From a Phillies Fan

Meh, Boston is under .500 vs winning teams, and has a winning record vs teams over .500

You're supposed to beat the teams that arent good. That's what usually gets you into October.

Go .500 or a little above vs the good teams, and make your mark vs the teams under .500
 
Fans severely over estimate the effect strength of schedule has for MLB teams. We see it weekly in the GDTs when someone says "there is no excuse to lose to this crappy team". Unlike football, where a 1-15 team is expected to lose to a 15-1 team 90%+ of the time, baseball doesn't work this way.

All teams in baseball win at least 40% of the time, so it is expected that good teams lose to bad teams...often. This football mentality is prevalent in baseball fans, and it is unequivocally wrong. It's why MLB seasons require 162 games to find the best team rather than 16 games.

This article is from July 20th, but it shows just how little of an effect strength of schedule has on a team's record. The Indians play in arguably the worst division MLB has seen in a long time, and that only "gives" them a 2.5 win advantage in the 2nd half of the season. That boost is, by far, the largest of all MLB teams.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-easiest-and-hardest-rest-of-season-schedules/

The teams with the "toughest" schedule were only penalized by ~1 game.

The rest, including the Braves and Phils, fell into the range that can be considered nothing more than noise.
 
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From Heyward--

Meh, Boston is under .500 vs winning teams, and has a winning record vs teams over .500

Double talk. You can't be both a winning team vs .500+ teams and below .500 vs teams with winning record.????
 
zitothebrave said:
They deserve a bad rep, but are hardly the only one. I mean unlike White Sox fans the Phillies fans never charged the field to attack an opponent's coach. Neither did Phillies fans beat a rival fan within inches of his life like the Dodgers. Looking to Braves own dark history a braves fan once assaulted a Padres player. Never did Philly have something as infamous as Disco Demolition Night, Phillies Fans never Bartman'd anyone.

Reality is that most fanbases who are passionate have large ****ty sectors because lots of people use the blanket of numbers to hide their ****tiness.
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They Boo'd their new manager within the first few games of the season. I'd call that classless!
 
From @Nationals TV broadcast...
The @Phillies have allowed more runs in the shift than they have out of the shift this season. Tonight’s first run, courtesy of the shift.
 
NYCBrave said:
They Boo'd their new manager within the first few games of the season. I'd call that classless!
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I'd say it's stupid. Ignorant perhaps. Classless, nah. That's not to say Phillies fans have class, there's a subsect of the Phillies fanbase that originated as Flyers or Eagles fans who jumped on the bandwagon when the Phillies got good, they're insufferable.
 
Freshmaker said:
From @Nationals TV broadcast...
The @Phillies have allowed more runs in the shift than they have out of the shift this season. Tonight’s first run, courtesy of the shift.
Click to expand...

That’s not very informative...

How often did they shift? If they shift 60% of the time it stands to reason they would allow more runs while shifted.

Teams tend to shift against impact hitters, so it makes sense to give up more runs with impact hitters up.

Sounds like a dinosaur trying his hand at using stats, and not being very good at it.
 
Enscheff said:
That’s not very informative...

How often did they shift? If they shift 60% of the time it stands to reason they would allow more runs while shifted.

Teams tend to shift against impact hitters, so it makes sense to give up more runs with impact hitters up.

Sounds like a dinosaur trying his hand at using stats, and not being very good at it.
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Damn, man. If dinosaurs could use stats, none of us would be here.
 
Heyward said:
Meh, Boston is under .500 vs winning teams, and has a winning record vs teams over .500

You're supposed to beat the teams that arent good. That's what usually gets you into October.

Go .500 or a little above vs the good teams, and make your mark vs the teams under .500
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This absolutely is not true. They are 33-27 against AL teams that have a winning record. They are 9-3 against the NL as a whole, but I don't know which of those wins came against teams with a winning record or not. I know they were 2-1 against us so that would make their overall record 35-28 against teams with a winning record.
 
Enscheff said:
That’s not very informative...

How often did they shift? If they shift 60% of the time it stands to reason they would allow more runs while shifted.

Teams tend to shift against impact hitters, so it makes sense to give up more runs with impact hitters up.

Sounds like a dinosaur trying his hand at using stats, and not being very good at it.
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This. I mean are they counting it as a shift if the shortstop plays up the middle a little. Hardly any teams play traditional defenses. Also look at Freeman. He is shifted against almost every at bat and he still produces. Does that mean teams are wrong to shift against him. No. It means FF is so damn good that he can still beat a shift.
 
