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Yogi Berra once opined, "Ninety-five percept of this game is half mental." Yogi's grasp of math aside, the question of how much of the game is REALLY mental is actually a subject of interest to me, and one that most of the numbers guys haven't (and won't likely) bring up in the next 100 years, (or at least not until we can completely map brain waves and turn them into nice pie charts and line graphs for analysis). Well, attempting to identify and isolate the mental aspects of the game is basically impossible, but also should be a lot of fun. So, where to begin? Well, since nobody is trying to explain the mental - but just about everything else IS being explained - then let's look first at the inexplicable. The Pythagorean theory (of baseball) states that there is a relationship of wins and losses equal to the ratio of the squares of runs scored and runs allowed. Works VERY well in most cases - but *EVERY YEAR* there are teams that skew wildly away from this baseline by significant margins. This is called "luck" by some. But, what if it is not luck? What if the 'ability' to beat (or lose) way more or less than expected is a measure of the mental aspect of a team? How large are these skews? Well, for the past 5 seasons, here are the biggest pythag skews.
YEAR - TEAM - pyt+/- nextyear
2007 - Seattle +7 ---- -5
2006 - Oakland +6 ---- -3
2005 - ChiSox +7 ----- +1
2004 - NYY +12 ------- +4 A range of 13 (2007) to 20 (2004) from top to bottom over this span. Interestingly, we see a maximum of 12 games gained (Angels '08, Yanks '04) and lost (Tribe '06). A "true" .500 team, (81-81), could win 93, (or lose 93), if it matches the most extreme pythag skew. So, what does this have to do with the mental aspect of the game? Potentially nothing. Potentially everything. There ARE some teams that tend to trend over (or under) their pythag projections over time. The ones that tend to hover above the line are typically stable teams, under a single manager, and they also tend to have fairly stable lineups. There are also some teams that seem to dip under the line much more than they are above it. Most of those teams are the "perennial" losers. It's been argued that great or bad bullpens can skew pythag results. And in extreme cases, there does seem to be some data to support this. But, there are also MANY great (and awful) bullpens who don't seem to have much impact on the pythag totals. Most bullpens, regardless of strength, stray only a win or two away from their pythag projection. The above examples are outliers BECAUSE almost every other team is tightly bunched near the center. One oddity I discovered, however, is that while there has been a 12-game skew away from pythag 3 times in the past 5 years in the AL -- as you look back in time, that skew gets progressively smaller. Could it be that something about luck in the universe has changed so that luck (and unlucky) are more drastic today than 30, 40 or 50 years ago? Unlikely, but there are more teams. And, the largest factor, (I believe), is the unbalanced schedule. In the single-division days, everyone played everyone equally. With two divisions, things were still largely even. But, when we reached three divisions, and then tweaked the schedule to make it even MORE unbalanced, (the latest shove in this direction being interleague play), the maximum skew from pythag has gotten larger and more common. But, oddly, the best and worst and NEVER from the same division?! I'm thinking that when teams played each other equally, psychological edges washed out. EVERYONE played the best and worst psychologically sound teams equally. Today, it is MUCH more likely (through scheduling quirks), for psychologically aberrant teams to play EACH OTHER to a relative extreme. Of course, these traits are transient. For a year team 'A' can *own* team 'B'. The following season, the advantage is gone. The 'fresh start', player turnover, managerial changes -- there are a constant influx of new variables into the mix each season to prevent most of the long-term psychological plusses and minuses. This isn't to say they CANNOT last over time. In point of fact, in badly run organizations, the 'losing attitude' can become ingrained in the organization from top to bottom, at which point new arrivals are more likely to get infected with the disease than they are to cure it. And organizations that thrive foster positive thinking, because people in the organization have ALREADY been a part of winners. In general, however, there is an expectation of psychological sloshing. Baseball is the most even baseline team sport around. Horrible teams still win a third of the time, while the cream rarely win more than two thirds. The line between winning and losing is SO fine that even tiny changes can have significant impacts on outcome. In 2006, the Mariners were bad. They went 78-84, finishing 4th in their division, 13th in runs scored (756) and 9th in runs allowed (792). In 2007, expectations were non-existent. Yet, they went 88-74, (a 14 game improvement), while moving to 7th in runs scored (794) and falling to 10th in runs allowed (813). The fans who watched that turnaround will gush about the incredible job the bullpen did in 2007. They'll rail about the horrible back end of the rotation. But, what really happened?
