Bloops: Rays & Red Sox Would Make the Playoffs If Season Ended Today
Posted by Neil Paine on May 20, 2011
Remember all of the hemming and hawing over Tampa Bay and Boston's starts to the season? The Rays opened the year 1-8, the Red Sox 2-10. Both teams were 0-6, and no American League team had ever started 0-6 and reached the playoffs. No way these teams can make up those deficits, right?
Except both teams would make the playoffs if the season ended today.
Obviously it's a long season, and both teams could still end up missing the playoffs. But it's still funny to point out after all of the over-reactions in April.
May 21st, 2011 at 12:26 am
I like Tampa Bay's pitching better than Boston's.
BTW, this year's spread between first and last teams in the AL East, after tonight, is 5.0 games, the smallest gap since 1995 on May 21st when Detroit was in the AL East.
No one is running away with it this year. Has parity finally come to the American League East? Will the wild card actually come out of the AL Central this year?
May 21st, 2011 at 1:31 am
What Tampa Bay has accomplished this year is amazing. I picked them to be under .500 this year because they lost Crawford, Pena, and funny beard Garza. Then Manny gets chased out of baseball and Longoria is hurt for 6 weeks you figure they will go into Devil Rays mode. They have Sam Fuld leading off and Damon batting 3rd?! It's working though, somebody down there really knows what they're doing. Boston was much more predictable, I agree with Buck Showalter, how hard is it to get the best 2 players available and sign them? But to do what the Rays have done defies explanation.
May 21st, 2011 at 11:42 am
Neil, good point. It's silly to form any expectations after a dozen games, no matter how bad the record.
On the other hand....
When Boston had a 2-10 record, CoolStandings projected just an 8.2% chance they would make the playoffs this year. When Tampa was 1-8, they were accorded a 17.8% chance to make the postseason.
And even now, while both teams currently sit in playoff spots, CoolStandings gives each team just about a 1 in 3 chance to actually make it -- about the same as Detroit and Oakland. Even the Nationals and Mets each rate about a 1 in 8 chance to make the tourney.
You can't break your playoff shot in the first 2 weeks -- but the standings at the quarter pole aren't that much more meaningful.