Friday, August 13, 2004

The Curse and the Pythagorean Rule

After staring at the first two lines of the AL East standings every day for the past few months, and after writing the last post, I just had to do this. With a little help from the Baseball Archive database, I came up with the following tables:

New York Yankees:

Year   W    L   Pct.   RS   RA  Pythg%  PredtW Excess
199692700.56798717870.550589.192.81
199796660.59268916880.6265101.49-5.49
1998114480.70379656560.6839110.803.20
199998640.60499007310.602597.610.39
200087740.54048718140.533885.941.06
200195650.59388047130.559889.565.44
2002103580.63988976970.6235100.392.61
2003101610.62358777160.600097.213.79
200473410.64046305520.565764.498.51

where "Pythg%" is the winning percentage predicted by the Pythagorean rule, "PredtW" is the predicted number of wins for the number of games played, and "Excess" is the number of actual wins above the Pythagorean prediction. The Yankees have obviously done very well over the past years, but except for 1997 they've always been a little bit "lucky". Which brings up the obvious question:

Boston Red Sox:

Year   W    L   Pct.   RS   RA  Pythg%  PredtW Excess
199685770.52479289210.503881.613.39
199778840.48158518570.496580.43-2.43
199892700.56798767290.590895.71-3.71
199994680.58028367180.575593.230.77
200085770.52477927450.530685.95-0.95
200182790.50937727450.517883.36-1.36
200293690.57418596650.6253101.29-8.29
200395670.58649618090.585294.810.19
200463500.55756435420.584666.06-3.06

That's right, the Sox have consistently won fewer games than they should have according to the Pythagorean rule.Curse, conspiracy, fate, law of averages? You make the call.

As for me (a Royals fan who remembers 1976, 1977, and 1978, and whose greatest joy was 1980):

Yankees Delenda Est

Note added in proof: To be fair, over the lifetime of the franchises, the Red Sox have only lost -0.09 games/season more than they should have according to the rule, and the Yankees are at -0.21 games/season. Things eventually even out, which I'm sure will be a great comfort the Red Sox fans in 2107 or so.

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