Are you guys going to run an analysis of the upcoming series between the two best teams in baseball?

We always do.

We usually like to wait until the match is actually going to happen, rather than it just being very probable.

Of course, the Red Sox vs. the Angels would be the best team in baseball versus ninth best (or thereabouts).

Unless the title of the post was a typo, and you're looking ahead to the Sox vs. the Rays in the ALCS.

I probably wouldn't have called the Rays the second best team a couple of days ago - I, like everyone else, know that the Rays have more wins than their run differential would suggest.
What I didn't realize until today is that they probably really are as good as their record. They're right on their 3rd order record.

Basically, they've been lucky to win as many games as they have, given the number of runs they've scored, but they've been equally unlucky to score as few runs as they have, given how well they've actually played.


My opinion of the Angels remains unchanged. They're probably the seventh best AL team, and I'd have them behind the Cubs and Mets for sure, and cases could be made to put them behind the Phillies and Brewers (I probably wouldn't do that, though). In any event, there's no way they're any better than the 7th best team in baseball, and they may well be the 11th best.

Well, first off Tom, you said two different things - seventh best in the AL vs. seventh best in the majors. I think seventh best in the AL is a tough case to make.

I totally see where you are coming from, as the Angels have way overshot their Pythagorean Projection, and play in a truly mediocre division.

But at the same time, the Angels were 14 games over .500 against the AL East this year - better than anyone else managed to fare against that division - and 19 games over .500 on the road, which is distantly better than any other team this season.

I will note that the run differential that you are relying upon has not changed as much as I would have expected in the second half of the season, but it is nevertheless mainly accounted for by the first half of the season, when they didn't have John Lackey, and after they acquired Mark Teixeira.

At this point I would put the Angels up ahead of everyone but Tampa and Boston in the AL.

Excellent points, Asher. The Angels have scored the 4th most runs in baseball in the second half, and I assune that ranking would go up even higher from August onwards due to the Teixeira factor. The front four of their rotation is as good as any in baseball, they have three lights-out relievers, and only the Rockies(!) have stolen more bases in the second half than the Angels have.

The Angels may not have had the best overall season in baseball, but they are built for the postseason and should be considered the favorites to win it all.

Well, first off, Asher, I didn't say two different things. I said they're *probably* the 7th best team in the AL, and I said there's no way they're better than the 7th best team in baseball. Maybe I should have said *possibly*, but the point stands.
Well, I suppose that is two different things, but I believe the point you were trying to make is that they are contradictory. They're not. Here, I'll reprase: There's no way they're any more than the 7th team in baseball, and they're probably only the 7th best team in their own league.

Really, you think the Angels are better than the Yankees and the Blue Jays? I would say certainly not. I think the odds of them being better than the White Sox are very small. If you'd like to argue that they're better than the Indians, that's fine, but that still puts them 6th in the AL. (And I'd bet that if they played this season 100 times that the Indians would finish with a better record than the Angels more often than not).

I really wasn't speaking to the postseason, I was just speaking to the overall quality of the team. As for the postseason, though: I think it's possible that they have the worst chance of winning it all of any of the 8 teams (maybe not, but they're no better than the 5th favorite, especially if the White Sox make it). They are the only ones, at this point, that must face the Red Sox, and they play in the much more competitive league.

Whoa, now you're saying that the White Sox would have a better chance in the postseason than both the Twins and the Angels? I'd ask whether I could have some of what you're smoking, but I'm sure that none of it remains.

If there is any left, don't forget to pass it to me.

Well, I think the White Sox are better than the Twins, and since they're playing for the same spot in the postseason, I think the Sox would have a better chance if they made it (not by a ton, but by some amount). I was leaving aside that the they're a lot less likely to get to the postseason than the Twins at this point.

As for the Angels, I do think that they would have the worst chance of any of the AL teams of winning the WS. Even if you think they're better than the White Sox, the White Sox don't have to play the Red Sox first. The Angels are the only team that would *have* to beat the Red Sox to win the WS. That's not good for their odds.

