Third place, 6.5 games out, 41-45 wouldn’t have sounded too promising leaving spring training. Given where the Astros looked to be heading a couple of weeks ago, though, it’s a fairly decent accomplishment. Since dropping three of four to the Brewers and two of three to the Mariners in mid-June, the Astros have run off 10 wins in 13 games, moving to within four games of .500. That’s progress considering that the Astros finished the Seattle series 10 games below even.
Despite their recent resurgence, is four games under .500 too far out for a team to contend for the postseason? Recent history suggests that while the Astros face an uphill battle, they wouldn’t be the first team to dig themselves out of such a hole. Since the adoption of the 162-game schedule in 1961, five teams 41-45 or worse through 86 games have managed to win their division. Listed below are their records and positions at the same point in the season as the Astros now:
86-Gm Total Year Tm W-L GB W-L ----------------------------- 1973 NYN 38-48 12.0 82-79 1974 Pit 37-49 7.0 88-74 1984 KCA 39-47 5.0 84-78 1989 Tor 41-45 7.0 89-73 1997 Hou 41-45 2.0 84-78
Two ingredients are necessary for a team to do what the Astros hope to this season: a weak division and a strong finish. The first ingredient might be available to the Astros. The Cardinals lead the Central at 47-38, the worst record of any division leader. St. Louis is on a pace to win 90 games. To reach 90 wins the Astros need to finish 49-27. Since 1961, 46 teams have posted at least that good a record in their final 76 games, although just three of those teams, including the 1974 Pirates listed above, were sub-.500 through their first 86 games.
Given those odds, the Astros must hope that the Cardinals falter from their present pace. If St. Louis falls a handful of games off 90 wins, the Astros have a chance. If not, the Astros are almost certain not to win the Central.
As for the Astros finishing strong, they have in their favor the fact that their won-loss record is short of that predicted by the squares of their runs scored and allowed, also known as their Pythagorean record. A team with average luck might expect to be 45-41, rather than 41-45, with 410 runs scored and 394 allowed. While expectations are meaningless if not realized, there is some predictive value to be derived from a team’s Pythagorean record.
For the data set of 1,027 team-seasons from 1961 to 2001, Pythagorean record was a slightly better predictor than actual record, through the first 86 games of the season, of a team’s subsequent performance. Put another way, if you want to estimate a team’s record the second half of the season, you’ll get slightly more accurate results basing your guess on how many runs the team scored and allowed, rather than how many games it won and lost, the first half of the season.
The difference isn’t vast. The correlation between actual first-half record and second-half record is .507, a moderately strong relationship. The correlation between first-half Pythagorean record and second-half record is .534, a stronger, albeit slightly, relationship. Even this isn’t overwhelmingly positive for the Astros, since neither their actual nor their Pythagorean record through 86 games indicates that they’ll finish the season in the high 80s in wins. Whatever they’ve done to date, they must play markedly better in the second half.
Looking at history from an angle different than wins and losses, how many teams have managed to win the pennant or their division at least 6.5 games out through their first 86 games? Since 1961, 11 teams have turned the trick:
86 Gm Total Year Tm W-L GB W-L ------------------------------ 1964 StL 44-42 8.0 93-69 1973 NYN 38-48 12.0 82-79 1974 Pit 37-49 7.0 88-74 1978 NYA 47-39 11.0 100-63 1979 Cin 45-41 8.0 90-71 1985 KC 44-42 7.0 91-71 1988 Bos 44-42 7.0 89-73 1989 Tor 41-45 7.0 89-73 1993 Atl 48-38 9.0 104-58 1995 Sea 43-43 10.0 79-66 2001 StL 43-43 8.0 93-69
Last season’s Co-ardinals didn’t actually win their division, but they did play well enough after a .500 start to put a scare in the Astros and finish zero games out of first place. Maybe that’s what their media guide and banners should read: Zero Games Out of First Place in the 2001 Central Division. It probably wouldn’t fit on a uniform patch, though.
Some of those teams played in pathetic divisions. Others, including the 1978 Yankees, 1979 Reds, and 1993 Braves, staged the greatest comebacks of the divisional era. Mention of the 1979 Reds should be especially painful for Astros fans, who watched their team squander a 53-33 start with a lukewarm 36-40 finish that found the Astros 1.5 games behind the Reds at season’s end. Let’s hope that mojo is reversed and the Astros can add their 2002 season to the list of comebacks above.
Not-So-Great Expectations
Craig Biggio has been the subject of fan discussion concerning trade, retirement, and human sacrifice much
of the season. The 36-year-old second baseman has indeed failed to deliver even what Astros fans have come to expect of him at his advancing age.
Nonetheless, the biggest disappointment of 2002 is not Biggio, but his younger brother on the right side of the infield.
Jeff Bagwell’s surgically repaired, still-healing shoulder has knocked him way off his established norms. Consider the deviations between 2002 and the three years from 1999 to 2001 for both Bagwell and Biggio:
Bagwell Avg OBP Slg --------------------------- 1999-2001 .301 .425 .591 2002 .270 .378 .492 --------------------------- Difference -31 -47 -99
Biggio Avg OBP Slg --------------------------- 1999-2001 .287 .385 .442 2002 .252 .338 .398 --------------------------- Difference -35 -47 -44
Admittedly, Bagwell had much further to fall, but if you’re tallying missed expectations for the 2002 Astros offense, Bagwell takes more from the till than Biggio. Not to blame either of them: even the Gods of Olympus are entitled to an off-year every decade or so. Biggio had his in 2000 and may be finished as an average everyday player, although he may not be, too. A healthy Bagwell would make an even larger difference than Biggio returning to old form, however.
Happy Trails
I’ll save my farewell and salute to Kevin, Scott, and AstrosConnection in the optimism that (1) the site and the season last long enough for me to squeeze in a couple more columns and (2) I’m not too lazy to return to writing more than once every three months. Suffice it to say that my enjoyment of baseball won’t be the same without visiting here for daily updates, discussion, celebration, and commiseration. More on that later, I hope.
Although Kevin and Scott were planning to hang ’em up anyway, Major League Baseball utterly astounds me in its tone-deafness in fan relations. There is no legal question that Major League Baseball and the Houston Astros own the intellectual property rights to many of the marks and images used on this site. That said, intellectual property rights extend to granting, as well as to denying, permission to use such marks and images.
Not knowing whether permission has been requested and denied, if Major League Baseball has in fact decided to shut down not-for-profit sites that vigorously promote its product, this can only be described as typical of the terminally obtuse Selig administration. Perhaps someday the venerable institution will mercifully find itself in the hands of people who understand that step after step to alienate fans will eventually harm the game’s viability and profitability.
I hold out little hope these days. One reason I eagerly follow and study baseball statistics and history is it gives me an outlet to baseball where cease and desist letters, contraction, work stoppages, and mendacious used car salesmen with bad hairpieces can’t intrude. I realize my curiosities aren’t for everyone, but one of the beauties of baseball is that so many subsets of interests exist. And the miracle of the Internet is that millions of people can get together and share those interests. Too bad this is beyond Comrade Commissioner’s apparent understanding.