Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 470: The Unprecedented Parity of 2014

Episode Date: June 13, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the significance of the large number of teams still in contention.

Hello, listener. Quick programming note. Later in this episode, Sam and I discuss where the percentage of teams within five games of a playoff spot this season ranks historically, and we say that it ranks second behind 1994. After we recorded, the code for those calculations changed slightly, as did the results, and 2014, with 25 out of 30 teams within five games of a playoff spot, now stands alone in first place. 1994 now barely cracks the top 25, so we withdraw our comments about what a shame it was that we never got to see the end of that season. Good riddance, 1994. It's a shame that that strike didn't come sooner.

The only other change was to the percentage of teams within five games of a playoff spot at this point last season, which was actually 15, not 17. That's all you need to know, so please keep commuting, showering, pretending to work, or whatever you do while listening to Effectively Wild, and revel in the fact that you now know more than Sam and I did when we were recording. Or maybe you always know more than we do, in which case, thanks for humoring us. I hope you've enjoyed this first-ever Effectively Wild pre-episode corrections segment. for humoring us. I hope you've enjoyed this first ever Effectively Wild pre-episode corrections segment. The second time in Effectively Wild history, I believe, realized

that there was a problem in that there was no file. I won't name any names of programs that we use to record this podcast because it's freeware and it's served us faithfully and well throughout the years. But for whatever reason, this one time it let us down. Something crashed while we were talking. Maybe it just got bored listening to us. For whatever reason, we lost the file.

So we're talking again about the same thing. But we're going to make it better this time. When life takes away your file your podcast you record a better podcast so this will be this will be leaner and more efficient does that mean so um so the max scherzer stuff there's really there's no way to get into that right like that just disappears right we can't well we can't we can't recreate the max scherzer sidebar like you we can recreate the main spine of the podcast but the sidebars the things that happen accidentally the uh the callbacks you can't you can't recreate those

so matt the max scherzer tangent it just disappears right we'll never go to it again well uh well maybe we'll have new tangents this time but but we can but but but but but but but but yes wheelbarrows all right well we can't handle people with these great nuggets from the last podcast why don't you why don't you start out making the same point that you made last time? Because it's a valid point about the WebAlbers eagerness, people jumping the gun on the WebAlbers issue. Yeah. So Ben asked if there were any updates on the WebAlbers race. I didn't actually.

You just gave us one. race and I didn't actually you just you just gave us one I checked before the podcast to see if there was an update because we haven't mentioned it for what a whole week and I know there hasn't been a game a game finished without a save by either of them so that's why right there hasn't but tonight tonight Ryan Webb came into a game and I want to say like the eighth inning like a three-run lead and then we and I got saying, oh, keep your eye on Webb. He might get a save. And we get a lot of updates. And I can't tell you how happy I am that we get a lot of updates

because it's nice to see that this has captured your imagination. It's nice to see that this is a popular – this is not a – there are almost – there are eight people who are like, yeah, it is. And then there's like so many more who are like, shut up. Or if we get eight tweets about it, then we have to assume that there were 800 other people who thought about tweeting at us. That's what they used to tell us.

The newspaper, they would tell you every letter represented 1,000 readers. So somebody pointed out that Ryanyan webb was in a game and we get this a lot pretty much anytime ryan webb gets in a game uh we get notified which is good i'm happy that this happens because i like to think about this i like to think about the race i like to pay attention to it but um but these are always so premature. These are like, for instance, if a guy hit a fly ball to left field in the first inning and in mid-flight you said he's an eighth of the way to a four-home run game, that's kind of what the Ryan Webb stuff is. We've already established that, yes, he comes into many baseball games. He just doesn't come into baseball games and then get the chance to get a save.

So when he comes into the eighth and it is technically a save situation, he is not going to pitch the ninth. That's what makes Ryan Webb notable. When he comes in in the sixth, he is not going to pitch four innings to finish because nobody does that. So thrilled with the notices. I just want everybody to keep their expectations in check. And as a tangent upon the tangent, I noted—

I'd like to think that Ryan Webb gets excited every time too. When he comes in in the sixth or seventh, this is it. I like to think that every morning Ryan Webb to think that every morning ryan webb looks in the mirror and tells himself today's the day and he he says it out loud like in a movie where people say things out loud even though nobody's around yeah um uh so then the the tangent among the tangent was that we we just we talked ever so briefly about the fact that webb albers is almost the same as wheelbarrow and so we're going to call this the wheelbarrow race because it is the web albers race the wheelbarrow race yes a

thing that is real an actual phrase yes so not a thing that i just came up with a wheelbarrow race right all right and so then so then we jumped off that. We made a smooth segue from that, as we always do, to the other thing we talked about, which was that we've gotten other tweets and emails from people who have tried to build off the...

