Everyone has the same complaint about baseball stats these days. There just aren’t enough numbers. There’s such a tremendous lack of quantitative tools with which to analyze this game, it’s a wonder anyone is even interested in it anymore. Don’t you wish it could be more like hockey, where the height of statistical analysis seems entirely predicated on who takes more shots?
Anyway—you’re in luck, facetious person I invented in my head. For today our statistical saviours at the consistently-excellent FanGraphs internet webpage have introduced live game odds. Now you can apply a percentage based on actual data to your team’s chances of ruining your day. So when you’re sitting on your bed alone in the mid-afternoon, watching the minutes of your life bleed away as you pore over baseball stats because there certainly couldn’t be anything more valuable to do with your time, you can reach a more informed conclusion than, ‘bro, the Jays are totally going to blow it tonight.’ More like, ‘bro, there’s a 57% chance the Jays are totally going to blow it tonight.’ This is what progress looks like.
It seems that FanGraphs arrives at their odds through a combination of different player projection systems, team runs scored estimators, a slight advantage for the home team and a secret blend of baseball nerd spices. You run those through the Statulator 3000 and out pops a number telling you that tonight the Philadelphia Phillies have just a 35% chance of beating the Texas Rangers. As it turns out, starting Kyle Kendrick against one of the most potent offences in the majors is kind of a disaster waiting to happen.
Of course, what FanGraphs cannot account for is the inherent randomness of the universe. How the events in our lives are completely out of our control, dictated instead by actions and reactions across the space and time that we cannot even begin to comprehend. How everyone’s existence is obstinately held to the whims of chance and luck and molecules.
So there’s as good a reason as any to call it a day at half past one and crack a beer. And why not raise it to FanGraphs for providing us with live game odds and another distraction from the utter impermanence of life.
