2007 games we gave away

[adambr2]

It's a painful journey, but it's impossible not to think what could have been, so let's take a look at the games in 2007 that we gave away.

 

 

May 14th: Leading by 4 late in the game, a bullpen that had previously been strong melted down, and the Phillies rallied for 6 runs in the 8th inning.

 

May 28th: Leading 3-1 with nobody on and an out in the 8th, probably the ugliest meltdown of the season occurred as Turnbow, Shouse, and Spurling were completely incapable of recording an out, and the Braves exploded for 7 runs in the 8th inning to rally for a 9-3 victory.

 

June 9th: Probably the most improbable meltdown of the season, Francisco Cordero, who had been nearly flawless the entire season, had a 3-0 lead with 2 outs and 2 strikes, and nobody in, against the AL's worst team. Somehow, the Rangers rallied with 2 outs to win 4-3.

 

June 29th: The Brewers staked a 5-0 lead in the first inning over the Cubs -- then the bats fell silent, and the Cubs began to chip away at the Brewers lead before a walkoff HR with 2 outs in the 9th inning against Cordero sealed the deal.

 

July 27th: Established an early 6-0 lead, the Brewers again let their opponent back into the game, this time against the Cardinals, who knocked around Cordero with 3 runs in the 9th inning to finish a 7-6 rally.

 

July 28th: Again, the Brewers jumped out to a 5-0 lead. Gallardo finally gave way in the later innings, and the bullpen finished giving the game away in the 8th inning for another Cardinals come from behind victory.

 

August 5th: The Brewers had the game all but won, leading 6-1 in the 9th. They turned to Wise, who was unable to record an out, and followed with Cordero, who was also unable to finish the job, behind some poor defense. The Phillies rallied to tie in the 9th, and Wes Helms finished the job in extra innings.

 

August 19th: Brewers seemed to be on their way to crusing at home over the Reds, leading 5-0 until the 4th, but the Reds rallied against Capuano and Linebrink to win 7-6.

 

September 3rd: The Brewers appeared to be crusing along, leading by 3 in the 8th on Labor Day against the Astros. After Turnbow couldn't get it done and Shouse recorded an out, Yost went with Greg Aquino with 2 outs for his first appearance in a MLB game since May. The following hitter cleared the bases with a triple, and the Brewers went on to lose 9-7.

 

 

Now, I'm not even counting games where we may have made a questionable decision in extra innings to lose it, or any game that was close to the point where it was anybody's game to win or lose most of the way, or whatnot. Just counted the ones that we had a clear, good grip on, and managed to let it slip away. I count 9 of 'em. Some were borderline, I included one or two borderline "giveaways", and discounted most of them.

 

Granted, there are some games this season that we have stolen from the opposition -- the rally against Hamels on Aug. 4th comes to mind, especially. I think Vargas vs. Zambrano, being down 4-0 to Zambrano, and rallying to win 5-4 qualifies, too.

 

But I think it's painfully clear that the ratio of games given away to games stolen is pretty skewed in the wrong direction.

 

Normally, you expect those things to balance themselves out over the course of 162 games. It never happened this season.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers had a lot of early leads but then they gave them up. Overall, their pythagorean record is almost right on, so I feel like they lost about as many games as they deserved to. Of course, they found some terribly painful ways to do so.

[strawbossisevil]

We gave away 2007 games? Wow, I didn't realize Yost was that bad.

[adambr2]

We gave away 2007 games? Wow, I didn't realize Yost was that bad.

 

At first I thought you were making this into another "Is Yost Good or Bad?" thread, then I got the joke.

[adambr2]

The Brewers had a lot of early leads but then they gave them up. Overall, their pythagorean record is almost right on, so I feel like they lost about as many games as they deserved to. Of course, they found some terribly painful ways to do so.

I've heard a lot about the pythagorean record the last few days, but don't have any idea what it's based on truthfully.

 

Unfortunately, it sure seems like we gave a lot more games away than other teams gave to us.

 

I think we won 2 games this year when trailing after 8 innings. Pretty small handful of wins when leading after 7, too. And I think it's absolutely a factor. Only 1 team since the '50's has made the playoffs after blowing the amount of 3 run leads that the Brewers have blown this year (16). Take that number down just to 12 and again, we're leading the division.

[pebadger]

Is there any site that has the following stats handy:

 

Losses after leading by 3+ runs

Losses after leading by 3+ runs in the 7th or later

 

Wins in both of the above categories

 

Would be interesting to compile W/L number for all teams on this basis for purposes of comparison.

[rluzinski]

Maybe I'm just taking this thread wrong. But if you are trying to say that the Brewers should have more wins, what does it matter when a team scores their runs? You win games by scoring more runs than our opposition, not scoring a lot of early runs. They lost games because their pitching and defense has not been good this year. I don't look at it like they deserved more wins. They earned those incredibly-tough-to-watch losses.

 

The pythagorean record looks at the total numbers of runs a team scored and gave up and computes how many wins an average team would get from it. The Brewers are almost dead on. They have a mediocre record because their run differential is mediocre. At one point, they were about 5 wins ahead of their expected record.

[logan82]

Didn't they have a negative run differential at the end of April?

[jackalope02ca]

I haven't looked anything up but if you did the same analysis on the Cubs it likely wouldn't be much different.

 

The team had a good run. Yost did an amazing job with very little veteran presence on this team. We have the makings of a dynasty here that could compete for the next 4-5 years if we can hold the bulk of them together. The core of our star players Fielder, Braun, JJ, Gallardo, Villaneuva, and Hart don't really have a lot of experience. Now they know what the pressure of a pennant race is like and should all be better for it next year.

[moofnelson]

We have the makings of a dynasty here that could compete for the next 4-5 years if we can hold the bulk of them together.

I think it's a stretch that the Brewers are ever going to have a "dynasty." They are never going to have the depth, or payroll, to compete with the big boys in baseball. Significant injuries to top line players (i.e. Ben Sheets), or simply players that are counted on to have big years and they don't produce (i.e. Bill Hall), could easily derail this team during any year in the near future and bring them down to the pack.

 

They should, though, be very competitive in the next 4-5 years. I would imagine they would win a division at least once. After this year, I'm taking nothing for granted. If we win 5 of the 9 games that Adambr2 listed, then right now we have the champagne on ice.

[clancyphile]

I haven't looked anything up but if you did the same analysis on the Cubs it likely wouldn't be much different.

 

The team had a good run. Yost did an amazing job with very little veteran presence on this team. We have the makings of a dynasty here that could compete for the next 4-5 years if we can hold the bulk of them together. The core of our star players Fielder, Braun, JJ, Gallardo, Villaneuva, and Hart don't really have a lot of experience. Now they know what the pressure of a pennant race is like and should all be better for it next year.

Very true.

Still, it would have been nice to see them succeed.

 

Then again, it would be nice if I had a choice between going out with Jessica Alba and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

[jeffy]

Maybe I'm just taking this thread wrong. But if you are trying to say that the Brewers should have more wins, what does it matter when a team scores their runs? You win games by scoring more runs than our opposition, not scoring a lot of early runs. They lost games because their pitching and defense has not been good this year. I don't look at it like they deserved more wins. They earned those incredibly-tough-to-watch losses.

Yes, I seem to remember a lot of the games other teams "gave away" by letting the Brewers score a bunch of runs early in the game.

[Menotti80]

The Brewers had a lot of early leads but then they gave them up. Overall, their pythagorean record is almost right on, so I feel like they lost about as many games as they deserved to. Of course, they found some terribly painful ways to do so.

 

that is exactly why all of that pythagorean crap is a waste of time (no offense)

 

"deserved to"??? tell us why the brewers "deserved" to lose all of those games in that fashion...

 

adam had it right on (unfortunately)

[brewers19]

"deserved to"??? tell us why the brewers "deserved" to lose all of those games in that fashion...

 

Pythagorean win percentage isn't concerned with 'how' they lost the games, but rather only that they did lose the games. As Russ said, it's unfortunate that these losses had to come in such heart-breaking fashion, but that's irrelevant to the fact that they're right in line with how many wins that their runs scored/allowed have approximated for the season.