Don't try to recreate the Scherzer magic. It's lost. We did talk about the Scherzer. Well, let's just say what it was now that we've teased it. There was another streak of something happening without something else happening. In this case, it was Max Scherzer making starts without finishing them. So in a way, kind of the opposite of the Ryan Webb, right? I mean, Scherzer could not finish a game.

He could not do the thing that Ryan Webb does so often and so well in non-safe situations. And that streak finally was broken Thursday when Scherzer pitched a complete game against the White Sox in a great pitcher's duel with Chris Sale, who was also excellent. Scherzer finished off the White Sox in 113 pitches. So that brought an end to that. But Sam made a discovery that slightly marred that achievement. I refuse to give opinions

about Max Scherzer again. It turned out that there had been a nine-inning Scherzer start in a tie game. So he had pitched nine innings. He just had not completed the game. So that marred, in fact, forever. I tell you, way to ruin a punchline.

That sounded so unexciting. People are going to wonder why I have nostalgic feelings about the original Max Scherzer conversation because you sucked all the romance out of it. It was podcast gold the first time around. Okay, so the main topic for today is inspired by a Richard Justice tweet. Richard Justice, the MLB.com writer,

tweeted something on Thursday morning about the fact that lots of teams are within a five-game margin of a playoff spot. So 25 of 30 major League teams as of Thursday morning were within five games of a playoff berth. That's counting wildcard spots. And 20 of 30 were within three games of a wildcard berth. So this sounded interesting, sounded unusual.

I asked Rob McEwen at BP to run some numbers and try to check whether this was unprecedented, whether it wasn't as cool as it sounded. And he went back and looking through our BP database, which goes back to 1950 for certain things, for this thing, he looked at the for this thing. He looked at the number of teams within three games, within five games, within every increment from zero to five games on the same date through each of those seasons. So through June 11th, not necessarily the same number of games in each season because some seasons start earlier or later than others, but same date on those seasons. And he calculated the number of teams within that margin, within that range of games from a playoff spot, and also the average deficit. So just taking all the deficits of all the teams in those years and averaging them together. And what he found was

that this is not quite unprecedented, but it's notable, I would say. The average deficit as of Thursday morning was 4.8 games. That was the third lowest average deficit on that date after 1994, which was 3.25 games, and 1997, which was 3.25 games, and 1997, which was three and a half games. And looking at the number of teams within five games of a playoff spot, we also looked at the percentage of teams within five games of a playoff spot, because, of course, there are more teams now, so you wouldn't want to look at the raw team totals. The percentage of teams within five games of a playoff spot

is the second highest it's ever been. So 1994 was the highest. As of June 11th of 1994, 86% of teams, 24 of 28, were within five games of a playoff spot. This year, it was 25 out of 30. So that's 83.3%. And so the takeaway, I suppose there is that, A, we were robbed of what probably would have been a pretty cool playoff race in 1994, as well as some interesting individual seasons

like Bagwell and Tony Gwynn, guys that it would have been nice to see how they would have finished that year if there hadn't been a strike. Also probably would have been a pretty interesting playoff race. Actually, even when that season ended, even when the strike started, the West Division, do you remember what the West Division looked like? Yeah, no, I do.

Oh, I totally remember it. There was no team with a winning record and no team even close. I think the best team is on a 74, 75 win pace. Yeah, the Texas Rangers were 52 and 62, 456 winning percentage, and that was tops in the ALS. The A's were a game back. The Mariners were two games back. Wait, wait, wait.

What about the Angels? The Angels were five and a half games back. Good to know. So do you think that a team would have finished over 500 in 1994 probably not right i mean that i mean that's through 114 games so uh a team would have had to to play pretty well to get over 500 because they were not even close so right a team would have basically had to go 30-20 to end the year. Right, which could have happened.

But, you know, against mostly division opponents, and we know their division sucked. Yes. Yeah, so that would have, I mean, gosh, would that have been the worst division winner of all time? Oh, yeah, no, certainly. Easily, right? I mean, it's got to be.

