The Angels, Mariners and A's are all over .500 against the rest of baseball. The Mariners would have the 4th best win% in the AL if not for us. You're probably gonna think the schedule for the whole year is weak if we keep beating the hell out of our AL west rivals.
Why the hell would anybody ever analyze the strength of schedule in baseball? That's highly dumb... after 162 games, you are who you are. No more, no less. Sure, some years you get the benefit of a weak division... but that's still only about a third of a team's total games (unlike other sports). Till then, let's save the SOS for football... the only sport where it actually makes a difference.
While the above maybe true, those teams are not likely the ones we will have to go through to get to the World Series. The Yankees and Orioles look like those teams to me (at present) and we have yet to face them. Win, lose or draw, one series wont decide where we stand. But how we look should be a good gut check at this point.
Thanks for doing that legwork. I've been thinking about it for a week or so but never got a chance to look it up
Going 12-0 or 0-12 against the Red Sox/Orioles/Yankees/Indians means nothing unless you're doing it in October. Winning 100+ games means you're a great team. At that point, failing int he playoffs would really suck... but given the nature of baseball, it simply has to be expected as "part of the game". Regular season baseball is a different sport altogether from post-season baseball. For the latter, I hope they stack the deck enough to where there's absolutely no more optimization needed.
Our exact record vs those teams wont predict our playoff success (assuming we get there), agreed. But I think how you fare vs the better teams is a better litmus test of how good your team is than success vs .500 and sub .500 teams.
But that's entirely subjective... especially this early in the season. Any of the sub .500 teams the Astros have played thus far may end up being well above .500 after 162. And vice versa. At the end of the day, you only know what a team is or isn't after the season is mostly complete... and then you can go back and retrospectively look at performances against +.500 teams vs. sub .500 teams and whether or not it had any bearing on playoff success (but something tells me, it still won't... as playoff matchups typically don't feature the likes of #4 or #5 starting pitchers).
WWLW... happy with a split, thrilled with 3-1, and I might pass out with excitement if we sweep the Spankees.
I think this has merit for other sports, but I am thinking in baseball, not so much. Teams just trying to position themselves for the playoffs and get as many wins as possible. In other words, beating a bunch of good teams says about as much good about a team as losing to bad teams says about how bad a team is. Just seems like there is a lot of randomness as teams could just hit good teams while good teams are dealing with some injuries, etcs. Granted, I could be really wrong here. Just going on gut.
Not to mention, pitching matchups, bullpen usage/rest, and resting position players vs. how you optimize all of that in extreme detail once you're in the playoffs.
They play 76 games in the division (19x4). That is 47% or nearly half. NFL is 6. That is 38% NBA is 16. That is 20% NHL is 30. That is 37%
I've always hated the 3 division format, you just play too many games against the same teams. The damn season is long enough without having to see that same f**king teams over and over. 2 divisions with 3 wild cards would be much better IMO, and not punish/reward teams for the quality of their division.
