A Look At The AL East

After the softball game last night, I was talking with my friend Paul, a lifelong Yankee fan, about what was wrong with the Yankees (40-42) this year. His short answer: “everything.” Twelve games behind the Red Sox (53-31) in the AL East, and eight and a half behind the Tigers (49-34) for the Wild Card, there’s a good chance that the Yankees might not even make the playoffs this year. Stunning.

What’s interesting about the Yankees is that they have a pretty good run differential. If you look at the number of runs a team both scores and allows, you can predict fairly accurately how many games they’ll win. Having scored more runs (429) than they allowed (375), you would expect the Yankees to be 46-36, six games better than they are right now, and right in the hunt for a Wild Card playoff berth.

Unfortunately for my friend Paul, the Yankees have dug such a deep hole that it might be too late to recover. I wondered last night: the Yankees have 80 games left, if they play out the rest of the season at the “true” level of ability indicated by their run differential, do they have a shot at the playoffs? I couldn’t do the math right then (mmmm . . . beer) but I can now. Take a look:


I’d expect the Yankees to win 45 of their remaining 80 games, and 45 plus the 40 they’ve won so far equals a record of 85-77, and I don’t think that’s going to be enough to win the Wild Card. Of the teams ahead of the Yankees in the Wild Card standings -- Detroit, Seattle, Oakland, and Minnesota – one of them is bound to win more than 85 games.

Of course, rather than screw around with an Excel grid all morning, I could have just looked up the same information here. Davenport, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!