Pirates Luckiest Team; Cardinals Best

The Pittsburgh Pirates are the luckiest team in baseball and unlikely to stay in first place in the NL Central ahead of the best – and unluckiest team in baseball – the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals should be 55-28 right now and the Pirates should be 47-36, so the Pirates’ two-game lead atop the NL Central is one of the luckiest leads in baseball history.

The Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball has been one of the best predictors in baseball since Bill James invented it decades ago, and it says that when you square the Cardinals 414 runs scored and their 296 runs allowed, you see a team that should play 0.662 baseball; ((414^2 – 414^2) + 296^2) = 0.662. The same math for the Pirates’ 327 runs scored and 283 allowed predicts only a 0.572 percentage. The formula is even more accurate if you use ^.181 for baseball and it works well for college basketball at about ^8.

While fans who reject statistical analysis might insist that teams that are more “clutch” are the ones that win more than their runs would predict, it appears to be almost pure luck as teams almost always fall or rise back toward their Pythagorean prediction over a season or two. The problem for the Pirates is that not only have they been statistically the “luckiest” team in baseball by playing a league best 0.55 above where they should be, but the Cardinals have been the unluckiest of all 30 teams, playing 0.060 behind where they should be to be two games behind the Pirates at the break.

The good news for the Pirates is that even if they fell all the way back to the 0.572 winning percentage that their runs predict, they would be passed by the Cardinals and the Reds in the NL Central but still get the second wildcard spot and have a chance to win the wildcard game at Cincinnati for a chance to play St. Louis is a match-up of what so far has been the best team and the luckiest team in baseball. It is more likely that the Pirates would fall to about the .572 pace for the rest of the season, which would still let them finish right at .600 and be almost assured of a playoff spot. Here is where all 30 teams rank based on how many games they would be expected to win based on runs scored and allowed so far: 

Team	RS	RA	should be	Luck	W	L	PCT	Playoff?
St. Louis	414	296	0.662	-0.060	50	33	0.602	NL Central
Atlanta	360	287	0.611	-0.028	49	35	0.583	NL East
Boston	437	353	0.605	0.000	52	34	0.605	AL East
Detroit	412	341	0.593	-0.051	45	38	0.542	AL Central
Cincinnati	369	314	0.580	-0.004	49	36	0.576	NL Wild1
Oakland	397	343	0.573	0.003	49	36	0.576	AL West
Pittsburgh	327	283	0.572	0.055	52	31	0.627	NL Wild2
Tampa Bay	399	364	0.546	-0.017	45	40	0.529	AL Wild1
Cleveland	407	379	0.536	0.000	45	39	0.536	AL Wild2
Texas	359	335	0.535	0.036	48	36	0.571	No
Baltimore	416	389	0.534	0.031	48	37	0.565	No
Colorado	398	382	0.521	-0.039	41	44	0.482	NL West
Kansas City	324	315	0.514	-0.033	39	42	0.481	No
Arizona	352	352	0.500	0.012	43	41	0.512	No
Toronto	389	389	0.500	-0.012	41	43	0.488	No
LA Angels	389	389	0.500	-0.024	40	44	0.476	No
NY Yankees	330	335	0.492	0.044	45	39	0.536	No
Chicago Cubs	340	349	0.487	-0.048	36	46	0.439	No
Washington	306	327	0.467	0.033	42	42	0.500	No
San Francisco	336	368	0.455	0.009	39	45	0.464	No
San Diego	340	374	0.452	0.019	40	45	0.471	No
LA Dodgers	312	348	0.446	0.036	40	43	0.482	No
Minnesota	338	377	0.446	-0.002	36	45	0.444	No
NY Mets	323	365	0.439	-0.007	35	46	0.432	No
Philadelphia	328	373	0.436	0.035	40	45	0.471	No
Milwaukee	330	384	0.425	-0.015	34	49	0.410	No
Chicago Sox	305	356	0.423	-0.016	33	48	0.407	No
Seattle	310	367	0.416	0.024	37	47	0.440	No
Miami	272	356	0.369	0.004	31	52	0.373	No
Houston	314	443	0.334	0.031	31	54	0.365	No