Relief stats:
2006: 27-19; 47-SV; 4.04-ERA; 488-IP; 227-BB; 425-K; 7.8-K/9; 1.38-WHIP; (starters 4.88 ERA - 51-65) In truth, the relievers pitched WORSE (as a whole), than they did in 2006. ERA was higher, WHIP was higher, K rate was down. But the W/L record went from 27-19 to 29-12. This, I believe, is a case where the BELIEF in the bullpen was superseding the PERFORMANCE of the bullpen. The bullpen won more and lost fewer games than they should have based on their performance. But, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You win a few close ones, you start believing you'll continue winning the close ones, so you *RELAX* and get confident at the same moment the opposition is getting nervous. But, it is incredibly hard to sustain that kind of mental momentum. Reality eventually catches up and you lose a couple of close ones, and the magic vanishes, (usually). What happened to the pen in 2008? 2008: 25-31; 36-SV; 4.14-ERA; 530-IP; 264-BB; 421-K; 7.1-K/9; 1.46-WHIP; (starters 5.07 ERA) Yes, they were worse. The K-rate fell. But, the ERA went up only .08. Does that change explain 19 *ADDITIONAL* losses by the bullpen? Yes, the offense was worse. (671 runs scored). But, the bullpen had 4 fewer wins and 19 more losses. The starters weren't as good as the 2006 bunch. The starters went 36-70. That's only 8 more losses than 2007 and only 5 more than 2006. If the offense was so much worse, then shouldn't the club have been behind more so the starters would get MORE decisions, not less? At this point, the numbers themselves may seem pointless. Nearly identical pen in '06 and '07 saw a 9 game gain in Win/Loss (+2 wins, -7 losses), in the opposite direction from ERA. The '08 bullpen shows a 23 game slide in W/L, (-4 wins, +19 losses), with only a .08 increase in ERA. The point here is not that there is some all-encompassing magic bullet or explanation. The point is that psychology changes based on three things: the new influence, the current state, AND how you got to the current state. Typical analysis looks primarily at new influences. The team has a .650 hitter and replace him with an .800 hitter, the team should be better. But, this is not a computer simulation. It's a group of real people with real personalities. Adding a star pitcher during a pennant drive CAN influence a team to become more focused defensively. It CAN influence batters to be more focused, as the perceived chance of winning rises with the ace on the mound. This seemed to be the case with CC in Milwaukee. But, what happened with Houston when Clemens was added in 2004 thru 2006? When there for the entire 2004 season, the team averaged 5.1 runs of support overall for the other pitchers, and 4.8 for Clemens. A tiny variation from the norm, but similar to the other starters who got decent innings. In 2005, however, over 32 starts, the club gave Clemens only 3.4 RS/G, while they average 4.3 overall. That's a pretty hefty difference. As a rule, variances in run support are considered "random", so his lack of run support was sometimes cited as being just bad luck. My belief is that something like this can START as bad luck, or random variation, but can BECOME a psychological blunderbuss, shredding the confidence of an entire team. In 2006, when Clemens jumped in last and got only 19 starts -- 3.8 RS/G, compared to team average of 4.5. Since Clemens has to bat, one can potentially attribute some of his woes to his own hitting, perhaps? Sorry, but in 2005, when he had the worst run support of all, the man hit .207 in 69 PAs, and only fanned 18 times. (He hit .167 with 24 whiffs in 78 PAs in 2004). The evidence suggests that at some point, the lack of run support ceased being happenstance, and became an underlying problem for the team. They became AWARE of the problem, and instead of that fixing things, they either stayed the same or got worse. The offense vanishes with Rocket on the mound. Did they press? Did they feel more pressure to perform because of the ace? Or did they slack off expecting easy wins? The answers aren't just about the arrival of the ace. It's about the mindset beforehand. A team in EXACTLY the same situation can believe vastly different things. Two games back with 10 to go. If you were 6 games up two weeks ago, that gap is going to FEEL very different than if you had been 8 games down. The mental state is not JUST about where you are, but also how you got there. The above examination of some of the Pythagorean skews is just ONE possible area where mental issues can impact results. A more direct instance would be where psychology improves (or decreases) raw production. When Seattle (as a team) has 7 of 9 players perform over expectation in 2007, then have the SAME players have 7 of 9 perform under expectation the following season, it is a bit of a copout to simply say "luck". There is certainly some chicken and egg here -- good production can create good psychology and vice versa. Good psyches certainly don't guarantee above average production, (the first month of the 2009 season certainly doesn't show great OFFENSIVE production from a team enjoying a major psychological makeover). The IDEAL is to try and extend the positive mental periods and minimize the down times. Over a six month season, every team has peaks and valleys. For most teams these even out and raw talent determines outcomes. But, in baseball, where the knife edge between win and loss is so small, that psychological sloshing can lead to a dozen extra wins or losses. In 2008, two of the most pythag-impaired teams were Toronto (-6) and Seattle (-5). In 2009, both have started out gangbusters, (but neither is doing so by beating their pythag). A "fresh" start is a major plus for any team that has been psychologically beaten down. It's early still, but the results thus far are not surprising that the trampled teams from 2008 have seemed to start out quickly. Keeping it going ... that is the hard part. Meanwhile, Tampa, after their great 2008, begin 2009 in a funk. You cannot just assemble a team with a great psyche. Team psychology is a moving target that managers must react to on a daily basis. Sometimes patience and calm are the best prescription - sometimes anger and ranting are better tools. But there is no guidebook of optimal when/what/hot for managers to follow. The great managers know their players and have good instincts. Only time will tell if Wak is such a manager. |