Phils For Reals or Pretends?

by jonk on Jun 1, 2009 9:28 AM EDT Comment 11 comments

The Phillies are 28-20 and a half a game up in the NL East. Everything seems bright and peachy, does it not? Of course, looking at it a bit more, there are plenty of things to be concerned about. First and formost is that the Phils aren't the best team in the division right now and are clearly very lucky to be in first place.

I am not even going to touch on their awful, second from the worst team ERA or the fact their leadoff hitter is Ortizian right now. I am going to look at their schedule.

Split	W	L	RS	RA	WP
Opponent
ATL	2	4	27	35	.333
CIN	2	1	17	13	.667
COL	2	1	18	19	.667
FLA	4	2	36	23	.667
LAD	1	2	10	17	.333
MIL	1	2	13	13	.333
NYM	1	3	15	20	.250
NYY	2	1	15	11	.667
SDP	1	2	17	20	.333
STL	2	0	16	8	1.000
WSN	10	2	83	66	.833

10 wins against the worst team in the league. The Phillies are 18-18 against the rest of their competition. The most troubling part is that they are a combined 3-7 against the Braves and Mets, whom will make up the bulk of their games played over the rest of the year. It's great to beat up on bad teams. That is what they are there for. But if you can't beat the good teams, you'll end up like all the Phillies teams in the early 2000s, with 86 wins and not in the playoffs.

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I had exactly the same thought re win/loss, but see below

I think it was when the radio team mentioned that the Phillies wouldn’t play the Nats again until August and then mentioned that they were 9-2 (this was Saturday night, IIRC) vs the Nats. I didn’t have time to look at it then.

To frame the question, I guess the issue is: Have the Phillies underperformed so far, given that their schedule has been easy?

Alternatively, perhaps a better question is: will the Phillies win a lower percentage of games going forward because the schedule will get harder?

There are many pieces to this — what is the current strength of schedule? What is the strength of schedule going forward for all NL East teams? Injuries, call ups, and trades are huge wild cards at this point as well.

Perhaps starting here will be helpful: ESPN has a"relative strength of schedule" widget here: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rpi?sortColumn=sos

It claims that the Phillies have had an easier schedule than any team other than the Braves. Nobody in the NL East goes over 21 for strength of schedule, however (Mets are at 21). So, to date, nobody in the NL East has a terribly hard schedule, and the Phillies have navigated it so that they are currently in first.

The chart also gives us a shot to think about the future, but with a serious caveat. The Mets have the highest expected winning percentage, at a rate that carries to 90 wins. The Phillies are at 87 wins. The expected winning percentages do not account for strength of schedule — they are only pythagorean numbers to date. Therefore, if the competition is harder, it would seem plausible that the pythag numbers would change over time. We do see, however, that the Phillies have been lucky, and the fact that they are ahead of the Mets right now is not necessarily a function of consistently better play.

A useful (but somewhat vague) chart is here: http://www.playoffstatus.com/mlb/nationalsosagg.html

It claims to show the winning percentages of remaining opponents. You will see that the future opponents of the Phillies and Mets are virtually identical in winning percentage (it only goes to 2 decimals) at .49 for each, ranking the teams 15 (Phillies) and 16 (Mets) in the NL and 29/30 in MLB. The Phillies may not get the Nats as much as the Mets will (haven’t checked – just guessing here) but the Phillies evidently see slightly weaker other teams enough to make it balance out when all the numbers are added up.

At this point, because so many games remain, it is really difficult to say that strength of schedule will make much of an impact. As the “remaining season” size compresses, I think a better argument could be made. At first blush, however, I don’t see how you can make a call.

Another major problem is that it is hard to tell which teams are for real after just 30% of a season. We can pretty much cross the Nats off the list, but is Florida good or not? What about Atlanta? And those are teams we are all pretty familiar with.

In summary, the Phillies have been lucky to date on pythag numbers to date. That worries me, since luck tends to even out over 162 games. I foresee a regression. The strength of schedule remaining going forward seems to be a wash, since it more or less evens out with so many games remaining. Sample sizes, injuries, trades, etc., all muddy the waters to the extent that predicting the future may be really hard based only on a strength of schedule analysis.

I think the short answer to your question is that the Phillies may be in trouble, but not because of the reason we started with (SOS) but rather because the pythagorean numbers look bad so far. The same destination is reached, but things learned along the way got us there, not the original directions.

Remember the Phitans

by RememberthePhitans on Jun 1, 2009 10:54 AM EDT reply actions

Luck tends to even out in a prospective sense, but the luck we’ve already had is already in the books and there’s no reason to believe we’ll be unlucky to “make up” for it. There’s no such thing as karma.

by taco pal on Jun 1, 2009 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions

Very good point

I engaged in the statistical fallacy that bad luck will haunt us going forward since there has been good luck to date. This is the “the coin flip returned heads 20 times in a row so it has to turn up tails next time” issue (assuming a ‘fair’ coin).

Thank you for pointing that out. Grasshopper has much to learn, Master.

Remember the Phitans

by RememberthePhitans on Jun 1, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions

Signs of hope

“I am not even going to touch on their awful, second from the worst team ERA or the fact their leadoff hitter is Ortizian right now.”

1. The ERA will come back to the middle of the pack. Moyer isn’t this bad; Hamels is not a 5.00 ERA pitcher; CHoP will be getting fewer innings. Means will be regressed. Romero coming back (but Myers going away, of course)

2. Rollins: he is showing signs of life. He has hit around .300 over the last half of May. I have hope he’ll come around. He did hit .400 in May….against the Nats. :)

Remember the Phitans

by RememberthePhitans on Jun 1, 2009 11:03 AM EDT reply actions

I was going to point out that the pitching probably isn’t as bad as it has looked so far this season… but barring a major trade, we’re looking at two rookies in the rotation for the forseeable future, and if Jamie turns back into a pumpkin (as I expect) we might have yet another hole to fill.

by phatj on Jun 1, 2009 11:05 AM EDT up reply actions

Rookies or not, what matters is how they perform.

by taco pal on Jun 1, 2009 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions

I think the point is that there is no track record and pitchers are likely to not be good.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Jun 1, 2009 11:57 AM EDT up reply actions

But there is a track record. A minor league track record is less predictive but it isn’t nothing. And while I’m concerned about Happ and Bastardo, I think it’s too strong a statement to say they’re likely to not be good. Adam Eaton is likely to not be good. To me, Happ is likely to be OK, and Bastardo is a coin flip.

by taco pal on Jun 1, 2009 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions

I wouldn’t have gone as far as jonk did, but minor league track record or no, it’s a rare pitcher who can step right into the rotation in the majors without some struggles.

If we were talking about replacing Adam Eaton, I’d be thrilled to put Bastardo or Carrasco or whoever in there. That’s basically Happ at this point — he’s in a position where he doesn’t even have to be good to be better than the guy he replaced. But Myers’ spot, and Moyer’s should it open up, is different. Myers had actually done relatively well this season, and while Moyer hasn’t, he was good last year.

by phatj on Jun 1, 2009 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t think we’re really disagreeing all that much here. I think what you’re saying is, it’s all about how you define the baseline. Certainly our current situation with the rotation isn’t ideal. But I think even this rotation is still likely to perform better than the performance we’ve gotten from starters so far this year, and probably not all that different from the rotation we had a year ago today.

by taco pal on Jun 1, 2009 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions