April 29, 2002
Winning Percentage:
The distribution of winning percentages looks anything but normal right now. Here's the histogram. The label represents the center point of the values.
.300 XXXXXX
.400 XXXX
.500 XXXXXXX
.600 XXXXXXXXXXX
.700 XX
In other words, there are thirteen teams playing better than .550 ball, and 10 teams playing less than .450 ball. If winning percentages were normally distributed (as they should be), and assumig a standard deviation of .05, there should be 20 teams playing between .450 and .550, and 28 teams between .400 and .600!
I'm sure Bud Selig would point to these numbers as showing the need for better revenue sharing, and to a point he's right. But a number of teams have simply done a poor job of building winning teams. Just look at the difference between Baltimore and Oakland. Detroit, Milwaukee, KC and Baltimore have done poor jobs of developing winning teams, and it turns out that even new stadiums won't bring out fans to watch losing teams. Without better revenue sharing, the poor teams probably won't win a division, but as Pittsburgh, Montreal and Cincinnati are showing, you don't have to be rich to at least be good.
Posted by David Pinto at
03:20 PM
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Baseball