Road WOAAHS. When is it no longer 'bad luck'?

[Invader3K]

I wonder how closely Attanasio follows the minors. I'm not usually for owners getting involved but he should know that McGehee has been awful all season and that Taylor Green is tearing it up in AAA. He should just tell Melvin to call up Green and get rid of one of Counsell/Yuni/Wilson or send down McGehee.

I don't know, but if I was the principle owner and half my infield was this terrible, I would be fairly incensed.

[markedman5]

So whoever wins the division will just be the team that is luckiest since they all have the same amount of talent....got it. Kind of takes the fun out of going to the games......"hey want to go and see if the Brewers get lucky today?"

 

When the Packers won the SB did you just yawn and think "good thing they got lucky" or did you celebrate a worlds championship?

 

I don't think the Mavericks thought they got lucky......I think they went out and beat the team they had to beat to win it.

 

When they start declaring division winners based on OPS or WAR instead of won/loss standings I'll change my mind but until then my eyes tell me that we play much much worse on the road. Some teams can get the job done on the road and others can't. I'm not sure if its mental toughness or something else but we have good enough talent not to be playing this crappy baseball for over half a season on the road.

 

You can call it bad luck....I'll just call it underachieving.

[logan82]

Depending on run distribution teams will easily play 6 games better or worse than their talent.

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't think anyone would deny they are underachieving on the road. But to be objective, wouldn't you say they are overachieving at home?

[The Truth]

I don't think anyone would deny they are underachieving on the road. But to be objective, wouldn't you say they are overachieving at home?

Maybe.

 

They are pitching better at home. Not sure yet just what we have with this Brewers team. I do know that they aren't likely to make the playoffs unless they make an upgrade at SS & 3B. The bottom of the order (other than Lucroy) is not playoff caliber...

[crewcrazy]

Early in the season, I would say bad luck played a part in the road WOAAHS. At a certain point, though, it does become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- whenever something starts to go wrong on the road (whether it's a wild pitch by Narveson, a missed scoring chance early, etc.), the "here we go again" thoughts creep into their heads. It doesn't make them "mental midgets" like some like to say. They're human.

 

At home, it's much of the same. They've gotten quite a few bounces to go their way in Milwaukee, and now it's to a point where they're playing with a ton of confidence and they believe they can come back and beat anyone. That confidence has been lacking on the road, but if they can find a way to reel off a few wins in a row, perhaps that home mojo can carry over.

[markedman5]

They are playing with much more confidence at home no doubt about it.

 

As a fan I am much less concerned about my favorite teams overachieving then I am about them underachieving. =)

 

Lets put it this way....if we played .500 ball on the road we would have a nice lead in the division even if we lost a few more at home.

 

All I'm asking is for this team to play good baseball on a consistent basis. Not every game or every series but for the most part. I have heard RR say the same thing. He knows...they all know... they aren't playing well on the road

 

Right now we are the Phillies at home and the Astros on the road.......thats not going to get us where we want to go and I doubt Doug Melvin or MA will tell the fans....."its disappointing that we missed the playoffs...we just needed to have the random variance work out better on the road...maybe next year".

[rluzinski]

I know there's nothing statistical to analyze, all the road stats will show as that they suck. But this team is absolutely shizophrenic. The road/home OPS splits are absolutely atrocious, and at some point it can't just be written off due to statistical variance.

 

There is plenty to analyze. First off, 48 games is a small enough sample that it could easily just be statistical variance. Do I know it is? Of course not. No one does. It's the most likely explanation, however. Hell, it's the only explanation we really have right now. As usual, I just think baseball fans are underestimating how much statistical variance plays a role in baseball.

 

Second, attributing certain characteristics to an entire team is convenient but not really logical. As I said earlier, we can identify which specific players have performed especially poor on the road and see if they've shown a propensity to do that in the past. Have the Brewers lost more games on the road than their Pythagorean record would suggest? Have the won more games at home than expected?

 

The Brewers road record simply isn't that unbelievable, IMO. The Brewers have a Pythagorean record of 46-49, for a .484 win%. I think they are a better team than that but let's say that represents their true talent. An average home road split is 54%/46%. As a real rough calculation, we can simply subtract 4% from the Brewers overall pythagorean record. .484 - .04 = .444. Using that as their "expected" road record this year:

 

Road Record:

 

Actual: 17 - 31

Expected: 21 - 27

 

4 less loses than expected in that scenario.

[logan82]

4 more losses. That really isn't much though. A couple close games going the wrong way and a couple bad starts.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Second, attributing certain characteristics to an entire team is convenient but not really logical. As I said earlier, we can identify which specific players have performed especially poor on the road and see if they've shown a propensity to do that in the past. Have the Brewers lost more games on the road than their Pythagorean record would suggest? Have the won more games at home than expected?

I absolutely agree that characterstics are identifiable by individuals, and not teams, statistically speaking. I agree, that statistically, and logically, what I'm saying doesn't make sense, I know that, I get it. I'm usually the guy arguing for that. However, I also know (not suspect, I know) that there's a human element to performance, and I know that it absolutely can be affected by a players mindset.

 

I know that in theory, we're supposed to believe that every time those guys go out there, they blank it all out, get in the batters box, or on the pitchers mound, and they just do their job 100%, every time out. And if something happens that isn't within their normal abilities, it's statistical variance, or good luck, or bad luck.

 

I do not know if these guys, any, a few, some, or all of them, have any mental anxiety, or whatever you want to call it, when playing on the road. I do not know this at all. And we can't know. It's not quantifiable, it's not measurable. I can't tell you, any more than anyone else on here that such a thing might be occurring. But just because we can't know, doesn't mean it's not worth hypothesizing about.

 

Russ, I'm not singling out you, or anyone else, but it seems over the past 12 to 18 months, any discussion that even hinges on soemthing that can't be statistically measured is scoffed at, if not outright dismissed here anymore. Is it pointless to discuss? Sure! So is everything else we throw around here. Doug Melvin doesn't give a toot that we can't stand Betencourt, or that no team has made the playoffs since 94 with 2 negative WAR players in their starting lineup. I don't post here because it's meaningful to the Brewers in any way, so what does it matter if a discussion has statistical merit, or not?

 

I'm 100% in the 'stat guy' camp, but I still firmly believe that human players have biases that can be subject to outside influences in their day to day goings on.

[pebadger]

Second, attributing certain characteristics to an entire team is convenient but not really logical.

 

Is it any less logical than assuming that these guys all operate as independent variables? I tend to believe that the outcome of one variable does influence the outcome of others to a statistically significant degree in this case. Now, that is not the same as attributing characteristics to an entire team. But it does tend to muck up the numbers a bit.

 

I don't think that the road record, by itself, is stunning. The simple way they appear to play the game on the raod, as opposed to how they appear to play in Miller Park, is. Maybe it's just an illusion and our perceptions are greatly skewed by self-selective bias, but that's an awfully tough sell for most.

[logan82]

Russ, I'm not singling out you, or anyone else, but it seems over the past 12 to 18 months, any discussion that even hinges on soemthing that can't be statistically measured is scoffed at, if not outright dismissed here anymore.

 

It can be statistically measured that we are bad on the road. I think the problem some people have is that when people talk about it they talk about it as if it is predictive. We have been bad on the road. Should we expect that to continue though? Predictive vs descriptive.

[rluzinski]

Russ, I'm not singling out you, or anyone else, but it seems over the past 12 to 18 months, any discussion that even hinges on soemthing that can't be statistically measured is scoffed at, if not outright dismissed here anymore. Is it pointless to discuss? Sure! So is everything else we throw around here.

 

We can speculate about anything we want. There IS a human element to the game that can't be discounted. As I said before, like everyone else, I can't prove what has caused the Brewers to perform so badly. I can only attempt to estimate what I would expect the road record to be and what the odds are that the actual record WAS simply a result of a bad bounce or whatever. And obviously, there is uncertainty in those estimates.

 

The trouble starts when people start some thread titled, "THIS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A SMALL SAMPLE ANYMORE!!! WHAT IS CAUSING THIS!?" Almost always, it is STILL a relatively small sample and bad luck HAS contributed to the difference between expectation and reality. I say "contributed" because it's usually just some combination of luck and actual skill being worse than expected. Greinke is an excellent example of that. His current projected ERA is worse than when the season started because he's pitched poorly in some regards. It isn't THAT bad, however, because bad luck has most likely contributed to his bad numbers. Anyone saying that it's all bad luck is probably sinning as bad as someone saying luck has nothing to do with it.

[endaround]

Well no the problem is that there is a search for a reason when there might not be one.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Russ, I'm not singling out you, or anyone else, but it seems over the past 12 to 18 months, any discussion that even hinges on soemthing that can't be statistically measured is scoffed at, if not outright dismissed here anymore.

 

It can be statistically measured that we are bad on the road. I think the problem some people have is that when people talk about it they talk about it as if it is predictive. We have been bad on the road. Should we expect that to continue though? Predictive vs descriptive.

I should have been more clear. There's no way to say the 'why' they are so bad on the road.

 

To be honest, I don't expect them to be .333 bad on the road, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised either. A lot of times, prophecies end up being self-fullfilling.

 

Due to statistical variance, let's say they start out 5-15 on the road. A few of the players start pressing, they play worse on the road. The team all know they are getting poor results on the road, and press even more, and start to put out performance that actually matches the results.

 

Zach Greinke's a guy (and I'm not offering that we go down this whole road again) who's a great example of performance vs. results. Somehow the team is playing .650+ ball in his starts, despite his almost 6 ERA. Even stranger is that despite having an ERA of well over 5, his peripherals would seem to indicate that he's pitched relatively well, and has been the victim of (again) 'bad luck'.

[DuWayne Steurer]

 

The trouble starts when people start some thread titled, "THIS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A SMALL SAMPLE ANYMORE!!! WHAT IS CAUSING THIS!?" Almost always, it is STILL a relatively small sample and bad luck HAS contributed to the difference between expectation and reality.

I guess, IMO, 50+ games is not a small sample. Some would argue otherwise. I know there's different bench marks to determine what a good sample size is. For defense, it's 3 years, for batting, bare minimum, we want 150 PA's (and IMO, that's still a small sample size)

 

For finding why a team performs poorly on road vs. home? I don't know. And that's what I'm asking here. I didn't say "This isn't bad luck anymore!" I asked "When is it no longer bad luck?"

 

Yes, perhaps this thread was my knee jerk need to salve my wounds, because of another soul crushingly bad road loss,

[logan82]

I guess, IMO, 50+ games is not a small sample. Some would argue otherwise. I know there's different bench marks to determine what a good sample size is. For defense, it's 3 years, for batting, bare minimum, we want 150 PA's (and IMO, that's still a small sample size)

150 PA is only about a month and a half. You need at least a year and people usually use 3 years when looking at it.

[DuWayne Steurer]

logan3825]

RoCoBrewfan wrote:

I guess, IMO, 50+ games is not a small sample. Some would argue otherwise. I know there's different bench marks to determine what a good sample size is. For defense, it's 3 years, for batting, bare minimum, we want 150 PA's (and IMO, that's still a small sample size)

150 PA is only about a month and a half. You need at least a year and people usually use 3 years when looking at it.

If that is the case, is Casey Mcgehee's season bad luck? Or were his previous 2 years filled with nothing but 'good luck'? If we need 3 seasons of batting data to draw a conclusion, isn't this season, by that benchmark, just bad luck?

 

Look, I'm the first guy to roll my eyes (ok, maybe 2nd or 3rd) when a manager says "he's the hot bat, we gotta get him in the lineup" nonsense. I think in baseball, the 'hot hand' is a myth to a degree. Now a player might get 'hot' and be seeing the ball well, or just be playing better, but for a manager to attempt to predict when that will start or worse, stop, is a fallacy waiting to happen.

 

I guess my thread title was a precursor to a larger question. When is a trend a trend, and not just bad luck?

 

I think most people would tell you that Casey McGehee isn't hitting into 'bad luck' this year, his at bats look awful. He makes weak contact, and isn't hitting the ball hard often (if at all). Now that's not accurately measurable to the degree that regular statistics are, but it's still something we can see. Now, I know that most BF posters want a 3B solution, but (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here), if we need a 3 season data set to draw conclusions, and McGehee has been stinky all year long, can't we expect that from ANY given point, we should expect, well, what we'd EXPECT out of McGehee? If it were just bad luck, and if McGehee's true ability is a .760 OPS, shouldn't that be predictable from today onward? I would say yes, but I think most baseball fans with a scrutinous eye can look at McGehee's at bats and realize he's mired in a slump that doesn't show any signs of letup anytime soon.

[logan82]

RoCoBrewfan wrote:

I think most people would tell you that Casey McGehee isn't hitting into 'bad luck' this year, his at bats look awful. He makes weak contact, and isn't hitting the ball hard often (if at all). Now that's not accurately measurable to the degree that regular statistics are, but it's still something we can see. Now, I know that most BF posters want a 3B solution, but (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here), if we need a 3 season data set to draw conclusions, and McGehee has been stinky all year long, can't we expect that from ANY given point, we should expect, well, what we'd EXPECT out of McGehee? If it were just bad luck, and if McGehee's true ability is a .760 OPS, shouldn't that be predictable from today onward? I would say yes, but I think most baseball fans with a scrutinous eye can look at McGehee's at bats and realize he's mired in a slump that doesn't show any signs of letup anytime soon.

My views on McGhee are posted elsewhere.

 

To answer your original question, at no point this season will our road record ever be predictable. It is technically a trend right now. I am not sure we should expect that trend to continue. As Russ pointed out it isn't all bad luck. We are probably playing a little below our talent on the road but most teams will play above or below their true talent on the road or at home. 2 teams with identical talent can easily be 10 games apart in the standings.

 

Maybe we haven't played the Astros and Pirates on the road enough. Maybe we have been a little unlucky catching more than our share of top of the rotation starters on the road. There could be any number of explanations or combination of explanations as to the difference between our home and road record. It is even tough to tell our true talent level.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Well, 2-2 in Colorado is certainly not a bad start. Hoped for more, but expected less. Still a tough 7 games left out west. If they can even go 3-4 in that stretch, I won't say I'd be 'happy', but if they were to finish the trip 5-6, I guess the word I'd use would be satisfactory.

