Close Games

I unfortunately cannot find the story, but a couple of week ago I saw a column deriding Mickey Callaway trying to up a positive spin on the Mets season by pointing out that the team plays a large number of close games. The point being that the Mets are in games despite not winning them.

A few years ago I developed a closeness score on a tip from Tom Tango. Basically, I take the absolute value of the score difference at the end of each half inning, average that over the number of innings. So a 1-0 won in the bottom of the ninth would have a closeness score of 1/18, while a 1-0 game won by a homer in the top of the first would have a closeness score of 1 (18/18).

Here are the average closeness scores for teams this season through games of Friday 6/15/2018:

Team	Games	Avg Close Score
WSH	67	1.93
NYN	66	1.96
ARI	69	1.98
MIN	66	2.00
DET	71	2.00
SEA	70	2.01
TOR	69	2.09
MIL	69	2.12
LAN	68	2.13
SLN	67	2.13
PIT	69	2.15
TBA	69	2.18
KCA	69	2.20
HOU	71	2.25
ATL	69	2.26
CIN	69	2.27
BOS	71	2.28
COL	69	2.29
TEX	71	2.29
NYA	66	2.31
CHN	66	2.31
SFN	70	2.32
SDN	72	2.33
OAK	70	2.34
CLE	68	2.35
MIA	70	2.38
PHI	67	2.43
CHA	68	2.46
BAL	68	2.50
LAA	70	2.58

I don’t know that closeness scores should be an indication of the ability to win. In general great teams win big and terrible teams lose big. We should be seeing the middle of the road teams at the top of the list, and the great and awful teams at the bottom of the list. The Mets have played very close games, but not quite as close as the Nationals.

There’s a very nice group of Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Colorado, the Yankees, and the Cubs between 2.25 and 2.31. Those are good teams that should be winning big.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2JGSauW