[rluzinski]

that is exactly why all of that pythagorean crap is a waste of time (no offense)

 

"deserved to"??? tell us why the brewers "deserved" to lose all of those games in that fashion...

 

adam had it right on (unfortunately)

 

I didn't say, "in that fashion".. Adambr2 pointed out that the Brewers have blown a lot more leads this year than usual but didn't compenate by mounting more comebacks. I wouldn't be foolish enough to challenge that. All I'm asking is for fans to resist the urge to use that fact as a basis for arguing that the Brewers "should" have won more games. If no one thinks that, I'm happy to hear it.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The problem with looking at just the games the Brewers lost in which they had big early leads is that Baseball's a sport that has no game clock - you still have to get at least 27 outs in a game to win, no matter how many runs you score early. While it's disheartening for the Brewers to have lost so many games that they had significant leads in, it just points to the main weakness of this year's roster - inconsistent relief pitching coupled with starting pitching who consistently couldn't get out of the 6th inning.

I think Milwaukee doesn't have the same amount of comeback wins as losses because of, yes folks, their bullpen once again - think of that big comeback to tie in the Metrodome, only to have Spurling give up a walk-off bomb. Think of just this past week, with Weeks 9th inning homer in Houston and the disaster of a game in Atlanta on Saturday - there have been plenty of Brewer comebacks this year that have went for naught due to the bullpen's inability to perform.

[DuWayne Steurer]

You can say that the pythagorean W/L is in line with the run differential, and I don't think anyone would argue that. I think the point that some are trying to make is that the hypothetical doesn't look at "how" it happened. As we're talking about facts, the fact is that the Brewers lead the major leagues in losses after leading a game by 3 or more runs. It's true, obviously, that it doesn't matter "when" you score the runs within the 9 innings, only that you score more than the opponent, but when you're losing that many games that you have what I'd call a *big* lead, I think that hints at some sort of problem.

 

I'm obviously not saying the Brewers have some team wide ability to blow leads, or that there's some underlying issue that needs to be resolved, I just think there's people saying (and I'm one of them), that the pythagorean record, as well as the actual record, could and should be better, had the Brewers not blown such a high amount of 3+ run leads.

 

I said this in the vent thread, but I think it bears repeating here... Upon the completion of this season, I'm not going to look back and say, "what a great season, we just came up short", I'm going to be thinking "Wow, what could/should have been if the team didn't lead the majors in blown 3 run leads".

[xisxisxis]

The pythagorean record looks at the total numbers of runs a team scored and gave up and computes how many wins an average team would get from it. The Brewers are almost dead on. They have a mediocre record because their run differential is mediocre. At one point, they were about 5 wins ahead of their expected record.

 

And if they didn't lose just 4 of those games they were leading by 3 or more runs the pythagorean record would be pretty much on target still. Assuming they gave up 4 runs to lose 4 of those games after leading by 3 then we get (using Pythagenport at BP):

 

W L Wexp Lexp
84 72 82.8 73.2

 

Basically their pythagorean W/L is still pretty much the same as the actual W/L. It's true that they have a mediocre record because they have a poor run differential. It's also true if they hadn't lost several of those games that adam mentioned (like 4) where the Brewers lead by 3 or more they would be in first place and their pythagorean numbers would be almost right on. I don't see how anyone can argue that because the Brewers are tracking close to pythagorean W/L that losing as many games as poorly as they did is irrelevant.

Edit: yuku is a piece of $#%@. yuku is still ....

[Fatter than Joey]

I don't see how anyone can argue that because the Brewers are tracking close to pythagorean W/L that losing as many games as poorly as they did is irrelevant.

 

I agree.

 

Basically Pythagorean Formula is a function of 2 variables -- Runs scored and Runs allowed -- All it really does is try to give a person an idea of how lucky a team has been over the course of a year. If a team has a PYG of 81 wins, and the team actually wins 84 games, all we really know is that the team had a favorable distribution of runs that allowed them to win a couple extra games.

