Phillies Climb Factor
I've been tracking the Phillies' chances of making the post season with a little figure that's based solely on the number of games they are behind the division leader or the wild card leader and how many games are remaining.
This is just like the slope of a mathematical graph (times ten). It calculates the number of games they must climb (the required rise) over the number of remaining games in their season (the run). I multiply it by ten so it looks nicer.
After last night's 10-inning walk-off hit by Ryan Howard over the Rockies, the Phillies have pulled within 1.5 games of the San Diego Padres for the wild card with 20 games to go, a factor of 0.7500. This is the best factor they've had since August 30th following their four-game sweep of the Mets (that factor was 0.6667) when they were two games behind the Padres and the Mets.
It's a fun stat, because it's arbitrarily low at the beginning of the season: no matter how many games behind you are, you have over a hundred left to make up the difference. As the season winds down, there much less space in which to improve, so the factor is somewhat drastically affected even by days you stay even in GB.
I think the factor works this way: Under 1.0000 and you've plenty of chance of making it happen (something like being only a half game back with six to play). From 1.000 to 2.500 is less likely (two games back with eight to play would most likely be a challenge). Higher than that is unlikely (just too far back with too little time).
Here's a chart of the Phillies' factor from Aug 21 through yesterday:
Let's hope they can make something great happen.
Factor = GB / GR * 10
This is just like the slope of a mathematical graph (times ten). It calculates the number of games they must climb (the required rise) over the number of remaining games in their season (the run). I multiply it by ten so it looks nicer.
After last night's 10-inning walk-off hit by Ryan Howard over the Rockies, the Phillies have pulled within 1.5 games of the San Diego Padres for the wild card with 20 games to go, a factor of 0.7500. This is the best factor they've had since August 30th following their four-game sweep of the Mets (that factor was 0.6667) when they were two games behind the Padres and the Mets.
It's a fun stat, because it's arbitrarily low at the beginning of the season: no matter how many games behind you are, you have over a hundred left to make up the difference. As the season winds down, there much less space in which to improve, so the factor is somewhat drastically affected even by days you stay even in GB.
I think the factor works this way: Under 1.0000 and you've plenty of chance of making it happen (something like being only a half game back with six to play). From 1.000 to 2.500 is less likely (two games back with eight to play would most likely be a challenge). Higher than that is unlikely (just too far back with too little time).
Here's a chart of the Phillies' factor from Aug 21 through yesterday:
Let's hope they can make something great happen.
posted by Colin @ 11:11 AM
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