Enscheff said:
Fans severely over estimate the effect strength of schedule has for MLB teams. We see it weekly in the GDTs when someone says "there is no excuse to lose to this crappy team". Unlike football, where a 1-15 team is expected to lose to a 15-1 team 90%+ of the time, baseball doesn't work this way.

All teams in baseball win at least 40% of the time, so it is expected that good teams lose to bad teams...often. This football mentality is prevalent in baseball fans, and it is unequivocally wrong. It's why MLB seasons require 162 games to find the best team rather than 16 games.

This article is from July 20th, but it shows just how little of an effect strength of schedule has on a team's record. The Indians play in arguably the worst division MLB has seen in a long time, and that only "gives" them a 2.5 win advantage in the 2nd half of the season. That boost is, by far, the largest of all MLB teams.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-easiest-and-hardest-rest-of-season-schedules/

The teams with the "toughest" schedule were only penalized by ~1 game.

The rest, including the Braves and Phils, fell into the range that can be considered nothing more than noise.
Click to expand...

Less than 24 hours after I wrote this, FG posted an update: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/strength-of-schedule-and-the-pennant-races/

Braves: -0.6 wins
Phillies: +0.2 wins

That's a total advantage of less than 1 win.

It's not nothing, but it's silly for a Phillies fan to base their hopes for passing the Braves on this advantage...being down by 3.5 games.

The Phillies best hope is to stay within 2-3 games of the Braves, and then whip them in the last 10 days of the season. I'll take the Braves...
 
Enscheff said:
Less than 24 hours after I wrote this, FG posted an update: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/strength-of-schedule-and-the-pennant-races/

Braves: -0.6 wins
Phillies: +0.2 wins

That's a total advantage of less than 1 win.

It's not nothing, but it's silly for a Phillies fan to base their hopes for passing the Braves on this advantage...being down by 3.5 games.

The Phillies best hope is to stay within 2-3 games of the Braves, and then whip them in the last 10 days of the season. I'll take the Braves...
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Phillies schedule gets easier after this weekend.

12 games with Miami/Mets, mixed with a series with the Nats then 7 with Atlanta, and 4 in Colorado. The Mets series really depends which pitchers they see or not though.

If the Braves are gonna get a big cushion, it's gotta be this week given the West coast trip and Boston series will be brutal.
 
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Heyward said:
Phillies schedule gets easier after this weekend.

12 games with Miami/Mets, mixed with a series with the Nats then 7 with Atlanta, and 4 in Colorado. The Mets series really depends which pitchers they see or not though.

If the Braves are gonna get a big cushion, it's gotta be this week given the West coast trip and Boston series will be brutal.
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The Braves schedule this week is 2 games with the Rays and 1 with the Cubs...not exactly a cakewalk.

That whole article literally just showed how much strength of schedule impacts things.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
This. I mean are they counting it as a shift if the shortstop plays up the middle a little. Hardly any teams play traditional defenses. Also look at Freeman. He is shifted against almost every at bat and he still produces. Does that mean teams are wrong to shift against him. No. It means FF is so damn good that he can still beat a shift.
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There was actually an article a week or two back (may be on fangraphs??) showing the shift has become less and less effective in recent years as more teams have adopted it. I'll try to look it up. It was a good read.
 
Enscheff said:
The Braves schedule this week is 2 games with the Rays and 1 with the Cubs...not exactly a cakewalk.

That whole article literally just showed how much strength of schedule impacts things.
Click to expand...

I know it's not an easy schedule, but Braves miss Lester and Hamels (Philly gets them instead hehe), and dont see Snell vs Tampa either, but both teams are scorching hot right now.
 
According to BP's 8/27 Hit List: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/42308/prospectus-hit-list-august-27-2018/

The Braves and Philles have the following Actual, 1st, 2nd and 3rd order wins...

Braves: 73, 75.4, 75.9, 75.7
Phillies: 70, 65.4, 67.1, 66.8

The Braves "should have won" 75-76 games, while the Phillies "should have won" 65-67 games.

How did the Phillies beat their expected win total by 3-4 wins so far?

By being "clutch": https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-most-important-thing-about-clutch/

According to that stat, performing well at opportune times has accounted for ~4 wins for the Phillies, or precisely the discrepancy between their actual wins and expected wins.

As the article goes on to demonstrate, being "clutch" is not a predictive measure, either season to season or for the rest of a current season.

The Phillies record is largely a result of sequencing and that sequencing is largely a function of luck...and luck doesn't typically hold up for extended periods of time.
 
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