Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Let's give Geoff Baker the FJM treatment

Once upon a time, there was an awesome website called Fire Joe Morgan, where idiotic journalism was routinely blasted with healthy doses of common sense and snark. Sadly, that website is no longer updated, but they have inspired many imitations. I think the Geoff Baker column mentioned earlier today is worthy of my feeble attempt to apply the FJM treatment.


The Lastros, miraculously, don’t have the worst record in all of MLB 

I don't think anyone realistically expected the Astros to have a winning record this season, but we're really going with an Act of God for the reason Houston is ahead of the Marlins right now? Most fans could name fewer Marlins that Astros, and that's saying something.


despite arguably having one of the worst teams of all-time.

Of the 24 worst records in baseball history, only one has come in the last 50 years.  That one team, the 2003 Tigers, featured a rare triple crown loser (last in average, homers, and rbi), something that's only been done 12 times, and a 20 game loser, the only one in the past 33 years.


This is what many folks feared when it came to the move of a $20 million team into the high-octane AL West. That you’d have the possibility of a bunch of 90-plus-win teams wreaking havoc on the wild-card race because of 19 games apiece against one squad that padded their records.

Surely this has never happened before, right? Well, if you look at the last three years, division winners have gone 216-103 against division losers. Huh, who would have thought that was a trend. That would be 13-6 over 19 games. Even as the worst team in baseball each of the last two years, the Astros didn't lose more than 12 games to any division rival. Doesn't look like havoc to me. And was anyone screaming each of the last two years when the AL East had three 90 game winners?


The Latros actually won the season opener against the high-powered Rangers — then promptly got outscored 11-0 the next two nights and didn’t win again for a week.

That should sound familiar to Seattle readers. After all, the Mariners actually won the first game of the first series against Houston, then promptly got outscored by 12 the next two nights and lost seven of their next ten. 


Take these next two games — with decent pitching in Seattle’s favor — and you’ve got a nice 4-2 record against them and are sitting just a few games under .500.

Conversely, if they lose the next two against Houston, like they did last series, they'll be 2-4 against the Astros and tied for last. With those same Lastros. Or, I guess, the TiedForLastros.


Think about how different the perception of the Mariners would be had they simply taken care of business against the Lastros like the A’s did.Seattle would be a 10-11 team right now
But...um...they're not. Those games actually counted, no matter how much you try to wish them away. By the way, it's amazing that the argument is that if they had beaten the Astros they'd be almost .500.

Letting the Lastros win their only series of the season against them really did impact the Lastros.
Lastros. Lastros. Lastros. Yeah, it gets funnier the more you say it. Lastros.

Lastros

Lastros