Clearly, nobody's made the playoffs with a losing record in any capacity. So, yeah, it, certainly. Easily, right? I mean, it's got to be. Oh, clearly. Nobody's made the playoffs with a losing record in any capacity. So, yeah, it would have been the worst. So we were robbed of the chance of seeing that. How old were you, Ben? Seven. Goodness gracious. And the White Sox in that year, the Central Division also had a pretty good race going. The White Sox were a game ahead of the indians four games ahead of the royals so good good races in 1994 that we never got to see

the end of and so that was the that was the other year other than that 2014 is the the the most the most parody we have seen through this point in a season, at least in a sense, you, you had a, an excellent response to, to my initial spiel. When we last talked about this, would you like to make the same response?

Was that the response that this is the, that, that this is only the second closest race in 20 years, not 70 years or 60 years or whatever. Because it's really completely unfair to compare the pre-wildcard seasons to the post-wildcard seasons. Because I believe, I kept thinking about this after we recorded. Because I said something along these lines and I wasn't sure if it was true. And I kept thinking about it and I still don't know. these lines and I wasn't sure if it was true. And I kept thinking about it and I still don't know.

But I believe that by definition, you cannot possibly have a race, that you cannot possibly have a situation where the one league, gosh, I had time to practice this. I've said these words before. The division race makes everything tighter. If you clump a bunch of teams together in a bunch of three-division races, and then you clump the same teams together, the same wins in a one-division league, I believe it's impossible for the one-division league. I believe it's impossible for the one-division league to not be more less parodious. Less parodious. It's the noun for parody.

Almost a word. The adjective for parody. Parodious. You look that up. We'll get it right on the third attempt at this episode. So the... Right, so of course this is highly dependent on the playoff structure in a given year. And the way that this was calculated, that was factored in. That was taken into account, the playoff format in each year. So if we were looking at 1950, we would calculate the average deficit and the number of teams within five games based on the 1950 playoff format.

And of course, the 2014 playoff format encourages this sort of parity or this sort of keeping hope alive later into the year. There are 10 playoff spots. A third of the teams make the playoffs. This is, of course, more teams than before. So it makes sense that there would be more teams closer to a playoff spot through this point in the season. So it's not necessarily an outlier season under the current format. We haven't, we've only seen one, you know, we haven't seen enough seasons like this to say that this is, that this is incredibly strange under the dual wildcard format. Although I would guess that it is unusual. I would guess that if, if we were to,

to run a sim or something, or if we were to just wait a hundred years and watch all the seasons, I would guess that this sort of parody through this point in the season would still be somewhat unusual. Just comparing it to last season through the same date with the same playoff format, the average deficit then was 9.4 games, so a little over twice as large as it is now. There were 17 teams within five games instead of 25. So I would guess that that would be closer to the typical distribution under the current playoff format. But it's hard to say.

Yeah, I remain as I was an hour ago. As I was an hour ago. We should, you know, we've talked on this podcast before about how we both have that horrible affliction where we can't tell a joke twice without prefacing it with, I was telling somebody earlier. Yes. Even if it's not, even if the person was not around, like, it's intellectually dishonest. We should just do a quick preface. We've said all these words before. Not all of them. That 1994 playoff race, that was totally new.

That was the first time you said Jeff Bagwell today. Yes. That's true. I noted it. No, we've said all these words before, but I remain, I think that I feel both that this is totally insignificant, that this is a result of the playoff system, that it's nothing but math, that if you had... I mean, the problem is you can't even compare it to 1956 and pretend they had those divisions because there were only like 18 teams. And so you can't even mimic this. But I just feel pretty confident that this is nothing particularly significant

happening that is just what happens when you add two wild cards you know when you add one wild card but then when you add two wild cards even more so um so i'm not initially impressed on the other hand i this is gonna this is the opposite i'm gonna say the opposite point uh on the other hand we've talked about it's the sign of right? That you can hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. You're arguing two conflicting positions at the same time. Yeah. So the other thing that we've talked about on this show is about how sort of the ability to buy wins

has been diluted somewhat by various incentives that baseball has put in place that generally I think have made for a better game and that I generally more or less support. But the result is that it's much harder to run away with the league by spending more money, and it's somewhat easier to rise up from the cellar with less money. And so you have a real compression. And I think that probably 10 years ago, 20 years ago, for most of the wildcard era, in fact, you've had teams that essentially started 20 games back just by virtue of their payroll. There were outliers, there were teams like the A's, the Moneyball era, and there have always been a couple of teams that have spent a lot of

money and been garbage, like the Orioles of the entire life that Ben has lived. But for the most part, payroll has been a large part of destiny. And now that that is mostly closed off, not entirely, but very largely closed off, you have a real compression of teams where the Pirates and the Royals and the Indians and the A's and all these teams that have low payrolls, the Rays, in theory, are not really at risk of losing 107 games and the Yankees are not guaranteed winning 107 games. So you have just this real tight pack of teams.

