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| Friday, February 8 Greatness: What happens next year? By Rob Neyer ESPN.com |
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In conjunction with the Mariners Hot Stove Heater, I've been asked to forecast, with the help of precedent, Seattle's record in 2002. A year ago, the M's became only the 10th team since 1900 to win at least 70 percent of their regular-season games. So what happened to the previous nine? I hope you'll pardon the lengthy chart below; one of my New Year's resolutions -- actually, my only New Year's Resolution -- was to run fewer charts in my column this year, but sometimes they can't be reasonably avoided.
Year 1 Year 2
Team Record WPct Record WPct
1902 Pirates 103- 36 .741 91- 49 .650
1906 Cubs 116- 36 .763 107- 45 .704
1907 Cubs 107- 45 .704 99- 55 .643
1909 Pirates 110- 42 .724 86- 67 .562
1927 Yankees 110- 44 .714 95- 59 .617
1931 Athletics 107- 45 .704 94- 60 .610
1939 Yankees 106- 45 .702 88- 66 .571
1954 Indians 111- 43 .721 93- 61 .604
1998 Yankees 114- 48 .704 98- 64 .605
984-384 .719 851-526 .618
A few observations about these nine teams:
Actually, we don't need to invent The Law of .700, because we've already got something that's just as good: Regression to the Mean. Essentially, everything gets pulled to the middle. It's true of baseball teams and just about anything else you can think of, and it goes a long way toward explaining why no .700-plus team has improved the next year. I remember, gosh it seems like only five years ago, that the Yankees were coming off a season in which they won 114 games. And there were serious-minded people -- I'm not kidding around here -- who suggested that the Yankees would be even better in 1999. And why not? They swapped David Wells for Roger Clemens (coming off two straight Cy Young Awards), and they'd have a full season of Chili Davis in the DH slot! Of course, what this "analysis" ignored was that as great as Clemens was, he unlikely to match Wells' 18-4 record (he went 14-10 with a 4.60 ERA). What it ignored was that Chili Davis was 39 years old and couldn't beat Luciano Pavarotti in a footrace. And most of all, what it ignored was that teams that win 114 games don't get better. Interestingly enough, the Mariners won nearly 72 percent of their games last season, which almost exactly matches the composite winning percentage of the nine teams in the chart in Year 1. In Year 2, those same teams won 62 percent of their games, which is about what I think the Mariners will do this season. Actually, I think they'll do a bit worse, due to the age of their lineup and the question marks about their starting rotation. I think they'll drop to something like 95-67 ... and successfully defend their American League West title. But it's no sure thing. If the A's can pick up another hitter between now and Opening Day -- "Would you like some Jack Cust with your lineup, sir?" -- the M's are going to have a good fight on their hands. Rob can be reached at rob.neyer@dig.com, and to order his books, including the just-published Feeding the Green Monster, click here. |
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