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Yeah, there’s a genuine possibility that they could really pack it in and end the season by placing a ’24 W/L record into the books that is very similar to ’23.
I’m convinced that the only time run differential carries any weight is at the conclusion of a baseball game. I’m also convinced that W/L differential is the only contrasting number that counts toward genuine success or failure. Any time I stray from these two simple concepts, all I do is complicate a simple formula.
Run differential correlates highly with winning %. The standard deviation of actual W/L versus pythagorean expected W/L is pretty tight, generally +/- 3-4 wins in most seasons. The Rays and the Cardinals are the only two teams in MLB this year outperforming their expected W/L by 6 games or more (both are exactly 6 games better than their X-W/L).
Without the benefit of hindsight, if you were given the choice at the beginning of the season of a +20 run differential team or a -56 run differential team, which would you have chosen? Run sequencing has a high degree of randomness to it–all else equal, a team is much better off scoring more runs than it gives up. And not surprisingly, the best teams have the largest positive run differentials.
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. But the baseball team with the most runs at the conclusion of the baseball game always wins. There are no exceptions to that simple rule. My favorite example is the 1960 WS…The final score was Yankees 55/Pirates 27, but the Pirates prevailed and won that season’s WS.
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