Every NL team may have a better shot at reaching the WS than the Angels (and White Sox/Twins, too, for that matter). The fact that the two best teams (by a not insignificant amount) are in the AL, sort of squashes the odds of the White Sox/Twins or Angels reaching the World Series. The NL field is a lot more wide open, and each team is more likely to reach the Series than the White Sox/Angels/Twins.

Since a team's likelihood of reaching the WS is a huge factor in their odds of *winning* the WS, yes, I would say the Angels are one of the worst bets to win it all.

That's not to say they don't have a chance - how bad could the worst team's odds be? 3-4% to win? Really, I have no idea, but with only 8 teams, no one team is *that* unlikely to win it all.

I will say, that if the Brewers pitch Sabathia on short rest again Sunday and get the Wild Card, their odds may be pretty bad, too (due to their rotation setup and the possibility that he breaks down). The same concept could be applied to the White Sox/Twins, I guess, but I doubt that would improve the Angels chances any, since they'd become more likely to face the Rays in the ALCS.

Home field would help a little bit, though, and I haven't been thinking about that.

The Angels are the best road team in baseball, 19 games over .500, while the Red Sox were three games under .500 on the road.

The Angels have the best record against teams with winning records in baseball, while the Red Sox were four games under .500 in that regard.

The Angels went 8-1 against the Red Sox this season, while the Red Sox went 1-8 against the Angels.

The Angels had the best record in the AL against AL East teams, 30-16, while the Red Sox managed to be only five games over .500 against those teams, 37-32. Keep in mind - the Angels had to play the Red Sox, the Red Sox did not.

The Angels have scored and given up essentially the same number of runs per game at home and on the road, while the Red Sox have been wildly different. At home, the Red Sox score nearly two more runs per game than they give up. On the road, that number is .33 runs per game.

Now, Keith and I are becoming somewhat notoriously bad for our inability to correctly predict the playoffs, and anything can happen in a short series, but I don't see how one could reasonably pick the Red Sox over the Angels at this point.

I will add, however, that the "no important games in September" theory applies here. Teams that have their division wrapped up June, as the Angels did, often fare poorly in the playoffs, so I'll spot you that one. We've also seen wild card teams play amazingly well in the wild card era, so that favors the Red Sox as well.

Making the argument that the angels are better, because they won more games in circumstance x doesn't really do anything for me, since I've already stated that I think their W/L record is highly deceptive.

The difference in the Sox' run differential at home/road is interesting, but the home games count, too. Their run differential is always going to be more extreme at home than on the road, by virtue of their park. I'm not sure the park accounts for .33 vs 2. Although it's not really two, is it? It's 1.6076. Carrying the .33 out to the hundredths, then rounding up four tenths to the nearest integer on the other (and calling it "nearly two" seems a bit disingenuous to me. If that's the case, why didn't you call the run differential per game on the road "nearly zero." That would be a smaller roundoff than the other. In any event, I don't necessarily think their home park accounts for all of it, so maybe they are a bit better at home (just like almost everyone else). Again, those games count.

I generally would tend to say that the best team has the best chance to win, and you said that you think the Red Sox and Rays are better than the Angels. If being in a four team bracket with (at least) two teams that are better than you doesn't lead to a slim chance of winning the WS, what does?

I also believe that if one team is 8-1 against another, but the other team has demonstrated (based on an entire season of play) that they are the superior team, that the 8-1 record is probably an accident of the schedule (luck).

And, I'm not trying to predict anything, and your recent history of poorly predicting the playoffs shouldn't be held against you. If the Red Sox played the Royals in a seven game series, what does that make the Red Sox? 70/30 favorites? 75/25? we're not talking about huge differences in odds here.

I guess my point is that the Angels have proven an ability to win under any circumstances, while the Red Sox tend to rack up runs, and wins, against lesser teams and in home games.

And where I come from, when one team takes eight out of nine against another, we generally don't call it luck.

