As my MBA courses do a number on my psyche and mental stability, I can’t help but think of everything in the form of business! “They” even turned Starcraft II into supply chain management (I won’t go into the gory details). As such, I’ve calculated the average rate of return for all NL East teams over the past 10 and 20 years. To do this, first I listed the number of wins for the past 20 seasons (’94 interpolated), then calculated the percentage increase or decrease for each season from the season before. Just average these changes together, and you come up with a number representing how we can expect each team to fare in a following season, on average. I’ve converted the final percentages into wins (multiply by 162), to make it all much more palatable to the mind.
Again, in simpler terms, these numbers are the average change in number of wins one can reasonably expect from a team from season to season. The 20-year and 10-year versions are just using those respective data sets (’89-’09 and ’99-’09).
What does this mean? Using the last 20 years as a data source, a Mets fan can expect the team to stay stagnant on average from season to season. Using the past 10 years, we can expect the team to lose an average of 4 wins per season. The Mets are tied for the worst ARoR in the 20-year period and are the worst, by 2 wins, in the 10-year period.
Disclaimer: this technically isn’t an “average rate of return”, but it’s the same formula, and I couldn’t come up with a better term for it!
17 comments
Prismo
9/3/2010-10:34am at 10:34 am (UTC -4)
Thanks for the image NJ – you’re a lifesaver!
Mr North Jersey
9/3/2010-10:35am at 10:35 am (UTC -4)
No Prob dude
hazmet
9/3/2010-10:39am at 10:39 am (UTC -4)
What’s there EBITDA?
Fun number crunch there, just wondering if the Rays were run through the same scenario they’d probably show an increase in game returns based on being really bad for along and trending up the past 3 years to show an overestimate of improvement over the term? Just curious.
Prismo
9/3/2010-10:50am at 10:50 am (UTC -4)
Over the 10-year span (all I could do for Rays), they showed an average growth of +5.3 games per season.
GravediggerHebner
9/3/2010-12:23pm at 12:23 pm (UTC -4)
The tiny portion of my brain that actually has some small grasp of the most basic math and business concepts just hemorrhaged. I don’t follow at all so I’ll just trust that you’ve found yet another way to demonstrate Mets=bad.
Prismo
9/3/2010-12:34pm at 12:34 pm (UTC -4)
Over the past 10 years, the Mets have lost an average of 4 wins per season.
Make sense?
GravediggerHebner
9/3/2010-12:45pm at 12:45 pm (UTC -4)
Not really but don’t worry about it.
The way my poor math brain (the gap between my English & Math SAT scores was so wide you could drive 2 trucks side-by-side through it) interprets your telling me that the Mets lost an average of 4 wins per season for the last 10 years is this: in 1999 they won 100 games, in 2009 they won 60; and I know that’s not true and I get a headache.
Plus when I see the phrase “rate of return” I start thinking about investments and I wonder where the Mets payroll fits into this.
I beg you just give up and let me not understand it. You are in grad school and have more important things to worry about than why I cannot grasp this seemingly simple concept.
Prismo
9/3/2010-12:51pm at 12:51 pm (UTC -4)
Nope, I’m going to keep trying.
So, using the 4 number…it means if the Mets won 100 games in 2011, they would win 96 in 2012, 92 in 2013, 88 in 2009, etc. But that’s just on average. They might win 100 in 2011, 96 in 2012, 88 in 2013, then 92 in 2013. Still averages out to 4 less wins per season.
I think that’s more complicated though…now I’ll give up!
stickguy
9/3/2010-12:34pm at 12:34 pm (UTC -4)
isn’t this simply saying that the mets were really good in 2000, and lousy in 2009? and vice versa for the phillies?
but mostly, you can’t use this to predict future performance. And if you want to try, better use the inverse. that is, teams with large + numbers are going to worse in the future. Unless you think the Phils are going to win 115 games in 2013.
TRS86
9/3/2010-12:41pm at 12:41 pm (UTC -4)
Yup it’s the principle we have to deal with in educational testing. Kids scored based on growth and teachers judged based on percentage of growth. Well if you do very well….
Prismo
9/3/2010-12:47pm at 12:47 pm (UTC -4)
Not exactly, because it’s the average of each season to the next, not just the first year straight to the most recent year.
It actually tells you more than you think, but certainly not that the Phillies will win 4 more games every season forever.
What it tells you is how good organizations are at improving their teams from year to year (on average).
If a team has a high positive number, it would mean that either they play better each successive season more often than they play worse, or that the improvement seasons are more substantial than the declining seasons.
More specifically, it shows that from the historical data, we can’t expect any sustained success from the Mets. If they do have 1 or 2 good seasons, they’ve shown to quickly slide back down to crappiness in a hurry. Obviously, anything can happen…but if there were a Mets stock right now, you probably wouldn’t want to buy (duh, don’t need this stuff to figure that out!).
TRS86
9/3/2010-12:54pm at 12:54 pm (UTC -4)
Prismo don’t you think those results could also be skewed by outlier years?
Prismo
9/3/2010-1:01pm at 1:01 pm (UTC -4)
Somewhat, sure. I deleted the data, so I don’t have it anymore…but…
The Phillies went from 70 wins to 97 to 76 from 1992-1994. The 97 might be an outlier, but overall it evened out. Taking away that year wouldn’t make a huge difference.
I like the 20 year data more than the 10 year for that reason though. More years is less error.
hazmet
9/3/2010-2:00pm at 2:00 pm (UTC -4)
I see this has morphed into a fun discussion and you’re hitting on why I asked for the Tampa Rays numbers because it would, as I expected, show a disproportionate postitive growth number based in part of their low starting point averaging over a number of years and then spiking higher in wins recently thereby skewing the number postive. This is why I’ve alway’s maintained that there is always a way to logically arrive at a number to back a position depending on what you want that position to state. Especially in business. Whatever you want to sell there is already a formula or way to package assets, numbers, to make them say whatever you need to achieve the end goal story your trying to sell. Business wise, based on experience, it depends where an individuals ethics reside vs. what is being asked to be achieved. Because in the end you can always find away to make the numbers tell the story you want. Relative to the baseball discussion, do we really think over the past 10 years the Rays have had a 9 game better return over the period? Recent 2-3 year history yes, over 10 years no. Nice thought provoking piece Prismo, I love these business puzzle stuff.
TRS86
9/3/2010-2:05pm at 2:05 pm (UTC -4)
uh…. agreed.
hazmet
9/3/2010-2:39pm at 2:39 pm (UTC -4)
lol, yeah I’ve got my captain obvious cape working today….
saltygary
9/3/2010-7:19pm at 7:19 pm (UTC -4)
Aren’t all RTS games based on supply side management? Never played the first Starcraft but into the the new one. Was always a AOE player.
Anyhoo really nice piece Prismo. It’s nice when our collective anxiety and horror can easily be put into numbers.