Lucky Teams

At the break and with the official news finally coming in that Manny Acta has been let go in Washington, I decided to take a look at which at which teams have been lucky or unlucky the most so far this season. Of course, the definition of lucky is going to be pretty subjective to people. Here is how I have defined it, and have defined it in the past as well lest there be any concerns that I gerrymandered my criteria.

I use BaseRuns, which is my favorite team-wide metric for determining expected runs allowed and scored, to come up with an expected won-loss record based on the pythagorean method (with a variable exponent based on the runs per game, namely the David Smyth/Patriot model of pythag).

That expected winning percentage is then added to the team’s strength of schedule and then 0.5 is subtracted away to get a scheduled-neutralized expected winning percentage. Multiplying that by 162 yields a BaseRuns, schedule-neutral estimate for how many games the team should win over a season if it played at its season-to-date level.

I then subtract that from the team’s actual winning percentage scaled out to 162 games to arrive a plus or minus win figure of how lucky the team has been per 162 games.

For the more math inclined,

And the rankings, from most lucky, to most unlucky:

Astros 11
Giants 10
Phillies 10
Tigers 9
Reds 9
Angels 6
Brewers 6
Red Sox 6
Marlins 6
Rangers 3
Orioles 3
Cardinals 3
White Sox 2
Cubs 1
Mets 1
Dodgers 0
Mariners 0
Yankees -1
Padres -1
Rockies -2
Braves -3
Pirates -3
Twins -5
Athletics -5
Royals -5
Blue Jays -8
Diamondbacks -8
Rays -9
Indians -11
Nationals -19