Estimating remaining strength of schedule
Well that sucked. The Sox lost more ground to the Twins, and now they have to face them three times in their new house of pain this week. With that in mind, I got to wondering about the team’s remaining schedule. Maybe if we can see that Sox had an easier path than the Twins, things wouldn’t feel so terrible.
I used Bill James’ log5 method and for winning percentages I used the team’s Pythagorean records. BaseRuns winning percentage, not real runs scored, runs allowed. Old-school pythag is nerd faux pas these days. I did a .02% adjustment for home/road games. I’m a mere novice at this geekery, so if you think I screwed it up and your geekery is stronger than mine, let me know.
I have bad news. For starters, the Sox’s opponent’s W% is .500, as compared to the Twins, which is .488. It also doesn’t hurt that the Twins have a better W% using BaseRuns than the Sox do – .562 to the Sox’s .528. Projecting the rest of the season out, the Twins should win 26 more games, the White Sox 23.
I used some projections to adjust for the Twins injury losses and the White Sox, and I get the Twins winning 25 more games, and the Sox 24.
So what I’m saying is it might be time to appeal to some sort of higher power if you want the White Sox to pull this thing out, because the club’s chances are not looking good now.
