5 MLB Teams Whose Records Are Lying to You
Wins and losses are the currency of sports, and the standings are the trump card. They have ultimate say in which teams move beyond the regular season to compete for a championship.
That is why former NFL coach Bill Parcells was mostly correct when he said, “You are what your record says you are.”
Mostly.
In an age of advanced measuring tools for players and teams in every sport, Major League Baseball—and more so the people dedicated to its evolving metrics—leads the way.
As baseball technology gets smarter and the people around it get more adept at analyzing the data, Parcells’ famous quote becomes less and less accurate. Just six weeks into this 162-game season, a team’s actual record might not be the best reflection of how good or bad it has actually performed.
Teams with gobs of wins might not be so good, and struggling clubs might not be so destined to stink all summer.
Using certain outlying stats and record projectors like Bill James’ Pythagorean formula and Fangraphs’ BaseRuns model, we can determine which teams’ records are currently lying.
Houston Astros
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The Astros lost 92 games last season, and because they don’t have the money to transform their roster into a worst-to-first candidate, nobody had them winning the American League West in 2015. But here we are, with the Astros atop a disappointing AL West with an impressive 22-13 record, tied for the best in the league going into Friday’s games.
Considering where they were last season with a quite similar roster, it’s easy to figure the Astros are not this good even with some of their younger players performing well and more help on the way.
"Astros have AL's best record. They're calling up Lance McCullers and soon they'll call up MLB's top prospect, Carlos Correa. Mark Appel too.
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) May 15, 2015"
The Astros also have some statistical anomalies that don’t require a math degree—or general new-age baseball stats knowledge—to decipher. Entering Friday, they led the AL in home runs and strikeouts and were fourth in walks. They also had the league’s worst batting average and the third-lowest OBP.
The lineup also has a home run-to-fly ball rate of 15.4 percent. Since 2002, 10 teams have finished with a HR/FB percentage of at least 14 percent, according to Fangraphs, and six of those teams were the New York Yankees. This tells us it is possible for the Astros to maintain their pace, but it’s also a signal it is unlikely.
The Astros have quality relief pitching and an OK defense, so it’s possible they are better than what we all expected from them this year. The Pythagorean and BaseRuns formulas have the Astros just a few ticks below their current winning percentage, but it is also reasonable to expect that the Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s will all perform better than they have so far.
For now, the Astros are riding a wave of a small sample size working in their favor. We can assume a correction is coming based on the oddities of their numbers, but this is by no means a bad baseball team right now.
Washington Nationals
2 of 5
There are not many underlying, non-traditional statistics to point to for the Nationals entering Friday with a 19-17 record and needing a run of nine wins in 13 games to get there. Clearly that mark is worse than expected for a club many picked to win the World Series.
The rotation has not been as advertised with its 4.16 ERA (10th in the National League entering Friday), but beyond that it has been the team’s defense that has let it down. The Nats were at minus-18 defensive runs saved, tied for the third-worst total in the majors. They also led the league with 30 errors before play Friday.
"Nationals had 6 less hits & 3 more errors than the DBacks, yet they won by 3 on the road. That's called stealing a game!! Great job boys
— Barely In Bounds (@BarelyIn) May 13, 2015"
That shoddy defense and mediocre starting pitching has led to a run differential of just plus-7, and Pythagorean and BaseRuns have the Nationals at exactly their current record.
Still, you have to figure the defensive issues will be worked out, and the rotation, which was billed as one of the best ever, will correct itself into at least better than 10th in the league.
While the Nats are exactly what their record says they are at this very moment, their recent run added to some expected corrections make it reasonable to believe they are still the favorites in the NL East despite their 1.5-game deficit.
Oakland A’s
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It is atypical to have a club with a positive-run differential be 10 games below .500, but that is where the A’s stood entering Friday. Their record says they are one of the worst teams in the majors, but that simply is not the case.
"Phillies are 13-23, the A's are 13-23. The Phillies have a -63 run differential, the A's have a +1 run differential
— My own worst enemy (@mynewhate) May 15, 2015"
"A's are 13-23 and their run differential is +1. Cubs are 19-15 and their run differential is -1. This is not how numbers work.
— Drew Kreeft (@DrewKreeft) May 14, 2015"
Pythagorean says the A’s should be a .500 team and BaseRuns says the A’s ought to be 20-16, which would put them right behind the Houston Astros at the top of the American League West standings. The reasons for the A’s struggles despite their positive-run differential are a shaky bullpen, injuries and an out-of-whack record in one-run games.
Oakland’s bullpen went into the weekend with a 4.98 ERA and seven blown saves, both being the worst marks in the league. It has not helped the group that closer Sean Doolittle has not pitched this season because of a torn rotator cuff. Also, Jarrod Parker could have slotted nicely into the group, or rotation, had he not fractured his elbow last week while rehabbing from his second Tommy John surgery.
The A’s have also been hit by injuries to Coco Crisp, Ben Zobrist and most recently Ike Davis, who has a 116 OPS-plus.
As for those one-run games, the A’s are 1-11. Part of that is because of their faulty bullpen, but part of it is also dumb luck as one-run games can hinge on any number of things.
“Things like that don’t hold up over an entire season, or at least you don’t think they will,” manager Bob Melvin told Bleacher Report. “We are just on the wrong side of those right now”
As the A’s get healthier and if those one-run outcomes can start to skew a little more in their favor, this is a team that won’t be in last place for much longer.
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Pittsburgh Pirates
4 of 5
The Pirates went into Friday two games below .500 despite a plus-13 run differential, the second-best total in the NL Central.
The Pirates have been one of the worst offensive clubs in the league to this point, and much of that has to do with Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison not performing anywhere close to expected levels considering both finished in the top nine of MVP voting last season.
Some of the offensives woes are also a product of poor luck. The team’s BABIP is .283 this season, 11th out of the NL's 15 teams. Last season it was .307, good for fourth. Further evidence that bad luck is in play is that the Pirates have a 28.9 percent hard-contact rate, eighth in the NL, according to Fangraphs. Last season the number and place were similar as their 29.3 percent mark ranked ninth.
"Ranking the MLB teams in how often they make hard contact Where does your team rank? Check the list pic.twitter.com/IQME40Zui2
— Mark Simon (@msimonespn) May 11, 2015"
The Pirates also have six walk-off losses, including three in a row to the St. Louis Cardinals, all in extra innings, to start this month. They suffered another extra-inning walk-off defeat Friday against the Chicago Cubs. Add the two last month against the Cincinnati Reds and all of Pittsburgh’s walk-off losses have come within the division.
Pythagorean and BaseRuns both said the Pirates should be above .500 before Friday’s loss. If the law of averages can balance out, the walk-offs can turn in their favor and the luck can shift, the Pirates are still capable of making a third consecutive postseason appearance.
Toronto Blue Jays
5 of 5
The Blue Jays started the season with heaps of expectations. They have not made the playoffs since 1993, but their dynamic offense and a potentially good-enough pitching staff seemed capable of leading them back in 2015.
So far their plus-17 run differential—the third-best total in the American League, better than the Detroit Tiger and Houston Astros—should be good enough to make them a 20-win team at this point, according to the Pythagorean calculation.
However, the Jays are 17-19 and in third place in the AL East despite leading the majors with 189 runs scored entering Friday. The problem is that total is misleading. The offense has scored at least 10 runs seven times, accounting for 42 percent of all their runs this season. Fifteen times, the Jays have scored three or fewer runs and they are an incredible 1-14 in those games.
While the pitching has been bad—the rotation’s 5.15 ERA is third worst in the majors as of Friday—if the offense can find some consistency the Blue Jays are still a solid contender.
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