Unswept

[Filmstudy]

4 hours ago, ChosenOne21 said:

The Orioles are way better than 50/50 to win a game. If they had a roughly .500 record over the unswept streak, your numbers would be valid. It's still impressive and unlikely they'd do what they did, but the "coin flip" should be more like 67/33 for these calculations.

There literally would be no difficulty in using any other level probability per game, but the reason I've stayed with coin flips is that there are a huge number of assumptions (starting with the notion that the probability should be level) that need to be explained if I were to use a different p(individual win).  That doesn't work for a tweet or a post that I don't want to go on for a long time to explain the assumptions, but "coin flip" does, because the assumptions are commonly understood.

The fact that the other teams still ahead of the Orioles did it with substantially longer average series length makes them less impressive than what the O's have done and those teams also played .650-.700 baseball over the period of the streaks which is a result of a significant difference in top-to-bottom parity in the leagues.  Both facts are too much to explain each time, but not too difficult to calculate on a coin flip basis.

For example, the previous AL record holders, the 1922-24 Yankees, using the coin-flip basis had approximately a 1 in 8,819 chance chance of going unswept in their 83 consecutive series.

But for folks who want to say "coin flip is not accurate", I'll produce this goalposting once for "levelized win probability" through the 103 series lengths the Orioles have played (1922-24 Yankees 83 series lengths in parenthesis):

.600: 1 in 952 (1 in 90)

.650: 1 in 102 (1 in 20)

.700: 1 in 19 (1 in 7)

1.000: 1 in 1

 

 

[Fiver6565]

I don't really get hating on the streak.  Its something that hasn't been done to this level in a long time; the rarity of it makes it noteworthy, if nothing else.  I don't need people talking about the streak to remind of the playoff streak - not like I'm going to forget that happened.  But the regular season streak means that we haven't had a losing streak longer than - 4 games in two years.  I kind of wish the streak was spoken about in those terms - longest losing streak only 4 games - rather than in terms of being swept.  Because avoiding even a 5-6 game losing streak for two years is something worth noting, IMO, and that's basically what not being swept means.

Looking back at the schedule; they lost 6 in a row from 5/13-5/18/22.  That includes the three game sweep in Detroit that is the last time they were swept, then they lost the first three games of a four game series vs. the Yankees.  Since then, their longest losing streak is just 4, three different times - 6/29-7/2/22 (which was immediately followed by a 10-game winning streak), 6/30-7/2/23, and 9/12-9/15/23.

They also had three 3-game losing streaks - vs Boston 8/27-29 (4 game series),  5/6-5/8/23, and 9/20-9/22/23 (both split across two series)- ironically, that is one 4 game streak and one 3-game streak within two weeks of each other, while we were trying to clinch the division last year.

So, in 2 years, that's 3 streaks of 4 games, and 3 streaks of 3 games. I'm not going to do this for every team as a comparison, but that does seem pretty good.  Longest being 4, and only 6 total in two years of 3 or 4, seems noteworthy.  At the very least, the 'streak' of sweepless series being upheld means no losing streaks of 5+ games, and that to me is why the streak does hold some meaning, despite the playoff sweep.

[Filmstudy]

3 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

I don't really get hating on the streak.  Its something that hasn't been done to this level in a long time; the rarity of it makes it noteworthy, if nothing else.  I don't need people talking about the streak to remind of the playoff streak - not like I'm going to forget that happened.  But the regular season streak means that we haven't had a losing streak longer than - 4 games in two years.  I kind of wish the streak was spoken about in those terms - longest losing streak only 4 games - rather than in terms of being swept.  Because avoiding even a 5-6 game losing streak for two years is something worth noting, IMO, and that's basically what not being swept means.

Looking back at the schedule; they lost 6 in a row from 5/13-5/18/22.  That includes the three game sweep in Detroit that is the last time they were swept, then they lost the first three games of a four game series vs. the Yankees.  Since then, their longest losing streak is just 4, three different times - 6/29-7/2/22 (which was immediately followed by a 10-game winning streak), 6/30-7/2/23, and 9/12-9/15/23.

They also had three 3-game losing streaks - vs Boston 8/27-29 (4 game series),  5/6-5/8/23, and 9/20-9/22/23 (both split across two series)- ironically, that is one 4 game streak and one 3-game streak within two weeks of each other, while we were trying to clinch the division last year.

So, in 2 years, that's 3 streaks of 4 games, and 3 streaks of 3 games. I'm not going to do this for every team as a comparison, but that does seem pretty good.  Longest being 4, and only 6 total in two years of 3 or 4, seems noteworthy.  At the very least, the 'streak' of sweepless series being upheld means no losing streaks of 5+ games, and that to me is why the streak does hold some meaning, despite the playoff sweep.

I thoroughly appreciate this "glass is half full" approach and I suspect the bulk of Orioles fans do as well.

The streak and all the other implications such as the ones you mention are to be celebrated while our favorite team has it going and all I see is ORIOLES fans complaining like they're having to hear an update about the Patriots undefeated regular season every week.  My god folks, this is your team. 

[Fiver6565]

2 minutes ago, Filmstudy said:

I thoroughly appreciate this "glass is half full" approach and I suspect the bulk of Orioles fans do as well.

The streak and all the other implications such as the ones you mention are to be celebrated while our favorite team has it going and all I see is ORIOLES fans complaining like they're having to hear an update about the Patriots undefeated regular season every week.  My god folks, this is your team. 

'How dare you keep highlighting a positive stat about the Orioles!' is an odd take, that's for sure.

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Fiver6565 said:

'How dare you keep highlighting a positive stat about the Orioles!' is an odd take, that's for sure.

A lot of people have a kneejerk negative reaction to anything that gets overhyped by the media or fans or social media.

A song can come out and you might think it's really good.   But then it gets played again and again, and the artist gets overhyped, and someone who initially liked the song doesn't want to hear it ever again because they have a negative reaction to the hype.   

Logically that makes no sense... if it is a good song it is a good song.   But that's how many people react.

And the other thing at play is that the folks on here are a very small, special percentage of O's fans.   Ones that follow the team minutely on a daily basis, watch or listen to many games, and absorb much more content about the O's whether it's on TV/radio/newspapers/social media/online, than most fans do.   So if something is getting talked about a lot, we hear about it more than the more casual fan does.   And we may tire of it more quickly.

[Moshagge3]

On the one hand, the streak is cool, and I really like looking back at the lineups the O's were running out there the last time they were swept in the regular season just to see how far they've come as an organization.

On the other hand, every time the streak is brought up it just reminds me of the ALDS whether or not it counts, and you can't brag about the streak around fans of other teams or they'll throw the ALDS in your face. It would be like if it got constantly brought up that Ubaldo Jimenez never gave up a walkoff home run.*

*in the regular season