By my scorekeeping the Mets would begin the playoffs if the season ended today. Their Euclidian record projects to 90 wins.
Meanwhile, I was onESPN.com and the right-hand column caught my eye. So I clicked it. Hmmmm.
You know what drives me nuts about advanced statistics? That pesky number under the W. it ruins everything.
ESPN is factoring playoffs based on the Mets continuing to pitch Manny Acosta
this is a true story: back on friday afternoon, september 26th, 2008, i looked at the ESPN playoff odds. the mets had a 75% chance of making the playoffs. the brewers? 25%. despite the statistical advantage, that didn’t ease my mind. i had lived through the prior season, and i knew anything was possible. so what did i do? i cut a piece of paper into four equal parts. i wrote ‘mets’ on three of them, and ‘brewers’ on one of them. i put them into a little pen holder i have on my desk, and i randomly drew a name out of the cup. “METS!” i exclaimed. “nice.” this quelled my fears for the afternoon. 3 out of 4 chance. it was as simple as that. only…it wasn’t. because the mets lost 2 of 3 that weekend to the marlins, the brewers won 2 of 3 from the cubs, and the mets were on the outside looking in for the second straight year. the moral? i’ll let the collection of 25 humans decide who has the best chance of making the playoffs.
ESPN also ranks teams RPI, based on 25% team winning percentage, 50% opponents’ average winning percentage, and 25% opponents’ opponents’ average winning percentage.
Here the Mets are ranked 7 in MLB…that’s pretty good. Stupid Sandy…
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rpi