Progress report, 1/3 season

The Yanks are 31 and 23.  They have played 54 games which is 1/3 of the 162 game season.  I wanted to look at few pieces of data and assess how they are shaping up.

I admit that holding a 2 game lead in the East is a nice place to be.  Many experts had crowned the Red Sox before spring training.  I looked at the teams going into spring training and predicted a tie for AL East with the Yanks and Sox each winning 96.  After ST I revised to a Yank win at 98 wins.

The 31 wins in hand project to 93 for the year, so we are a little behind pace.

On offense the Yanks have scored a league leading  283 runs.  So, even with a weak .253 team batting average I feel pretty good about the O. The vaunted Boston O is in third with 267 runs (they have played 2 more games).  I had initially predicted 874 runs for the Yanks and 875 for the Sox.  The Yanks are a little behind, on pace for 849.  The Boston pace is further behind, on pace for 772.

Our defense has allowed 214 runs,  on pace to allow 642.  This is way better as a pace than the 720 I expect them to allow for the year.  The Sox have allowed 231, which is on pace for 668.  So, they are also better than I’d guessed.  I expected them to allow 724 runs for the season.  I’m sure you’ve all read that runs are down overall, and I think this analysis brings that home.

So, what kind of record would we expect with these run totals.  I like applying the pythag formula.  With 283 runs scored and 214 runs allowed pythag predicts a winning percentage of .636.  Rounded to the nearest game we should have 34 wins.  So, if you believe the analysis we’ve been unlucky by about 3 games. 

The Boston totals yield a winning percentage of .572.  So they should have 32 wins in 56 games.  So, they’ve been unlucky too, to the tune of 2 games.

There is a lot of baseball to be played.  I expect the outcome of the race to turn on injuries, who gets them and how the team responds.  Right now, I like where the Yanks are and how they are playing.  I still expect the Yanks to win the AL East!