Chart of the Week: Good or Lucky?

Last week the Athletic released their analysis of how lucky each team in Major League Baseball was in the first half of the season. As discussed in the article, the writers argue that there are two types of luck, one is players having a better than expected year, and the other is whether a team is winning more games than expected. They argue that the first is much harder to quantify since there are so many variables to factor in and it is much more difficult to narrow down to what could be considered lucky. The other is a more consistent measure, although not perfect, given the amount of historical data that is available to be able to predict likely outcomes. 

Using estimates on how many runs a team should score and combining that with the expected record a team should have based on the expected number of runs for and against, they have their ranking. Taking these results and then putting it together with how many games a team won in the first half (aka before the All-Star break) we can see that luck does not dictate success and vice versa. 

Here are the key takeaways from this week’s charts:

• 🎱More Wins Often Means More Luck, But Not Always:   Of the eight teams that won 55 or more games before the All Star Break, all but two were considered to be lucky, with the two “unlucky” teams in this category (the Mets and the Cubs) losing less than a game due to bad luck.
• 😡Boston and New York Unite: While there tends to be little agreement between Red Sox and Yankees fans, there is a commonality this year. Even though both teams are in the playoff hunt, they are the two unluckiest teams so far this year, with the Sox losing 5.3 games due to bad luck, and the Yankees losing 7.2 games. Toronto, Houston, and Detroit who all won more games than the Red Sox and Yankees, all ended up winning more games due to luck. 
• 🎲Only 5 Teams Can Say “Luck Had Nothing To Do With It”: Of the 30 MLB teams just17% can say their wins were completely deserved, with less than 1 game in either direction being due to luck. Two of the teams are in the NL East (Mets and Phillies), one is in the NL Central (Cubs), one is in the NL East (Miami), and the lone AL team (Royals) is the most “average” team in baseball so far, with a median number of games won, and a median number of games won/lost due to luck.