Phillies Teaching Us A Lesson

[Jim'sKid26]

22 hours ago, Frobby said:

Hmmm, maybe we should hire a few smart people from their front office…

The Well-Rounded Astros Are a Handful on Both Sides of the Ball | FanGraphs Baseball

 

[Orioles0615]

15 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think a lot of different things went into the decision to sell and the decision to not buy.

I certainly don't think that the loss of Mancini (622 OPS, -.6 rWAR) and Lopez (90 ERA+, 0 rWAR) hurt them.

I don't think it hurt, but I think making a few small moves to improve the team could have helped. 

[foxfield]

18 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Solid point.  The Phillies underachieved and got into the playoffs.  The O's overachieved and missed the playoffs.

Ha ha...funny because that isn't exactly the point, but it is the truth.  The bottom line, is that the Phillies were built to contend and barely got it together and made it in.  The Orioles on the other hand exceeded everyone's expectations and just missed.

The point, such that it is, is that the Orioles are not as talented as the Phillies in spite of their very similar records.

[Can_of_corn]

3 hours ago, Orioles0615 said:

I don't think it hurt, but I think making a few small moves to improve the team could have helped. 

Sure.

I don't think Elias was interested (able?) to deviate from his set plan.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Can_of_corn

[LA2]

I think there's a new Oriole Way. Let's stick with it. Wouldn't want to have been a Phillies fan the last few years.

Edited October 25, 2022 by LA2

[rm5678]

7 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

As a whole, I find that people greatly exaggerate the effect that playing in one division or another has on a team’s record.   

 

You may be right, but the 2021 Rays who went 18-1 against us. would probably disagree.

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, rm5678 said:

You may be right, but the 2021 Rays who went 18-1 against us. would probably disagree.

Well, we also were 0-7 against the White Sox that year.  Put us in the AL Central last year, maybe the White Sox go 18-1 against us.  

[SteveA]

8 hours ago, Frobby said:

 

As a whole, I find that people greatly exaggerate the effect that playing in one division or another has on a team’s record.   

 

You can kind of try to quantify it.

This year, the Orioles went 34-42 (.447) vs the AL East in 76 games.

This year, the Orioles went 49-37 (.570) vs the rest of baseball in 86 games.

Next year, we will play 56 games vs the AL East.   If we were to go .447 against them again, we would be 25-31.

Next year we will play 106 games vs the rest of MLB.   If we were to go .570 against them again, we would be 60-46.

So our record would improve from 83-79 to 85-77.   A 2 game improvement.  (If you take it down to the decimal points, it works out to be a 2.45 game improvement).

So that is the approximate impact of shifting 20 games out of division, given the difference in winning% we had in-division vs out-of-division this season.   About a 2 game improvement with all other things being equal.

Teams in our division would expect to get a similar bump, so we wouldn't gain any on Toronto or Tampa.   Seattle might get a downward bump because they would be losing 20 games vs {Hou, LAA, Oak, Tex} which as a group finished 44 games below .500.   

So it's safe to conclude that with the 2023 schedule in place, the 2022 Orioles would have been a little better (~ 2 games) and maybe Seattle would have been 2 games worse, but that would not have been enough to close the 7 game gap between the two teams completely.

It makes a difference, but maybe not as much as people think.

Edited October 25, 2022 by SteveA

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, SteveA said:

You can kind of try to quantify it.

*  *  *

It makes a difference, but maybe not as much as people think.

Exactly.  I did similar math in another thread, using the whole AL East’s record in out-of-division games, and came out in basically the same spot you did.  It might make a 2-3 game difference.   As I said in another thread, that’s not nothing when you’re in a tight race for a wild card spot with a team in another division.   But it’s not some giant number, either.   

[SteveA]

Just now, Frobby said:

Exactly.  I did similar math in another thread, using the whole AL East’s record in out-of-division games, and came out in basically the same spot you did.  It might make a 2-3 game difference.   As I said in another thread, that’s not nothing when you’re in a tight race for a wild card spot with a team in another division.   But it’s not some giant number, either.   

Oops, sorry I missed that you had already done it.  I have not been on the board as constantly the past few weeks as during the season.   Just checking in once a day or so.   There might even have been three or four days where I never even looked at the board!!!!

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, SteveA said:

Oops, sorry I missed that you had already done it.  I have not been on the board as constantly the past few weeks as during the season.   Just checking in once a day or so.   There might even have been three or four days where I never even looked at the board!!!!

Well, like I said, I used a slightly different approach, but came out in a similar spot.  The whole AL East played .576 ball outside the division, .500 within it.  So with 24 extra out-of-division games next year, that’s about 1.85 extra wins for each AL East team.  Your approach is more specific to how the Orioles did inside and outside the division, but the result is not dramatically different.  

[Redskins Rick]

19 hours ago, LA2 said:

I think there's a new Oriole Way. Let's stick with it. Wouldn't want to have been a Phillies fan the last few years.

Looking at their standings, they had 2 down years and bounced back.

I would take over that past few years before this season.

[LA2]

22 hours ago, Redskins Rick said:

Looking at their standings, they had 2 down years and bounced back.

I would take over that past few years before this season.

I understand, but I was pointing to not just the record, but the payroll and expectations as well. 

[Redskins Rick]

1 minute ago, LA2 said:

I understand, but I was pointing to not just the record, but the payroll and expectations as well. 

Good point, and Philly was allowed to increase the payroll, which worked for them.

 

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, Redskins Rick said:

Good point, and Philly was allowed to increase the payroll, which worked for them.

 

They aren’t the most efficient spenders, with Castellanos ($20 mm) and Gregorius ($15 mm) on their payroll.  But they got decent value from Harper ($27.5 mm), Wheeler ($26 mm), Realmuto ($23.9 mm), Schwarber ($19 mm), Nola ($15 mm) and Segura ($14.9 mm).   That’s almost $151 mm for those 8 players.