 

I don't think this formula tells you much about a team's execution or personnel. I don't think you can use the PYG to say Ned Yost did a bad/good job.

 

Here is where I think the confusion lies...

 

If you want to say the Brewers should have won more games on the ACTUAL runs the Brewers scored/allowed the PYG is relevant.

 

If you want to say that the Brewers should have won more games because they didn't score enough runs or gave up too many runs, the PYG is irrelevant.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't think this formula tells you much about a team's execution or personnel. I don't think you can use the PYG to say Ned Yost did a bad/good job

 

 

I think over time if a team year after year exceeds their PYG, I think that's at least an indicator that the manager has a positive effect. Over the 15 years the Braves made the playoffs every year, their PYG was consistently in the +5 or better range, with only one or 2 years where that was not the case. I don't think there'd be a really big disagreement that Bobby Cox is a good manager, but it's the one example I could come up with off the top of my head.

 

Of course, one could make the argument that a more talented team's PYG will usually be on the + side, simply because more talented teams don't "flub" their way to a lot of losses.

[rluzinski]

I just think there's people saying (and I'm one of them), that the pythagorean record, as well as the actual record, could and should be better, had the Brewers not blown such a high amount of 3+ run leads.

 

And for me, that comment boils down to, "If the Brewers had scored more runs and/or given up less runs, they would have had a better record." I just don't see the utility in that kind of observation, since it's true for all teams. You can always find curious splits with unexpectedly bad team records associated with them. The temptation is to conclude that the team should have been expected to perform better in those situations and therefore, should have been expected to have a better record overall. I think that's a logical fallacy.

 

I don't see how anyone can argue that because the Brewers are tracking close to pythagorean W/L that losing as many games as poorly as they did is irrelevant.

 

I'm not saying it's irrelevant altogether (that's such a vague statement that it can't be argued against). My contention is simply that blowing a high number of early leads does not indicate that a team won less games than their overall performance justified. That's it. I used their pythagorean record as a quick check to see if they even had lost more games than expected. That's not a perfect measure by any means but it gets you on the right track.

[DuWayne Steurer]

"If the Brewers had scored more runs and/or given up less runs, they would have had a better record." I just don't see the utility in that kind of observation, since it's true for all teams.

 

But it's not true for all teams. As pointed out, the Brewers led the majors this year in blown leads of 3 or more runs. It's not like I'm cherry picking, or throwing stuff out. And to use your terminology, there is "utility" in the observation, because it's not even a perception, it's a fact that the Brewers blew an inordinate amount of large and/or late leads. I'm not even here to argue the reasons (I'm sure that's already in other threads), I'm only saying (as is David) that the Brewers PYG should have been better, if not for so many blown leads. Not could have, or might have, but really should have.

 

PYG-wise, it doesn't matter how or when you score the runs, but game-specific and context wise, it certainly does. And I think that's what a lot of people are trying to get at.

[rluzinski]

PYG-wise, it doesn't matter how or when you score the runs, but game-specific and context wise, it certainly does.

 

I think we are arguing two different things. If all you are saying is that based on the average win expectency at the point of the start of the fourth inning (for example) of each game, the Brewers would have been expected to win more overall games, you will get no disagreement from me. If you added them all up and came up with 87.35 wins, that wouldn't surprise me in the least. The gentlemen at Brewercrewball could probably find the agreggate win expectency by inning (hint, hint). Someone with some serious time could also use fangraphs.com to calculate it themselves. Here's yesterday's game:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/plays.aspx?date=2007-09-24&team=Brewers&dh=0

 

I'm just trying to relate what the above fact tells us about the overall skill level of the team. It doesn't suggest that the Brewers are more skilled than their overall record indicates, since we are selecting the sample (earlier in the game, where we know they've performed better) that is better to begin with.

[DuWayne Steurer]

PYG-wise, it doesn't matter how or when you score the runs, but game-specific and context wise, it certainly does.

