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Thursday, July 14, 2005

THE GAUNTLET
Starting in about 20 minutes, the Angels will play:

Four games at Minnesota;
Three games hosting Oakland;
Four games hosting the Yankees;
Two games at Toronto; and
Three games visiting the Yankees.

That's 16 games against teams that are a combined 182-165 this season, for a .524 winning percentage. Weighing the winning percentages by how many games we play against each team, you get a .531 winning percentage.

The Angels enter play with a .591 winning percentage. Using the log5 method, we would expect the Angels, if they're really a .591 team playing against a .531 opponent, to have a winning percentage of .561, which is a completely intuitive result, as it's the average of .591 and .531.

A .561 winning percentage over 16 games would be about nine wins. Going 9-7 over the rest of the month seems like a modest goal, even though we play seven home games against nine road games in that period.

The big question here is: are the Angels really a .591-level team? Are these opponents really at the level at which they've been playing? We don't know yet, of course, that's why the games happen.

Paradoxically, the next 16 games will tell us quite a bit about the Angels, but not that much. If they go 9-7, that's to be expected, and even 8-8 is not terrible. But 11-5, 12-4? That might mean this team is really something special. Let's see how they run the gauntlet.

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