We attended an Astros game last night, where they managed to disappoint us even though we expected them to lose — instead, they managed to beat the Washington Nationals, a team we actually like.
The game leaves Houston at 32-65, or .330. That’s the worst record in baseball, a slot the Astros have made their own for months now. I wondered last night at what point they’d become mathematically irrelevant, so I did some very basic figurin’.
There are 162 games in a baseball season. If the Astros go on an unprecedented run and win all 65 remaining games, they finish at 97-65, or .599. That’s a respectable figure — league leaders Philly and Boston are above that now, and several others are close to it (the Yankees, the Giants, the Braves, and even the hot-streaking Rangers). The only one of those that matters for this purpose (i.e., National League playoffs) is Philly; .599 is better than everyone else in the National League, so I feel safe saying this bizarre development would be good enough to clinch the NL Central title, or at least the NL Wildcard slot.
Looking a little more carefully at last year’s playoff teams, we see an average 2010 regular season record of .576. For the Astros to finish above that (.580 is the closest possible record), they have to win 94 games, or 62 of the remaining 65 — a finishing run in excess of 95%, or only marginally less absurd than the perfect run required to reach .599.
So, while it is still technically too early to count the Astros out on the strength of arithmetic alone, it does seem damned improbable. And in the next two weeks, they play the Nats again (once), the Cubbies (3 times), the Cards (4 times), and the Brewers (3 times), so odds are they’ll drop those “critical” three games between now and the end of July, rendering even pipe-dream best-possible records unworthy of the postseason.
All that’s just math, though: smart folks like us realize that the AA sad-sacks of Enron field are not going to shift from .330 ball to .950 ball. Let’s look at some other scenarios, ranging from “still absurd” to “depressingly likely.”
What if they win “only” 3/4 of their remaining 65 games? That herculean feat will buy them a reasonable finishing record of .500, which will presumably rescue the 2011 Astros from generations of ridicule. However, even a 75% run through September only gets them as close to the playoffs as, well, the AAA-league Louisville Bats. To be fair, we must admit that a .750 run to finish the season is only slightly more likely than a playoff-worthy .950.
Closer to the realm of possibility is splitting the remaining games. I said “closer,” but not really possible — but if it DID happen, a 33-32 run would let the Astros finish at .400. For most of the year the Astros have been alone in the sub-40% club, Cubbies notwithstanding, so climbing one rung of the ladder would still be nice — even though my guess is that .400 would leave them in the league basement for the year.
Now we’re out of the impossible and improbable, though. What if they continue on their .330 path? That seems positively reasonable! They’d finish at 53 and 109. Astonishingly for a team as meager and feeble as the Astros have always seemed to be, they’ve never before lost 100 games in a year — and in fact haven’t lost more than 90 in 20 years.
I think we’re safe in kissing that record and streak goodbye; to avoid 100 losses, they’ve got to bag 63 wins, or 31 of the remaining 65. A 31-34 season-ending run would be only slightly less miraculous than the .500 split, and even that moral victory still leaves them at .389 on the year.
Frankly, 109 losses might be good news, if their pre-break performance is any indication. Of their 35 games before the All Star game, the Astros lost a staggering 28. If they continue that performance, we can look forward to something like 45 and 117, or a .278 final percentage. Ouch!
To put this in more global perspective, it’s been 7 years since a team lost 109 or more games (the 2004 Arizona Diamondbacks went 51-111, or .315), and in the last 40 years it’s only happened three times (the ’03 tigers went 43-119, and who doesn’t love the ’62 Mets at 40-120?).
With those final figures in hand, I realize one final note: The Astros can’t even be exceptionally bad. 109 or 117 losses definitely sucks, but if you’re going to go that far down, have the strength of character to own it. Be the worst team you can be!
The Astros can own the modern era loser record if they manage to win no more than five additional games, finishing at .228 or 37-125. The mark was set by the Philadelphia (now Oakland) Athletics, who went .235 (36-117) back in 1916. Sadly, I suspect our hometown team will blow this opportunity as well.
Hey, hey, hey — Don’t try to pawn this team off on ME, fella. You can have them…
Greetings from Singapore. I have not been to a game this year. This is odd behavior for a person who once had season tickets and has been a lifelong fan. At the beginning of the season I challenged an old friend of mine who is a sports writer on the Astros beat to predict their final record. I said the Astros would lose 90 games. He had them winning 80. Obviously, my evaluation of the Astros Pitching staff has been more accurate. Frankly, I only held hope for three players to have a decent season; C Johnson, H Pence, and M Bourne. Only one of those players has had a good season, Mr. Pence (an Allstar) who is likely to get dealt before July 31st to either Atlanta or San Francisco. We can ague about pitching, as run support has been fucking miserable. I think this might be one of the worst hitting teams in Astros history. This is incredible considering they played in the Astrodome that used to swallow home runs prior to the steroid era. Still the club has sold, so Drayton’s “rebuild” was successful as I believe he sold the enterprise for 800 mmUSD, or about 6x what he paid. The real kick in the balls for me, is not how much they suck. I will watch bad baseball, I did so often and willingly in my youth. I am Astros fan after all. What really pisses me off is that Puma, who wanted play here, who was denied because of the “rebuild” is leading the league in HRS for the Fucking Cardinals. The new owner is reportedly a very dubious win-at-all costs character, about 180 degrees from the former Christian Billionaire. Don’t be surprised when they go on a spending spree this offseason. Some baseball minds say this is not the right way to build a team. To them the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees say hi. On an aside are you a Washington fan because of the political hats? DC=democrat, W=republican or that is how it was when they started. As for Washington they have the likely rookie of the year in Bernadina and the best new closer in Storen, When they get Strasburg back next year ( he is throwing 95 mph a month ahead of schedule after Tommy John surgery )they will be a contender. Amazing to see any baseball on the Heathen, especially when many have Bama as the preseason Number 1, which I have questions about with a new QB but Bama is always a contender and the SEC really has no other potential contender, though AU came out of nowhere before they paid their free agent QB’s Dad.
Suck it NAT fan! (Is this why you don’t post my comments?)
@jeff, I publish all the nonspam comments I can find — it’s just that I have to do it manually. Spam comments are a HUGE problem since I allow anonymous/unauthenticated comments. If I went to OpenID-only or something, the problem would go away, but probably too would my commenters.
@Gar, yeah, the wife’s into baseball, and has infected me a bit. Mostly I’m paying attention this year because the Astros are so completely awful, but they’ve been a heartbreaker franchise for pretty much ever — I joked a few years back that the only reason they were going to the WS was to get swept, and turned out to be right.
We like the Nats mostly because of Teddy. The bobblehead mascots are hilarious, but I know enough to know that next year’s Nats will be a very different team than the squad up there right now, if only because of Strasburg.
As for my alma mater, I’m trying to hold off on the football chatter until at least August. ;) Honest to Bear, I haven’t even looked at a poll yet — but I, too, worry a bit about the new QB not to mention the loss of folks like Jones and Ingram (God bless ’em, though — plus, now I’m an even BIGGER Saints fan). With no Cam in Auburn, no Ryan in Arkansas, and a new coach in Gainsville, the SEC should be ours to lose unless Miles pulls a rabbit out of his overrated hat, or Dan Mullen delivers in Starkville (who should NOT be discounted).
Because of the transitions, though, there might be a case to be made that the SEC in 2011 might not be quite as tough as 2010 or 2009, which might hurt the rankings — though if we go into it high and run the table, it’ll be hard to argue that we should drop.