Colorado's first sign of streakiness this season came when it won 7 straight in late May after starting out 18-27. I have plotted a graph of the Rockies' cumulative winning percentage after each game, starting with the 7-game winning streak, as shown below (you can click on the graphic to enlarge it). The late ending of the Colorado-San Diego game, plus all the little embellishments I added to the chart, kept me up until 2:00 AM last night!
As it says in the caption, the Rockies' last 118 games of the season included a combination of streaks (both hot and cold) and relatively steady, incremental gains.
A statistical technique that's appropriate in this context is the runs test. A "run" is a stretch of all wins (without interruption by a loss) or all losses (uninterrupted by a win). The following hypothetical sequence [WWLWWWLLL] includes four runs.
Given that streakiness entails winning (or losing) games in bunches, and not merely alternating wins and losses, evidence for streakiness would come in the form of a team exhibiting fewer runs than would be expected by chance. During their last 118 games of the season (the part I'm focusing on), the Rockies indeed exhibited fewer runs (55) than would be expected (57), but the difference is not very large.
A lot of teams (or individual players, when it comes to hitting or pitching) appear to be streaky performers. However, finding statistical evidence for such is more difficult than many fans would imagine.
For an earlier example of the runs test, where I went into greater detail, click here.
The Rockies' first-round opponent, the Phillies, have exhibited hot play, too, of late, though not quite as dramatically, closing out the season 13-4 (log). If both teams continue their hot offense, the scoreboard operators should get a real workout!
No comments:
Post a Comment