7 Down? Let's Throw Hands, Pal
=== Twins Comeback ===
On July 14, the Mariners were -4.0 games behind and debate was on as to whether the season was worth pursuing. With the M's down variously 4-to-6 games through the middle of July, playing for the future was called in one place "the easiest decision Zduriencik has had to make all year."
Much to Dr. D's surprise, the consensus ran to the idea that it is either (1) impossible, or (2) unrealistic to attempt to win the pennant from 4 games behind with two months to play.
On July 24, they began a 4-game losing streak that took them to -7.5 games back, and would hold this deficit until the morning of July 31 (the last day to trade). This -7, -8 deficit made debate over quitting, a more reasonable proposition in my view.
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=== A Picture's Worth 1,000 Words Dept. ===
The Twins' comeback from 7 games down in September was the second in the last three years. The Mets also came from 7 games down in September to make the playoffs in 2007. ... in this case, the Twins came from -6.5 down on September 9th, to create the mass euphoria in the Metrodome that we saw today.
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The arguments in July ran that, hey, only X% of teams behind by Y games made the playoffs. But these missed the point IMHO. Why is making the playoffs that the only relevant paradigm? If the Twins had lost in the 10th inning today, would their September baseball have not been worth watching? Yet, per our local metrics, the 2009 Twins would have gone down as one more team that proves there's no point trying when down by 6 in July...
Had the Mariners come from -7 down to tie the Angels on Sept. 20th -- and then lost the race -- would their attempt to win have been justified? Sure it would have. ... it's like saying, we were down 21-3 to the Colts, but we kept our starters in, and tied it 27-27. We then lost 30-27, but was it correct to keep trying to win?
The 1995 Mariners didn't win. They attempted to win. They'll live in history for attempting to win.
The 2009 Twins were what baseball is all about. It's not for us math majors. It's for the 12-year-old boys.
The MLB shot-callers aren't necessarily siding with the math majors, either, so it's not like we can go "Cooler heads must prevail." Jack Zduriencik still traded for Right Here Right Now, taking Luke French over reportedly exciting offers of multiple minor-league blue-chippers.
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=== Theory and Practice, Dept. ===
I don't accept it as reasonable, to say that a baseball team should quit when -7 down in July.
But! I do accept it as reasonable to say that some particular team cannot feasibly win when -7 down in July. If you thought, well, the 2009 Mariners just didn't have the offense to be there in September, and therefore they should position their resources for 2010, then power to you, buddy. That's fair enough.
When these Mariners went down -8 about the start of August, I agreed that this team could safely plan on gettin' 'em next year. The timing was interesting: the M's tumbled from -4 down to -8 down just as the deadline hit. The rest of the blogs (with some justification) gave up at this point.
Zduriencik and Wakamatsu, notably, did not.
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=== Fighting Smaller, and Bigger, Opponents ===
There's one other problem that we have not come to grips with. And that is that we start from a faulty premise, when we say "We've got to be better than the Angels before we bet into the pot." It's a logical paradigm, but it's not a sporting one.
Recreation, hobbies, sports, fighting ... are those things really logical at their core? As V-Ger said of a game system when boarding the Enterprise, "This device serves no purpose"...
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Supposing (again) that you had Biff's Sports Almanac, and you flipped it oppen and discovered to your horror that both the Angels and Rangers were going to win an average of 97 games per season, the next ten years.
Would that entitle us to fold out of the next ten pots before the deal?
Think it through. What if you're Toronto, playing in the Yankees' and Red Sox' division? The intelligent projection is to assume that those teams are going to go into Spring Training every year, with a lot more talent than you have.
So what do you do, when the beancounters tell you that you're the underdog? Is "Run away to fight another day" the right paradigm for the Blue Jays?
Nope. You can't afford to quit, simply because you're the underdog. Ask Ron Gardenhire.
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The Angels are going to be very good. As long as Scioscia's there.
If it was going to be another offseason of teeth-chipping .... hey, we can't improve past the Angels anyway!, that would be kind of a long winter, wouldn't it? :- )
You need to get as good as you can. And give the other guys a chance to falter.
Cheers,
Dr D