Sunday, September 07, 2003
Logic and Team Records
One last thought I had about parity, or the lack thereof. Two of the most common analyses you'll see will revolve around parity and remaining strength of schedule. With a little thought, it should become clear that the two concepts run contrary to each other. If parity truly exists, then strength of schedule will have no predictive power whatsoever, it will be purely a historical record of the way things have happened to have fallen out. On the other hand, if you really put stock in strength of schedule as a meaningful indicator of how tough a team will have it in coming days, you are really tacitly rejecting the assumption of parity, or at least the version of parity where each team in every game has a 50% chance of winning (not adjusting for which team is at home).
Part of the problem may be that it will often be the case that potential wild card teams will be relatively evenly matched with each other. Certainly the cast of thousands in the NL wild card race lends the appearance of a formless grey void. But in focusing on the wild card race, that ignores Atlanta and San Fran, teams with 90 and 86 wins, respectively, with about 20 games left. That sure isn't evidence of parity OR mediocrity.
Also, it should be noted that many of the potential playoff teams are beating teams they should beat down the stretch. The Cubs swept 3 in Milwaukee. The Dodgers swept 3 in Colorado. Houston won 2 of 3 in San Diego. St. Louis took 2 of 3 from Cincy. Philly has beaten the Mets six straight times in the past 10 days, with a chance for a seventh as I write. The Marlins just took 2 of 3 from the Expos in San Juan. The Twins swept 3 from the Rangers, and the White Sox swept 3 from the Indians. Plenty of evidence of good if flawed teams beating weaker opponents when they most need to. They may more or less be as good as each other, and if that's what is meant by parity, so be it, but these teams are in many cases taking charge of their own destinies by taking advantage of breaks in their schedules as the season winds down.
posted by Tom Renbarger 6:33 PM
