angels project to win 97 games. Pythagorean win expectancy projects them to win 81. For the Angels to beat their Pythagorean expectation by 16 games is extremely unlikely. It’s a huge stretch to claim that because the Angels have beaten Pythagoras by an average of 4.4 games in past seasons, they will win by 16 in this one.

Pythagorean record speaks to fundamental issues with a team, and it has good predictive value. It tells us that the 07 Mariners weren’t as good as their record indicated, an observation which is born out by the present Seattle team. Likewise, the 06 Indians were not as bad as their actual record suggested; the next year they made the playoffs.

If the Angels win 90+ games with poor fundamentals, it could be bad for the team going forward – management might rest content rather than improve areas of need (like offense).

Barry Bonds gets his first ring.

Wow! What a useful statistic!

For what? I have no idea…

With a blowout defined as a game determined by a margin of 5+ runs, here are the Angels’ records in such games dating back to the World Series Champion team.

2002 30-12 (.714)
2003 28-22 (.560)
2004 29-21 (.580)
2005 26-11 (.703)
2006 26-22 (.542)
2007 25-19 (.568)
2008 5-10 (.333)

but who are the yutzes on 830 KLAA?

I caught some stupid ass comment about the American league being AAA compared to the National league?

This has all the makings of a crappy ending…I just hope someone else knocks out the Red Sox, otherwise, this will be a short trip to the playoffs yet again.

They really do love to load up when a pitcher is off their game don’t they?

The only Saber i know is from AWR MSK

Despite the well-written original post and many well-written responses, it seems to me that the majority of people could give a flying f—- about sabermetrics.

How about a speedboat on Lake Havasu at spring break time? Light yer fires a bit more?

I’ve worked for years with Keri, and this is clear: He is one bright guy. Quick, talented, glib, you name it.

He’s also a fan. And like all of us, he makes crazy calls. His all-time dandy:

The Angels are soooo boring.

That came in the middle of 2002.

And here I am remembering his line. That’s entertainment, folks. Which is exactly why Jonah’s in the biz.