[fondybrewfan]

Well 5-6 would be quite an improvement over our current road winning percentage.

 

We miss Hudson in the ARI series, thats pretty nice

[rluzinski]

 

The trouble starts when people start some thread titled, "THIS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A SMALL SAMPLE ANYMORE!!! WHAT IS CAUSING THIS!?" Almost always, it is STILL a relatively small sample and bad luck HAS contributed to the difference between expectation and reality.

I guess, IMO, 50+ games is not a small sample. Some would argue otherwise.

This has little to do with opinion. I'm saying it's a small sample because math suggests that it is. We want to know how much their road record represents their true talent on the road. I'm sure you've seen me do this exercise before but if God told us what the Brewers' odds were of winning each of their first 50 road games, we would still have little idea what their road record would end up being over that period. As an example, if God said that they had a 50% chance of winning each of those games, we'd expect a 25-25 record. But there would be a 10% chance that they would win 17 or less just by chance alone and god would just shrug his shoulders. Provided you are willing to pretend the odds of winning each of those games are identical, you can explore whatever hypothetical you want here:

http://stattrek.com/Tables/Binomial.aspx

In reality the odds vary for each game, but that same uncertainty is still there.

The team all know they are getting poor results on the road, and press even more, and start to put out performance that actually matches the results.

It's possible that is happening.... and it's possible that it's not. I happen to believe that as professional athletes, they've largely conditioned themselves to deal with the ups and downs a 162 game season can deal you (I'm sure there are exceptions, as with everything). I think it's the media and fans that have the harder time dealing with this kind of stuff.

[danzig6767]

I know there's nothing statistical to analyze, all the road stats will show as that they suck. But this team is absolutely shizophrenic. The road/home OPS splits are absolutely atrocious, and at some point it can't just be written off due to statistical variance.

 

There is plenty to analyze. First off, 48 games is a small enough sample that it could easily just be statistical variance. Do I know it is? Of course not. No one does. It's the most likely explanation, however. Hell, it's the only explanation we really have right now. As usual, I just think baseball fans are underestimating how much statistical variance plays a role in baseball.

 

Second, attributing certain characteristics to an entire team is convenient but not really logical. As I said earlier, we can identify which specific players have performed especially poor on the road and see if they've shown a propensity to do that in the past. Have the Brewers lost more games on the road than their Pythagorean record would suggest? Have the won more games at home than expected?

 

The Brewers road record simply isn't that unbelievable, IMO. The Brewers have a Pythagorean record of 46-49, for a .484 win%. I think they are a better team than that but let's say that represents their true talent. An average home road split is 54%/46%. As a real rough calculation, we can simply subtract 4% from the Brewers overall pythagorean record. .484 - .04 = .444. Using that as their "expected" road record this year:

 

Road Record:

 

Actual: 17 - 31

Expected: 21 - 27

 

4 less loses than expected in that scenario.

It's not just a bad road record that is so perplexing, it's the massive difference between their home/road records. Before today's game, they had the worst road record in the NL and were only one game off the best home record. The difference between their overall play at home and on the road has been so vast, it's going to make many people wonder what the hell is going on. Play like the Phillies at home and the miserable Astros on the road.

 

The Brewers having a hypothetical Pythagorean record of 46-49 i don't see as being relevant, that's just based on runs scored and given up totals as a whole. Anyone watching this team so far this year has seen that they've simply played much worse overall on the road than at home, not mainly just a matter of some bad breaks. Why that is the case is something people can only randomly guess on, and guesses like that are nearly impossible to prove or disprove either ways.

[FVBrewerFan]

4 games are a ton in a little over half a season though. Add those 4 wins, and the Brewers are 55-41. 4 1/2 game lead in the division, and Philly legitimately in sight for the best overall record in the NL.

 

Here's where the stat and non-stat people always get caught up on subjects like this. Everyone begins defending certain points of view, and often they are not contradictory. The overall question/comment is that this team needs to win more road games. I could be wrong, biut I would imagine nearly everyone agres with that. If they don't, they would need to continue their current winning% at home, or even improve on that.

[rluzinski]

4 games are a ton in a little over half a season though. Add those 4 wins, and the Brewers are 55-41. 4 1/2 game lead in the division, and Philly legitimately in sight for the best overall record in the NL.

4 games is huge with regard to making the playoffs but not huge with regard to expected vs. actual results. That's the point.

"The overall question/comment is that this team needs to win more road games."

The "overall question/comment" couldn't be more explicit, as it is in the title of the thread. That's the question I've been attempting to answer.