PYTHAGOREAN RECORDS: LOOKING BACK AT THE GROUP STAGESBy: Kirk Eberhardt, LSNA few days back, acclaimed blogger Franz Jensen (newly acquired by The WBC Project) posted
this handy spreadsheet on The Sports Project...but he never did any sort of insights on what the numbers meant. So here I am.
Firstly,
what is Pythagorean record? Well, say there's a team that loses two days in a row, 3-2 and 1-0. Another team manages a narrow 3-2 win, but in their second game they're beaten up on to the tune of
22-0. Which team is better? Clearly team one. But that's not what the standings will say, as team two is 1-1 and team one is 0-2.
Pythagorean record is sort of what the standings would look like if wins and losses were ignored. Generally having good relievers and management will make you look like you're outperforming a bit and bad relievers and management the opposite, but any large gaps (in thirty games, I'd say more than a game or two) are usually just luck.
But it's a fun exercise to see where things would line up if you looked at just runs scored and runs allowed.
Briefly looking over, a lot of the groups seemed to even out pretty well, with most teams in spots deserving at least those spots.
Then there was our group.
GROUP 6Super-Llamaland: 19.57 (18)
Gregoryisgodistan: 19.17 (18)
Equestrian States: 18.77 (22)
New Hayeselia: 14.00 (15)
Flardania: 9.79 (10)
Ack Barnes 7.50 (7)
The obvious thing here is to notice that the team at the top is Super-Llamaland. We underperformed by 1.57, and while we did have a few bullpen struggles and Alex Cameron isn't the greatest manager strategically, we probably should've hit nineteen wins. But we didn't, and that wouldn't have made too much of a difference, although not facing Schlitzberg couldn't have hurt.
Of course, then you notice that the Equestrian States outperformed by 3.23 wins for no apparent reason at all.
GROUP 1South Yerfilag: 18.40 wins (actual wins: 19)
Nova Anglicana: 15.93 (19)
Eykyellek: 14.37 (13)
Chromatika: 13.86 (12)
Norhe: 13.82 (13)
The Fair Republic: 13.74 (14)
Many thought South Yerfilag's strong group stage performance was just a fluke, but pythagorean doesn't exactly support that - the team was just .6 wins off their expected total. Nova Anglicana, though, proved to be a different story - although you'd expect them to outperform a little, their trend of underwhelming group stage performance continued - just without the underwhelming wins total. Eykyellek, Norhe, Chromatika, and the Fair Republic were all close to each other in both real life (two games between the Fair Republic and Chromatika) and projected wins (a mere .63 separating third-place Eykyellek and last-place The Fair Republic, who'd be considered underperforming no matter what their Pythagorean record said.
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