And I think that that's what Bud Seelig wants. That was his goal. I think that if you asked him to write his obituary or his legacy or his whatever, he would be pretty proud of that. And I don't think there's any reason for him not to be proud of that. That was his goal. He pulled it off. There are unintended consequences that we're all aware of.

But, you know, he more or less pulled it off. So I think there is also something real to the idea of parity in a sort of more global sense. I mean, baseball over the next decade is probably going to have a lot more parity. By the way, parity as an adjective is a real struggle. The internet does not bring any answers. And in fact, there is a question on Yahoo Answers that asks this very question, and there are no answers suggested, which I take as a challenge. It's too highbrow a question for Yahoo Answers.

I will be answering this question on Yahoo Answers before I go to bed tonight. Okay. Maybe you can enter it on this podcast. Yeah, so even if this is the new normal, even if this is what we're going to see every year or many years or most years under this new format, as long as we have this format, I still think it's significant. And it's, it's, it seems new because it is new, right? I mean, even if I've seen a lot of people mention this this year, it wasn't just Richard Justice's tweet. A lot of people have mentioned how how close the races are, how few teams are out of it, as if that's a new thing.

And it sort of is a new thing, even if it's a product of this playoff format. It's something that we have hardly ever seen before, except for except for 1994. We have not seen a season that had so few teams out of the race through this point. And so that's, I think, worth noting and worth celebrating, probably, if you like the idea of teams being in contention and no one being out of it through less than half of the season, as I do, as I think most people do, then great, job well done, baseball. Yeah, and if you think that only good teams should make the playoffs

and that the best teams should win the World Series, then not as good. I mean, that's the, as we just talked about yesterday or the day before, maybe an hour ago, I can't remember, that's the push-pull, basically. Do you want a league like the NBA, where the regular season becomes somewhat devalued? Baseball's not there yet. So far, I think they've got a nice balance. I think the regular season generally has value. You see it somewhat on the opposite end of the spectrum. You see it where the best teams get to kind of walk away with the division. But I don't know. I mean, the more that we live with it, the more that I'm just convinced that the two wild card system is just absolutely brilliant.

That it's just perfect. this wonderful, wonderful incentive where you have more teams that are in play and more teams that are able to start thinking about making the playoffs and what to do in July and that aren't giving up in July. Oh, you know what we forgot to talk about? We completely skipped the trade deadline. I'm getting to it. Anyway, I was talking to somebody today, and we were actually debating whether the Astros should be considering trading at the deadline. I mean, you have to really question their ability to maintain the pace that they've kept over the last month, and so that would argue strongly against. But they're only five games out of the playoffs. Like, why not?

Like, if the Phillies were five games out of the playoffs, then you'd know that they'd be emptying that farm system. I don't think the Astros will, but at least you can sort of think about it. And so that's a great thing. But the other thing is that it creates this... I mean, it is almost an effectively wild reader suggestion, the idea that you create this sort of ephemeral postseason spot that gets everybody interested in the postseason

but doesn't actually have as much value as the others, and then that way you don't de-incentivize people from winning their division. And so you have a system where almost every team that is any good at all is playing games that matter, that truly matter. They don't matter necessarily... Like, if you're 11 games up, you know, from the second wildcard spot, well, you're not actually

worried about missing the playoffs, but they still matter because you want to make the right kind of playoffs, you know? And so almost every team that is any good at all is playing games that legitimately matter on September 1st. And that's pretty brilliant uh so i have to say other than the now the problem with that is that wow i can't believe we're relitigating the two wild card playoff system uh on june 11th or whatever of 2014 june 12th it's not even the first year of the two wild card-one card system. Yeah, I know. But of course, the flip side is that you introduce this thing that makes no sense at all, the one-game playoff in baseball, which is pretty much antithetical to the entire concept of a baseball season. And so it does really feel like they had to, they created this great system,

and then they had to patch it with something that doesn't quite match the fabric. Yeah. But otherwise, yeah, I like it more and more every, I think I like it more and more every week, so it's great. All right, should we talk about... Those wildcard games get big ratings.

