Red Sox fans- I know its early but.......

[Kevin Seitzer]

What struck me, after researching this today, is how many of the supposedly good teams that started 0-5 or 0-6 were overestimated by people going into the season based upon past success that was about to collapse. It wasn't true for all the teams, but at least for half of them, and most of the ones who didn't suffer that fate didn't exactly excel, either. People would have said of those teams that their talent was fine when it really wasn't, and that there was no reason to panic, when there really was.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13485

[a.j.]

No 0-5 or 0-6 team has ever made the playoffs in the American League. So, a week into the season, the AL East is a three-team race.

[gcstomp]

That is just silly to say that at 0-6, Boston wont win the AL East. You have to stand back and ask if this is really a good team that has had a bad week, or if this will be an indicator of how they will play this year. I am sure that most every good team has an 0-6 stretch somewhere in their season, Boston just had it at start. Big whoop.

[TopChuckie]

If the Orioles just play .500 ball from here on out, the Red Sox have to go 83-73 just to catch them!!!

[Kevin Seitzer]

That is just silly to say that at 0-6, Boston wont win the AL East. You have to stand back and ask if this is really a good team that has had a bad week, or if this will be an indicator of how they will play this year. I am sure that most every good team has an 0-6 stretch somewhere in their season, Boston just had it at start. Big whoop.

It's a little bit of both. It's a small indicator of how they will play this year. You can't extrapolate it to 0-162, but you also shouldn't ignore it in adjusting your evaluation of the Red Sox. In addition, it does matter, statistically speaking, when a team has an 0-6 stretch. Having it at any specific point (such as the beginning of the year) is worse than having it at a random point. A team which has the streak at a specific point can also have another losing streak at a random point. They are a little over two wins worse off because they had the losing streak right now, as a compared to a generic team having the same 6-game losing streak at a random point in the year.

[Gregg]

The confidence interval of a sample size of 6 out of a population of 162 is nearly 40%.

Yeah, it sucks to lose 6 in a row but I don't think it's all that big of a deal.

Umm...can you run through the math for me. I am not seeing the 40%.

[DJBeasties]

I cannot comment objectively right now.

[Gregg]

They just need a winning streak. Of all team's winning streaks. Florida is the shortest with 9 games, but they did it 4 times.

I do not think a 6 game winning streak during the season will be that big of a deal to this team.

The Red Sox longest winning streak is 15.

[Gregg]

LOL, I seriously doubt you want me to do that unless you're willing to go through beta distribution tables, standard deviations, Z scores, etc.

All what I said means is that, like in a politics survey or something, the margin for error is plus or minus 40 points. That's a LOT.

I did not understand it as the margin of error on the small sample size. Thank you for the explanation. And without doing the math I would agree with your statement.

[Moonlight J]

I love it.....only thing keeping me from breaking things in my house

[joncarlos]

The confidence interval of a sample size of 6 out of a population of 162 is nearly 40%.

Yeah, it sucks to lose 6 in a row but I don't think it's all that big of a deal.

So if they're underestimated by 40% then they're a .400 team?

[a.j.]

That is just silly to say that at 0-6, Boston wont win the AL East.

History's not on your side, stomp.

By the way, the Red Sox are hitting .181 and the Rays .145. And everyone says average is overrated.

[bryanbutler]

careful with those statistics, elD.

a team that wins half of its games expects to have a bit more than 1 6-game (or more) losing streak per season (~1.25, actually).

*but*, that team is only expected to lost *it's first 6* (or more) about 1% of the time. remember, it's not just any 6 (or more) out of 162, it's a particular 6 (or more).

it's even worse when that team is expected to win 60% of its games (the vegas over/under for boston is 95 games, or about 60% winning percentage).

in that case, in only about 40% of seasons do they expect to have a 6-game (or more) losing streak at any point during the season, and less than half a percent are the first 6 of the season.

i just ran a bunch of simulations...

now, this assumes random opponents, which isn't quite realistic, but, as i say, careful with those statistics, elD...

[Thumper]

I predict Francona will be gone in July. :flame:

[bryanbutler]

The results of a 6 game sample of a 162 game population do not come close to predicting the outcome of the entire population of games. That's my point. There are, of course, about a bazillion ways to slice this statistically.

Yes, a six game losing streak is somewhat meaningful in terms of final W-L record. However, what can we glean from that losing streak and its impact on final standings? Nothing.

Careful, shmareful.

heh.

my point is that a 6-game loss at the beginning of the season *is* statistically significant for the red sox, as it is extremely rare for a .600 (or even .500) team to start out a season that way.

whether it affects final standings or not, :shrug:, i dunno - depends on too many other factors.

"careful with that axe, eugene" ...

(and, as a side note, and speaking of starting seasons on a losing streak, i'm still scarred by that orioles season in 1988 that began 0-21 - gah!)