This year we’ve added some zero-sumness to our league. It’s still not entirely zero-sum. We could all finish above (or below) .500, in theory. But we’ve made it harder to do so. For the last 11 weeks we’ll each play 10 weekly series against other EFL teams, 1 series per team. each other. We’ll resolve every weekly series to sum up to .500. When your team faces mine, if you do better than I do, you’ll get a record better than 3 – 3, and I’ll get a record equally worse than 3 – 3. Every gain you make over .500 will be paid for by an equal loss I will take.
That’s the starkest piece of zero-sumness we never had before. In these first 16 weeks, however, we sometimes have zero-sum outcomes almost as stark. For example, this week the Wolverines were facing the Cubs, while the Rosebuds were up against the White Sox. Last night the Cubs beat the White Sox 5 – 1. The Rosebuds saw their opponents get hit by a 4-run deficit, while the Wolverines the Cubs improve their run differential by 4.
This wasn’t exactly zero-sum. The White Sox, who have been wretched for weeks, went from being outscored 13 – 33 (predicting a .134 winning percentage) to 14-38 (predicting a .120 winning percentage), moving the Rosebuds from 8.58 games to 8.41 games back. The Cubs, on the other hand, went from 26 – 32 (.398) to 31 – 33 (.469), dropping the W’s from 0.18 games back to 0.60. The Rosebuds’ benefit was 0.17 games in the standings — which is what really counts — while the Wolverines suffered 0.42 games’ damage to their standings.
I’m sure a mathematician could show us how this works. I’m not a mathematician. I do know that it’s the RATIO of runs scored to runs against that matters in projecting wins and losses, not the size of the gap. The ratio of the total runs scored/runs against for the season, not per game. A team with 100 runs scored versus 50 runs allowed will have the same winning percentage on average as a team with 200 runs scored versus 100 runs allowed.
If both teams have a game where the final score is 10 – 1, the team with the 100/50 ratio will feel a bigger effect (positive or negative) than the team with the 200/100 ratio. If they had that game against each other, the 100/50 team will rise (or fall) further in terms of predicted record than the 200/100 team.
So it’s complex. Since the White Sox and the Cubs haven’t been playing each other all week, a 5 -1 score won’t have the same impact on their predicted winning percentage. Then we transmit the White Sox/Cubs outcome to our standing through the filter of our own total runs scored/allowed in that week, likely magnifying or dampening their effects along the way. Since the Wolverines and the Rosebuds have had different levels of scoring — the W’s are currently 284-199, while the Rosebuds are 182-204 — the same 4-run swing will have different effects on us.
That exhausts my grasp of what’s happening, or pretty nearly does. A real mathematician could tell us more. But it means our old days of never hindering or helping each other with our outcomes are LOOOONG GONE! We are interacting already, and will be even more in the last 11 weeks of the season.
My time is short-ish today, so I’ll let you examine these results to see, for example:
- Who had the best results on the field this week? (Seraphim, Balk, Kangaroos were the top 3; Pears, Rosebuds were the bottom 2 )
- Who had the luckiest matchups with MLB teams? (Rosebuds, Kangaroos, Cascades; Alleghenys, Seraphim, Dragons (Go Mariners!) were the bottom 3)
- Who had the best week in terms of wins and losses in the standings? (Kangaroos, Cascades, Drive topped the charts; Alleghenys, Pears bottomed the charts). Note that the Rosebuds were a close 4th on this — even though they had the second worst results on the field, they had the luckiest matchup, so were elevated to 4th best outcome in the standings.
- Reminder: the season is 27 weeks long. Most of this luck will even out (or already largely has).
- Those darn Balk just are NOT going away.
My favorite text message of the week. From the Captain Kangaroo:
“Byron Buxton is the best player in the MLB, when he’s fully healthy. He’s Trout but a plus, plus defender… He’s just not going to be available for 150+ games. But if you get 120 out of him he’ll be amongst the 10 most valuable players.”
So true. And a big IF. Although right now Buxton’s only OPSing .791 on the season.