When is a win worth more than a win?

by jqueipo on Jul 28, 2009 8:21 PM EDT

In short, when your division opponent is on the road. The reason is quite simple. Teams perform worst on the road. So you have a much better chance of gaining ground on a division rival if they are on the road when you win. From 2005-2008 for all of MLB home teams had a .546 record while road team had a corresponding .454 record.

What does this mean for the Rays? Well there is some good news. For the remaining part of the schedule (including 7/28) head-to-head against the Yankees, the Rays have the ability to gain 6.5 games (This derives from a simple +1 if the Rays are Home and the Yankees are away, 0 if both are home or both are away or both are off, -1 if the Yanks are home and the Rays are away, and a .5/-.5 if one is home/away while the other has an off-day). By the same processing the Rays have a chance to gain 4 games on the Red Sox. At the start of play today the Rays stood 7.5 games back of New York and 5 Back of Boston. This is an obviously oversimplified way of analyzing the situation since none of these teams will lose all of their road games, nor will they win all of their home games. However none of the teams road winning percentages are greater than the other two teams home record , so again the chances of gaining a game on another team is at its greatest when you are at home and they are away and the advantage is for the Rays in both races.

Looking more into it here are the three teams home/road winning percentages along with their projected win totals if they continue these percentages thus far:

TB .652/.444 89 wins

BOS .694/.490 95 wins

NYY .673/.553 99 wins

So the glaring difference is nothing new....the Road Record. It is obvious that the Rays won't be able to pick up all of the 6/10 win difference on the road for the 26 games they have remaining away from the friendly confines of the Trop. Given their current road winning % they project for a 12-14 road record from here on out. 18-6 and 22-4 just aren't realistic. However, gaining 4 games is a must, most notably because those wins will most likely come against...New York and/or Boston. Not to mention it would adversely affect those two teams home records. If the Rays can get just that four game swing from changing their road fortunes by just 2 games in those two cities the win totals change to:

TB 93 wins

BOS 97 wins

NYY 93 wins

I think at this point the division is a stretch, but the Wild Card is very much alive. But who knows, can the Yanks really maintain a .553 road record?

On a side note: I am new to sabermetrics so my math may be off here but fangraphs reports:

WAR

Cliff Lee 4.2

Victor Martinez 2.7

Scott Kazmir 0.0

Dioner Navarro -0.2

If my assumption is correct than this is what they have accumulated thus far (through 100 games) and going forward they project thustly:

Lee 2.604

Martinez 1.674

Navarro -0.124

Kazmir 0.0

That is a 4.4 difference in the major league roster changes for this year referring to the current trade speculation. Could that be the 4 games I mentioned above?

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.

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Comments

2.6 wins for Lee in a little more than a 1/3rd of a season?

that means he would be worth 6-7.5 wins over a full season… no…

Vmart vs. Navi, again, not sure if you saw it, but I’m absolutley in belief that Navi can and will (barring bad Babip luck) post a true batting line of .675 OPS+, and would not be surprised to see anything as high as .750. Its not great, but its more than passable (and more than replacement level given the position). In terms of Vmart, when we consider that we have nothing to go on but scouting, I think its safe to assume Vmart is pretty lousy and only borderline able to play catcher at this point, as opposed to Navi who is debated in terms of framing and calling a game (the first of which is a skill that I still dont believe is very important in the grand scheme of things) but actually has a good track record of throwing runners out.

by Navi's_Navy on Jul 28, 2009 10:13 PM EDT reply actions

and Kaz is not this bad, at least I don't think so

and one of my other points was the cost factor of it. These two teams were slated to play better htan we were from the getgo by a good portion of credible sources, so given the fact we are already so far back of a playoff spot, and we can assume these teams will play above us (as they were going to in the offseason as well) then we are still talking about being 1 game or more back even with your overly optimistic (in my opinion) expectation of the Navi + Kaz to Lee + Vmart tradeamajig, and to make this trade we’d be giving up probably Davis, whoever we get back for Kaz, Navi, and Hellboy if not more… I still don’t do the deal, but this deal isn’t happening anyway

by Navi's_Navy on Jul 28, 2009 10:17 PM EDT up reply actions