Ok, you base your evaluation of these two teams' talent off of nine games - I'll use the other 150.

The thing is that you said you think the Red Sox are better! Your RS/RA examples support that (the road run differential that you point to for the Red Sox to illustrate that they are not as good as I think is actually a few thousanths higher than the Angels' home run differential - though you forgot to mention that), but you seem to think the Angels should be clear favorites in the series????? I don't really understand that.

Maybe I'm just missing something (and, really, I'm not trying to be argumentative here), but I clearly don't understand the idea that the Red Sox are an inferior team because their run differential is better at home than on the road. I realize that you've gotten to a point where you think home stats for a player are meaningless, but I don't see how that gets extended to an entire team (not in the same sense, anyway).
I understand the concept for an individual player - a hitter at home in a hitter's park would be expected to play better than on the road (in a series of other parks that, theoretically, average out to be more neutral). But I really don't get the point of doing it for a whole team. I mean, they both hit and pitch at home, right? So if it's a run scoring environment issue, it would affect both sides of the ball. The Red Sox front office is pretty smart, I guess they could have built their team with players that would be helped by their home park (fly balls to left, line drives to center and right) - I don't see how that makes them less of a good team. I suppose I would understand if they were playing at a neutral site (Milwaukee, perhaps:)), but they're not; they get to play several games in Fenway, too.
What am I missing? Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative with this - I'm perfectly willing to learn something here.

I have nothing to add.

You stay classy, Asher.

I really was trying to understand where you're coming from on the team-wide home/road splits.

What you are missing, Tom, is that the Red Sox need to play the Angels three times on the road. They are extremely unlikely to come away with more than one victory in those three contests, while odds are excellent that the two games at Fenway will be split.

I'm not missing that concept. It seemed like Asher was using the Red Sox run differential at home and on the road to "prove" that they're not as good of a team as their run differential suggests - I fail to grasp the merit of that argument. If it's simply a home field in the playoffs issue, I get that, but I just disagree.


The Red Sox run differential per game on the road is just a tick better than the Angels' run differential per game at home. I get that the Red Sox don't have the same advantage on the road, but even if you think they're wildly worse on the road than at home:
1) In Anaheim, they're *at least* as good as the Angels, and
2) In Boston, they're far superior.

That's not to say that the Angels can't win. In a five game series, the favorite is, what, 55% to win? I just don't see how an actual analysis would favor them.

I guess I just don't think one home game (though meaningful) more than offsets the fact that the Red Sox are a better team. Especially to the degree that you seem to think. I'm aware that there are a dozen more things you could look at, but based on their 3rd order records, the Red Sox are a 101-102 win team. The Angels...83. I just don't think home field makes up for that.

Then maybe what you are missing is that a theoretical 100-win team is not necessarily well-suited to beat a theoretical 80-win team in a short series.

Looking back through these posts, I think Tom and I are talking two different things. I think Tom is arguing about which team had the better year (which I agree with him on) and I am talking about which team is more likely to win their playoff series (which I believe was what prompted this chain).

To be clear - I think the Red Sox had the better season. I think the Angels will win their playoff series.

I also think I disagree with your treatment of Pythagorean Projection. In recent years, when a team is over-achieving their Projection, it seems to me that this has generally not meant that, since they over-achieved in games 1 through 150, they are going to lose game 151, but rather since they have over-achieved this year, I wouldn't expect them to repeat this performance next year.

I don't think the Angels' luckiness is going to suddenly hurt them in the playoffs. I think it is going to hurt them next season, especially if they look at their team and say "we won 100 games in 2008. We are in good shape," the way the Mariners thought that they were one or two moves away from playoff contention based on their performance in 2007.

But that is totally a theory based purely on anecdotal evidence.

I think the best comparison from last year would be the Cubs and Diamondbacks. Last season, the D'backs won 90 games but where projected to win 79 - an awful team by this measure. The Cubs won 85 and were projected to win 86. But the D'backs swept the Cubs despite the fact that their home/road run differential wasn't even that good.