Luck Rules the Day

We are now roughly 54% through the season.  Three of the four divisions are in the midst of great playoff races and in the fourth, the mighty Carnie's are showing serious signs of decline, only clinging on to the league's best Run Differential by 15 runs.

What can we expect from the second half of the season?  I decided to try and find out which players have just been plain unlucky (and which lucky) by comparing there first half stats to their ATB Career averages.  In theory, those teams which have had the most disparate results should expect their luck to change one way or the other.  Sample size is always an issue but we'll muddle our way through.

BATTERS
For batters, I only reviewed players with 200+ ATB XIV at bats and an average 200+ ATB Career at bats per season.

The most unlucky hitter is "Mechanics" Sam Jethroe.  A career .309 / .370 / .383 batter, the outfielder is batting a paltry .206 / .288 / .226 in 257 at bats this season. The next two unluckiest hitters are both on the Chips.  Neither player was ever going to hit for a high average or get on base much and in fact, the two players are almost identical in career average, batting around .240 / .320 / .455 but this year Hank Greenberg is only batting .159 / .261 / .313 and Roger Maris .186 / .260 / .339.

Conversely, three batters stand out as the luckiest sob's in the league.  Black Sox All Star Willie Mays circa 1965 played in just one other ATB season and recorded a .687 OPS and 32 home runs in 652 at bats.  This season, in 356 at bats he already has 28 (!) home runs and .906 OPS.  With just one previous season to use as a baseline this exercise isn't very helpful, which is the 'real' Mays?  Taking a peak at the 79 resims we find Mays was pretty good, batting .263 / .315 / .459 and since he is playing in an extreme batters park I wouldn't be surprised if his production only fell off slightly.

Elsewhere, the Fanclub's Brooks Robinson has never hit well.  Ever.  His OPS scores over the past 6 years have been .428, .593, .499, .655, .589, .549.  This year? .781 of course.

The third luckiest players is Chipper Jones of Helena.  This year he's batting .347 with a .438 on base percentage, much better than his historical .276 / .370.

PITCHERS
Luis Tiant, Andy Pettitte, and Ellis Kinder have been the most unlucky pitchers this year.  Tiant starts for the Snow and posted an 8.27 ERA in 32 innings of work.  His career average ERA is much better at 4.43 but of note is his three year trend:  5.15, 7.44, 8.27.  Pettitte was recently dropped by the Thrill and picked up by the Carnies this week.  In 28 innings the lefty has an 8.13 ERA against a career average of 4.50.  And finally, Ellis Kinder has likely been the most disappointing pitcher in the game.  Preseason expectations were very high, as Kinder has a career 2.67 ERA and posted a mark of 2.86 in the 79 resims.  This season, dogphin29 is living with a 6.25 ERA.

The luckiest of pitchers do not have much of a history to go by.  The Gossamers Cherokee Fisher has a 1.08 ERA, but in his only other season recorded an abysmal mark of 7.43.  The Red Lectroids Duane Ward has a career ERA around 5.25 but has managed a 1.86 ERA to date.  And finally, the "Mechancis" have squeezed Joakim Soria for a 1.17 ERA but the closer normally puts up ERA's closer to 4.40.

TEAMS
Using extremely crude math that only looks at team averages (as opposed to playing time and raw # of players per team in the study) we can categorize teams into the following tiers:

Extremely Lucky
Black Sox
Gossamers
World Police

Lucky
Traveling All Stars
Fishbiscuits
Slammers

Average
Carnies
Banana Bears
Brews
Daffiness Boyz
Handbasket
Hoplites
"Mechanics"
Pinata Beaters
White Rats

Unlucky
Chips
dogphin29
Fanclub
Orators
Red Lectroids
Shadows

Extremely Unlucky
Snow
Thrill
Tommyknockers


This file contains comparison records for each team and player.