 

I think we are arguing two different things. If all you are saying is that based on the average win expectency at the point of the start of the fourth inning (for example) of each game, the Brewers would have been expected to win more overall games, you will get no disagreement from me. If you added them all up and came up with 87.35 wins, that wouldn't surprise me in the least. The gentlemen at Brewercrewball could probably find the agreggate win expectency by inning (hint, hint). Someone with some serious time could also use fangraphs.com to calculate it themselves. Here's yesterday's game:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/plays.aspx?date=2007-09-24&team=Brewers&dh=0

 

I'm just trying to relate what the above fact tells us about the overall skill level of the team. It doesn't suggest that the Brewers are more skilled than their overall record indicates, since we are selecting the sample (earlier in the game, where we know they've performed better) that is better to begin with.

 

We're on the same page, but I think we still disagree in part. I took a good look at the "expected win%" charts during the games a lot, and a lot of the losses came when the charts were saying 90% or better in favor of. I think they "lucked" into a lot of bad losses, and yes, the PYG shows that the Brewers record is what it should be. Given that the ERA's of the bullpen guys that have pulled the most duty are by and large decent, I'd have to say that it's just dumb luck that the Brewers relievers have given up their runs in situations where it's hurt the team the most. Again, I'll say PYG-wise, it all evens out, but game-specific, it boggles the mind how many late and large leads the team gave up this year. Given the same roster, and the whole season to do over again, I'd find it somewhat, if not highly improbable to suggest that the bullpen would blow that many late leads a second time over.

[Jay Zahn]

PYG-wise, it doesn't matter how or when you score the runs, but game-specific and context wise, it certainly does.

 

I think we are arguing two different things. If all you are saying is that based on the average win expectency at the point of the start of the fourth inning (for example) of each game, the Brewers would have been expected to win more overall games, you will get no disagreement from me. If you added them all up and came up with 87.35 wins, that wouldn't surprise me in the least. The gentlemen at Brewercrewball could probably find the agreggate win expectency by inning (hint, hint). Someone with some serious time could also use fangraphs.com to calculate it themselves. Here's yesterday's game:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/plays.aspx?date=2007-09-24&team=Brewers&dh=0

 

I'm just trying to relate what the above fact tells us about the overall skill level of the team. It doesn't suggest that the Brewers are more skilled than their overall record indicates, since we are selecting the sample (earlier in the game, where we know they've performed better) that is better to begin with.

We're on the same page, but I think we still disagree in part. I took a good look at the "expected win%" charts during the games a lot, and a lot of the losses came when the charts were saying 90% or better in favor of. I think they "lucked" into a lot of bad losses, and yes, the PYG shows that the Brewers record is what it should be. Given that the ERA's of the bullpen guys that have pulled the most duty are by and large decent, I'd have to say that it's just dumb luck that the Brewers relievers have given up their runs in situations where it's hurt the team the most. Again, I'll say PYG-wise, it all evens out, but game-specific, it boggles the mind how many late and large leads the team gave up this year. Given the same roster, and the whole season to do over again, I'd find it somewhat, if not highly improbable to suggest that the bullpen would blow that many late leads a second time over.

I looked at this a few weeks ago. These figures are old, but this compares how many runs the Brewers gave up in each inning compared to the average in baseball:

 

 

Inning	Brewers	Average
1	5.68	5.33	-0.35
2	3.25	4.28	1.03
3	4.36	4.88	0.52
4	4.15	4.77	0.62
5	4.92	5.11	0.19
6	6.37	5.34	-1.03
7	5.62	4.61	-1.01
8	5.26	4.68	-0.58
9	5.7	4	-1.7

So at the time the Brewers had been above average collectivly in giving up runs in innings 1-5, with only one below average inning. Every inning from 6-9 was worse than any inning from 1-5. Common sense tells me that this will result in lots of blown leads.

 

I looked at the other teams too. In almost all cases the teams with bad records in giving up runs in the later inning were the ones who gave up lots of leads. The ones who were above average in the late innings had more comebacks than leads given up. The Brewers have given up lots of runs in the late innings, and so they've blown a lot of leads. It's wishful thinking to hope that you'll get lucky and not give up the runs in key situations.