Baseball is ridiculous. Well, let me rephrase that. Baseball is ridiculous when you're trying to pick the winners of 15 baseball games in a row. That's what I've been doing on and off for about 3 summers now. It seemed so obvious and straight forward in the beginning. Baseball is a game where one player on each team has an enormous effect on the result, namely the pitcher. The pitcher has the power to influence the game more than any other one player in sport. More than a QB in American football, more than an out half in rugby. The pitcher's influence is so great they end up with the win or loss against their own name. So in a game where 9 people compete against each other, one person get a W or L on their own personal record. When pundits discuss baseball they talk about a teams win/loss record in the same breath as a pitchers win/loss record. There is also the fact that, like all other American sports, a draw as a result does not exist in baseball and so only two outcomes are possible. Of course, this is factored in to the odds set by the bookies but still, it shouldn't be too hard to pick 15 winners when pitching is weighted so heavily, and then of course there's this:
In case your eyesight isn't what it used to be, that says potential returns of €10,197.82. Ten thousand one hundred and ninety-seven euro and eighty-two cent. All for the investment of €1. They are investment returns I like. So when I first stumbled across this I thought yes sir I shall invest €1 a day until I hit the the jackpot. Now I know that also means the odds of me winning are over 10,000/1 but still, there were only two outcomes, pitchers rule games so I just needed to do enough research, keep on slogging away with my euro a day and then eventually I'd be quids in, right?
Wrong. Well wrong so far that is. Now I wasn't naive enough to think I'd actually get 15 predictions spot on straight away or anything but I was naive enough to think I would eventually get lucky one day. Or I dared to dream at least. And that's where I am coming to the conclusion that baseball is ridiculous. It is incredibly hard to predict. I guess it is the sheer volume of games. All teams in the major leagues play 162 regular season games over the course of about 6 months. That's a game every 1.13 days. That's a lot. In those 162 games, players on the best teams are going to have bad days and vice versa for the players on the poorer teams. No one can keep up performance levels over that period of time. The best regular season record is held by the Chicago Cubs with a regular season win/loss record of 116/36. That was in 1906. The Washington Nationals ended up with the best regular season record last year which included losing 64 games!
I don't claim to be a baseball expert or anything, although I have watched my fair share having spent some Summers in America, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of luck involved in winning any one game. Even what seems like a sure thing (as much as that can ever be in sports) can blow up in your face. Take Justin Verlander. Widely regarded as one of, if not the, best pitcher in baseball. He won both the AL MVP and the Cy Young Award in 2011. He's not having the best season ever but his E.RA. is still a very respectable 3.50. 1 He also plays for the Detroit Tigers who are either the 5th or 9th best club in baseball at the moment, dependent on your view. Last week he was pitching a game against the rather poor Chicago White Sox. The Tigers were at home. Verlander was 1/3 favourite. I had them picked as one of my bankers in my 15 team accumulator. They lost
Of course upsets can and do happen in every sport but they seem to happen with alarming regularity in
baseball.2 The St. Louis Cardinals currently hold the best record in baseball at 57 wins and 36 losses. The Houston Astros have the worst at 33/61. To put this in context, Man United ended up with just 5 losses all last year while QPR finished with just the 4 wins. The worst team in baseball could beat the best team 3 times in a row. No big deal. There's barely any rhyme or reason to it. But still I solider on.
Last Summer while I had a scary amount of free time I got to thinking. I knew I couldn't possibly cover all possibilities for 15 games and I'm sure no bookmaker worth his salt would make that financially viable but I wanted to know just how many outcomes there actually was. Not being too au fait with statistics I asked my brother. 32,768. That's how many outcomes there are in 15 games of baseball. Unperturbed, I spent a whole evening drawing up a plan of sorts. Not mathematically or statistically based, just on gut or a 'surely if I cover enough possibilities, something will hit.' Some might term it generic gambler I guess. I think I invested between €30 and €50 (I'm not willing to go back through my account to find the actual figures) and got so confused by all the possibilities I didn't really know what I was doing by the end. Still I went to bed that night thinking well there's always a chance, I've covered more possibilities than normal, all I need is a bit of luck and I'll wake up to a couple of thousand quid from Mr. Power. I didn't. It wasn't even that close as far as I remember. So maybe it's me who is ridiculous rather than the sport of baseball but regardless, I'm off to put on my €1 accumulator.
Though of the day - Coughing and sneezing at the same time results in the most unsatisfying sneeze ever.
1 If you don't know what these stats, acronyms and funny names mean then why are you reading a blog called 'The Usual Baseballs'? I'm kidding, I don't have enough readers to do that. The AL MVP is the American League MVP. The Cy Young Award is the award for the best pitcher, there is one for both the American and National leagues. Finally an ERA is an earned run average. There are better and more accurate pitching stats but this is still seen as the go to grab all stat for pitchers.↩
2 I use 'alarming' in a completely personal sense as no one cares a huge amount about what happens game to game in the regular season.
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