They're really fun, even if you kind of object to them on an intellectual level. Yeah. They are fun. So, yeah, so we also mentioned, I mean, there are, of course, some teams that, while not out of it based on number of games out of a playoff odds, there are eight teams with under 10% chance of making the playoffs, even though there are only five that are more than five games out. But there are also zero teams with zero playoff percentage, which is unusual because there are very often teams that are at a zero percentage in April, in May, at really depressingly early points of the season. So no one is there yet. The Cubs, as we record this, are the lowest at 1.1.

So even they have a shot. So the interesting thing is that although in addition to the fact that there are not a lot of teams that are out of it right now, at least if you look at the standings, there aren't a lot of teams that seem like they're going to be way out of it next year. So right now there's only one team, the Rays of all teams, that are on pace to lose 100 games. that are on pace to lose 100 games. And, of course, they might improve upon that pace unless they do decide to sell everyone, in which case they might not. But we wondered whether there would be a team that next year that we'd go into next year thinking that this team will lose 100 games. And, of course, if the Rays do decide to sell everyone,

perhaps they are that team. Although even if they did that, they have enough young, productive players under team control that they would not be selling that seems like they wouldn't be that bad. And there aren't really a lot of teams that fit that description because just looking at the last place teams now or the teams that are farthest out now, The last place teams now are the teams that are farthest out now. None of them really seems like a—most of them seem like safe bets to improve or at least stand pat. Like the Twins are in last place, but they're playing pretty well. They seem like a team that is on the rise. The Astros, of course, seem like a team that is on the rise.

The Cubs seem like a team that is on the rise so the two candidates that we identified the Phillies of course we probably bashed the Phillies too much on this podcast but the Phillies seem like the best bet just in that they're not playing well now they either

would sell a bunch of people at this deadline if they continue to play poorly in which case they will be worse or if they hold on to everyone, then some of the older players they have would be worse. So you can imagine them possibly going into next year being a team that's projected to lose a lot of games. And then the other one we discussed is the Diamondbacks,

who you could imagine they've been disappointing. Maybe the new regime or the semi-new regime that they have will decide to burn things and they don't have a lot of young talent come up. If the Astros example is encouraging and now that they've started to win, you can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel where you can point to the Astros as the successful model franchise that we always say that the Rays or the Cardinals are. The next team that finds itself in a position where it might be advantageous to do what they did can then point to the Astros and say, look how well it worked for them. Now they're a young team with lots of homegrown stars and we just need to suffer through a few years like they did. So we could see that assuming that the CBA doesn't make the tanking that they did

disadvantageous. So the question then is what is the effect on this year's trading deadline? Because of course, the fewer teams that are out of it this year and the fewer teams that look like they'll be out of it next year, the fewer potential sellers there are. So maybe we will see a slow deadline. Maybe we won't see a lot of action over the next month and a half. Maybe we won't see a lot of action over the next month and a half. That's true. You know, when we did this the first time and you said we were talking about teams that might conceivably be considering themselves out of it next year, or if not today, that might think of themselves that way in a month or so.

And you said the Phillies, right as I was about to say the Philliesies and then i said the diamondbacks right as you were about to say the diamonds yeah i i felt really close to you at that time and this this episode there was none of that you just you just in you know you summarized and and i kind of felt a little bit distant well if there there are two teams that have taken more than their fair share of abuse from the sabermetric community over the last couple years it's probably probably those two teams so so something to watch as we head into this deadline you're already starting to to hear it i've seen the odd quote on mlb trade rumors from a gm saying that you know normally after the draft is over, teams start

calling around and everyone starts to feel out who's a seller and who's a buyer. And this year, it seems like no one's talking about selling. So unless things change over the next month or so, unless things start to shake out and there's more separation in these teams, then maybe that's what we will see. And as you pointed out, there's some incentive for teams to deal earlier. We've seen teams deal early, guys who are not impending free agents but might have a year of team control left. And maybe we won't see so many of those deals because there are fewer teams that consider themselves out of it for 2015.

Sure could happen. All right. I think this went better than the first attempt on the whole. The tricky thing about these second episodes is that I'm also an hour tireder. And so there's always that wild card. Yes. But I think it went pretty well.

Yeah, hopefully that won't happen again. If you're listening to this, then you know that we successfully recorded this podcast. Okay, so that is the end of this week's shows. Thank you for listening to them. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go to baseballreference.com,

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All right. So that is the end for this week. Please have a wonderful weekend and rejoin us again for a new episode on Monday. Good morning and welcome. I'm Ben. Hi. How are you? That was not the intro. Brought to you by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg.

I am Ben Lindberg. Joined as always.