Wednesday, June 29, 2011
June 29, 2011: Mariners 3, Braves 5 (39-42)
Mariners 3, Braves 5: A Thorough Analysis
Abstract:
The Seattle Mariners lost to the Atlanta Braves by a score of 5-3.
Introduction:
On June 29, 2011, the Seattle Mariners and Atlanta Braves played a baseball game. Atlanta scored five runs. Seattle scored three runs. For scoring more runs, Atlanta was credited with one win. Seattle was credited with one loss.
Analysis:
Seattle scored five runs, while Atlanta scored three. Five is ordinally superior to three, so the decision to award Atlanta with the win was made correctly.
Frame-by-frame tape study confirmed that no unrecorded runs were scored, leaving no doubt as to the validity of the game's outcome.
The Mariners scored three runs. Their season average (today’s game excluded) is 3.43 runs per game, marking today’s offensive performance as 87.6% of average. That’s worse than usual, but not by enough to say anything meaningful.
The Mariners allowed five runs. Their season average (today’s game excluded) is 3.56 runs per game, so today’s run prevention performance was 40.4% worse than average. That may or may not prove to be statistically significantly different from a normal game, but either way it’s still unlikely to be truly meaningful.
The Mariners scored 37.5% of the total runs in the game. Regression analysis reveals that this number being below 50% has a perfect one-to-one correlation with the Mariners losing baseball games. However, the data used was only 2011 Seattle Mariners games, so the study would need to be re-run with different teams and seasons in order to be generalizable. It’s entirely possible that the 2011 Mariners are a special case.
Exactly 18 half-innings were played. This, too, has a perfect correlation with the Mariners losing, but only when the sample is limited to home games* (*the recent Florida Marlins series was designated as “away” for the purposes of this study). The same caveats about generalizability mentioned in the last paragraph apply here as well.
Going forward, the data suggests that, if the Mariners wish to win baseball games, they should try to score more runs than their opponents.
Conclusion:
The Seattle Mariners lost to the Atlanta Braves by a score of 5-3. The Mariners most emphatically did not win. If the same score occurs in the future, it is almost certain that the Mariners will not win.
June 28, 2011: Mariners 4, Braves 5 (39-41)
In a surprise that could only be described as “Shyamalanesque”, the Seattle Mariners lost a baseball game on Tuesday. The team may have thought that it was being “clever”, ending the game in an unexpected way, but the fans saw right through it. The game’s climax turned out to be boring, clichéd, and predictable, the kind of thing that everyone had already seen a million times before. It was one hundred percent unoriginal. The oldest trick in the book. Puerile. Banal. Jejune. It was only surprising in that nobody thought that the Mariners would be lame enough to end it that way again, after it had already been done so, so many times before. But end it that way they did. That’s just how it is with the Mariners. It’s always been like this. The real surprise is that 100,000 people let themselves think that this time it might be different.
Time for some serious analysis. The optimist might say that today the Mariners offense played well, and just got unlucky. That the Mariners offense is showing signs of life, and today was a hint of better times ahead. The person who is interested in being correct might say that today’s Mariners game was just one of eighty that have been played this year, and thus is at best 1/80th of meaningful. That the Mariners offense has been awful, is awful, and will continue to be awful. Try to guess which side I think is right.
The Mariners continue to play the baseball. Wednesday afternoon, they again face off against the Braves, because travel is expensive and they might as well play a few while they’re here. The game will be just about as meaningful as the rest of them, so the way I see it there are two options: 1. Do something more useful with your time, such as determining which brand of cereal has the highest calories to dollars ratio, or 2. Pour your heart into the game, root root root for the home team, and try your damndest to let the outcome have a real effect on your emotional health. Either way is fine. I don’t judge.
Time for some serious analysis. The optimist might say that today the Mariners offense played well, and just got unlucky. That the Mariners offense is showing signs of life, and today was a hint of better times ahead. The person who is interested in being correct might say that today’s Mariners game was just one of eighty that have been played this year, and thus is at best 1/80th of meaningful. That the Mariners offense has been awful, is awful, and will continue to be awful. Try to guess which side I think is right.
The Mariners continue to play the baseball. Wednesday afternoon, they again face off against the Braves, because travel is expensive and they might as well play a few while they’re here. The game will be just about as meaningful as the rest of them, so the way I see it there are two options: 1. Do something more useful with your time, such as determining which brand of cereal has the highest calories to dollars ratio, or 2. Pour your heart into the game, root root root for the home team, and try your damndest to let the outcome have a real effect on your emotional health. Either way is fine. I don’t judge.
Monday, June 27, 2011
June 27, 2011: Mariners 1, Braves 3 (39-40)
On June 27, 2011, the 25 human beings who comprise the Seattle Mariners celebrated another day of their long, ceaseless slog towards oblivion by playing in a baseball game. The game proved an apt metaphor for their lives, as profound feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness quickly led the ballplayers towards a calm resignation to their fate, à la Bruce Willis in Armageddon or Tim Robbins in Mission to Mars. Sadly, the game turned out to be slightly less spectacularly exciting than either of those cinematic touchstones. Tonight's Mariners game didn’t explode into big honkin’ fireballs, and it didn’t compleat into psychedelic transcendence. No, it just kind of sputtered to its obvious, banal conclusion.
