There is a song called ‘Can’t buy me love’ by the legendary British rock band The Beatles. When interpreted, it means ‘love cannot be bought with money,’ and it has something in common with baseball in that it is difficult to buy a championship with money.
The teams that attracted the most attention in the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB) last winter were the New York Mets and San Diego Padres. The reason is simple. This is because an astronomical amount of money was poured into renewing contracts and recruiting free agents (FA). At the time of the opening game, the players of both teams were spectacular. It was worthy of being called an ‘all-star corps.’ However, with less than a month left in the regular season, the situation between the Mets and San Diego is miserable. We are far from competing to advance to the postseason (PS).
This season, the Mets have a winning percentage of only 0.458 (65 wins, 77 losses) as of the 11th (Korean time). The Mets, ranked 4th in the National League (NL) East Division, are 28 games behind the division leader Atlanta Braves. According to FanGraphs.com, a website specializing in MLB records, the Mets’ probability of advancing to the PS is less than 1%. Ahead of the trade deadline, they raised the white flag early by sending out starting one-two punches Justin Verlander (Houston Astros) and Max Scherzer (Texas Rangers).
San Diego is even more serious. We expected a big turnaround in the second half of last year, but the winning percentage remained at 0.465 with 67 wins and 77 losses. They are in 4th place in the NL West, 21 games behind the league leader LA Dodgers. Like the Mets, the probability of advancing to PS is less than 1%. Their winning percentage is slightly higher than that of the Mets, but they are in tears because they announced late that they would give up on the season and were not able to acquire any prospects at the trade deadline.온라인카지노
The slump of the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals is impressive, but San Diego’s failure is even more noticeable because of the numbers that move separately from the winning percentage. San Diego is in the top 10 in the league in terms of wRC+, which shows how well they did compared to the average player, and ERA. OAA, a defensive measure that captures more out counts than average, is included in the top five. In particular, the starting ERA is 3.84, ranking first in the NL. Considering the Pythagorean number that predicts expected wins, the Padres’ win rate should be around 77 wins.