Wins and losses are the currency of sports, and the standings are the trump card. They have ultimate say in which teams move beyond the regular season to compete for a championship.
That is why former NFL coach Bill Parcells was mostly correct when he said, “You are what your record says you are.”
Mostly.
In an age of advanced measuring tools for players and teams in every sport, Major League Baseball—and more so the people dedicated to its evolving metrics—leads the way.
As baseball technology gets smarter and the people around it get more adept at analyzing the data, Parcells’ famous quote becomes less and less accurate. Just six weeks into this 162-game season, a team’s actual record might not be the best reflection of how good or bad it has actually performed.
Teams with gobs of wins might not be so good, and struggling clubs might not be so destined to stink all summer.
Using certain outlying stats and record projectors like Bill James’ Pythagorean formula and Fangraphs’ BaseRuns model, we can determine which teams’ records are currently lying.