Tonight's game serves as a reminder that sometimes the most likely outcome does indeed happen. Sometimes, luck just sort of balances out. Sometimes, miniscule differences in talent really are all that matters. The Mariners offense is bad, and tonight it performed badly against quality pitching. The Mariners pitching is good, and tonight it performed well against low-quality hitting. Unfortunately, the Mariners hitting was slightly more bad than the Mariners pitching was good, and Atlanta's pitching was slightly more good than Atlanta's hitting was bad. Nothing new here. Same ol’, same ol’.
The defeat stands as one among many, indistinguishable from the many thousands of losses that all involved have already suffered through in their long, colossally successful careers as professional athletes. Today, they may have succumbed meekly to defeat, but that doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, the Mariners will get up and try again. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll decide to make a change. Maybe they’ll decide to seize control, carpe diem, take full responsibility for their lives. They’ll refuse to lose. They’ll play to win. They’ll believe in themselves and give it their all, and at the end of the day they WILL win that ballgame. Unless, of course, they don’t.
Tonight's game serves as a reminder that sometimes the most likely outcome does indeed happen. Sometimes, luck just sort of balances out. Sometimes, miniscule differences in talent really are all that matters. The Mariners offense is bad, and tonight it performed badly against quality pitching. The Mariners pitching is good, and tonight it performed well against low-quality hitting. Unfortunately, the Mariners hitting was slightly more bad than the Mariners pitching was good, and Atlanta's pitching was slightly more good than Atlanta's hitting was bad. Nothing new here. Same ol’, same ol’.
The defeat stands as one among many, indistinguishable from the many thousands of losses that all involved have already suffered through in their long, colossally successful careers as professional athletes. Today, they may have succumbed meekly to defeat, but that doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, the Mariners will get up and try again. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll decide to make a change. Maybe they’ll decide to seize control, carpe diem, take full responsibility for their lives. They’ll refuse to lose. They’ll play to win. They’ll believe in themselves and give it their all, and at the end of the day they WILL win that ballgame. Unless, of course, they don’t.
June 26, 2011: Mariners 2, Marlins 1 (39-39)
An unusual thing happened today: the Mariners game went into extra innings. After nine, the teams were tied, and so had to keep playing until a lone victor could be determined. Now, I, personally, find it unusual that this sort of event is unusual. Could it really be so rare that two major league baseball teams are evenly matched? After all, ninety percent of teams have win percentages between .400 and .600. It seems that teams should battle to a standstill all the time.
It’s really weird that reality doesn’t agree with the intuition, so let’s take a step back and examine the logic. It goes like this: Teams, in general, are very similar in talent level. Therefore, it should be common for evenly-matched teams to play, and thus it should be common for teams to battle to a tie. This sounds good, so why isn’t it true? Well, there’s another implied assumption that should go between those two sentences, and it’s this: The outcome of baseball games is largely determined by talent. The data forces us to conclude that this assumption is wrong – a conclusion that actually jibes with conventional baseball wisdom. Any grizzled old timey baseball man could tell you that there's lots of stuff other than pure athletic talent that goes into a baseball game. There’s luck, and chance, and variance, and flukes, and bad breaks, and freak accidents, and acts of God. There’s all those things and more. It’s a beautiful game, with so many compelling factors to consider. That’s baseball, the exciting game of meaningless random events. It’s kind of like life.
In more specific news, today’s win increases the Mariners’ odds of making the playoffs from 21.1% all the way up to 22.9%. My bones are literally vibrating from excitement. An extra 1.8% chance at getting a roughly 10% chance at actually winning a championship? Hoo baby. A World Series win would mean so, so much to the city of Seattle, and that extra 9/5000 could make all the difference in the world. Will it happen? Will the Seattle Mariners flip heads five-and-a-half times in a row, or will they choke like a bunch of big choking losers? In only 95 to 103 games, we’ll find out. I can’t wait.
It’s really weird that reality doesn’t agree with the intuition, so let’s take a step back and examine the logic. It goes like this: Teams, in general, are very similar in talent level. Therefore, it should be common for evenly-matched teams to play, and thus it should be common for teams to battle to a tie. This sounds good, so why isn’t it true? Well, there’s another implied assumption that should go between those two sentences, and it’s this: The outcome of baseball games is largely determined by talent. The data forces us to conclude that this assumption is wrong – a conclusion that actually jibes with conventional baseball wisdom. Any grizzled old timey baseball man could tell you that there's lots of stuff other than pure athletic talent that goes into a baseball game. There’s luck, and chance, and variance, and flukes, and bad breaks, and freak accidents, and acts of God. There’s all those things and more. It’s a beautiful game, with so many compelling factors to consider. That’s baseball, the exciting game of meaningless random events. It’s kind of like life.
In more specific news, today’s win increases the Mariners’ odds of making the playoffs from 21.1% all the way up to 22.9%. My bones are literally vibrating from excitement. An extra 1.8% chance at getting a roughly 10% chance at actually winning a championship? Hoo baby. A World Series win would mean so, so much to the city of Seattle, and that extra 9/5000 could make all the difference in the world. Will it happen? Will the Seattle Mariners flip heads five-and-a-half times in a row, or will they choke like a bunch of big choking losers? In only 95 to 103 games, we’ll find out. I can’t wait.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
June 25, 2011: Mariners 2, Marlins 4 (38-39)
Through 76 games, the 2011 Seattle Mariners did not have a good offense. Today, nothing changed. Surprising nobody, the Mariners hit poorly and scored two runs in an unexceptional performance. The offense was bad, and it was bad in a way that most everyone was already fully aware that it was capable of. Still, though, there’s reason to hope. Progress is being made. Prior to the game, the Mariners had scored 265 runs on the year. Afterwards, that total went up to 267. It’s a refreshingly positive trend, and I expect that number to keep increasing as the season continues.
Through 80 career starts, Jason Vargas was a mediocre pitcher. Today, in his 81st career start, nothing changed. Vargas was mediocre, pitching in such a way that no one could possibly hope to glean any new information from his performance. Unfortunately, mediocrity wasn’t good enough. The four runs that the opposing team scored while Vargas pitched turned out to be more than the two runs that Vargas’ eight teammates scored, leaving Vargas solely responsible for the loss. He’s gonna have a long, hard night ahead to think about what he did, and also what some other people who aren’t him did.
The loss puts the team’s record below .500, but they’ll get a chance to fix that, as another game will be played on Sunday night. If they win, they could advance their season total to 39 wins, but if they lose they’ll be stuck at only 38. It’s all or nothing, at least until Monday, and you can be sure that this time the Mariners will try just about as hard as they usually do.
Through 80 career starts, Jason Vargas was a mediocre pitcher. Today, in his 81st career start, nothing changed. Vargas was mediocre, pitching in such a way that no one could possibly hope to glean any new information from his performance. Unfortunately, mediocrity wasn’t good enough. The four runs that the opposing team scored while Vargas pitched turned out to be more than the two runs that Vargas’ eight teammates scored, leaving Vargas solely responsible for the loss. He’s gonna have a long, hard night ahead to think about what he did, and also what some other people who aren’t him did.
The loss puts the team’s record below .500, but they’ll get a chance to fix that, as another game will be played on Sunday night. If they win, they could advance their season total to 39 wins, but if they lose they’ll be stuck at only 38. It’s all or nothing, at least until Monday, and you can be sure that this time the Mariners will try just about as hard as they usually do.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
June 24, 2011: Mariners 5, Marlins 1 (38-38)
Yesterday, reigning Cy Young Award winner and universally-acknowledged excellent pitcher Felix Hernandez had a characteristically excellent start, reminding everyone that he still is excellent pitcher Felix Hernandez, and will be for the foreseeable future. Against a subpar National League lineup, Felix pitched well and experienced neither particularly good luck nor particularly bad luck, and as such gave up a small but non-zero number of runs in his eight quality innings.
The Mariners offense was as anemic as ever, achieving only one hit (collected, appropriately enough, by non-hitter Felix Hernandez) through the first six innings. Fortunately, the small number of baserunners that the Mariners did manage happened through sheer chance to bunch together in a single inning, allowing them to collect multiple runs. A typical dinger from one-dimensional power hitter Miguel Olivo gave the Mariners enough room to comfortably score more runs than they allowed, causing them to win the game.
With the game in the books, the Mariners become one of many teams to defeat the Florida Marlins this season, and the Florida Marlins become one of slightly fewer but still many teams to be defeated by the Mariners. The win brings Seattle's record to .500 for the sixth time in the last month. The team's performance to date bears all the hallmarks of an average team, so expect them to remain near .500 for a while, unless something unlikely happens, which it probably will. Any individual sequence of events is unlikely, but it is extremely likely that one of them will happen. Will the Mariners win more than they lose in the next week, or will they lose more than they win? Either way, they’ll keep playing the games. Tune in tonight to see Jason Vargas pitch, in a game that will almost assuredly involve something happening.
The Mariners offense was as anemic as ever, achieving only one hit (collected, appropriately enough, by non-hitter Felix Hernandez) through the first six innings. Fortunately, the small number of baserunners that the Mariners did manage happened through sheer chance to bunch together in a single inning, allowing them to collect multiple runs. A typical dinger from one-dimensional power hitter Miguel Olivo gave the Mariners enough room to comfortably score more runs than they allowed, causing them to win the game.
With the game in the books, the Mariners become one of many teams to defeat the Florida Marlins this season, and the Florida Marlins become one of slightly fewer but still many teams to be defeated by the Mariners. The win brings Seattle's record to .500 for the sixth time in the last month. The team's performance to date bears all the hallmarks of an average team, so expect them to remain near .500 for a while, unless something unlikely happens, which it probably will. Any individual sequence of events is unlikely, but it is extremely likely that one of them will happen. Will the Mariners win more than they lose in the next week, or will they lose more than they win? Either way, they’ll keep playing the games. Tune in tonight to see Jason Vargas pitch, in a game that will almost assuredly involve something happening.
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