So there I was browsing the forums late at night like you do, and I came upon a TN written by Brooklyn GM Ben Heuring. Ben is a longtime GM. He’s seen some things. And in that TN he says his Robins need to start getting their act together if they are going to make the playoffs in a tight Atlantic Division.
To which I said, “Ya think?”
For the record, as we walk into June, Brooklyn sits at 20-38, 17 games behind division leading Montreal. My first thought was, look, there’s no chance. But then, I decided I needed to stop being so reactionary and judgmental. I mean, until the magic number goes to zero, there’s always a chance, right?
It’s two days later and this is still bugging me. So I thought I’d try my hand at looking at a “What if” scenario just to get my mind around how steep this hill is. (The old phrase “you can’t win a pennant in April, but you can lose one, came to mind)
(Aside: This isn’t meant to be pointed toward anything Brooklyn is doing. TNs are mostly just us having fun, and that’s what—as I hope you’ll soon be able to tell—I’m doing. Ben is good by me!)
Anyway, here is the “what if?"
See if you can guess the number. I’ll even do lots of spoilery scrolling down to give you time to guess the answer. But the question I asked was this: “Assuming it takes 85 games to make the playoffs, and assuming Brooklyn were to go on a massive winning streak, then settle back to its current ways of .345 baseball (20-38), how many games in a row would the Robins need to win in order to make the postseason?”
Got it?
Simple, right?
How many wins in a row would it take to make the post season if after that streak you go back to .345 baseball? Remember, Brooklyn already has 20 wins in the bank.
Give yourself a second and—without doing any math, just do a gut-feel guess….
I’ll wait. Just scroll down when you're ready.
Here’s how I went about it.
To get to 85 wins you need the following:
- The 20 wins we already have
- The fact that Brooklyn has played 58 games already, meaning there are 104 games remaining.
- The size of the streak
- And 34.5% of whatever games were left after that streak was over…which, of course is dependent upon the streak
Bottom line, here’s the equation:
Final Wins = 20 + Streak + .345(104-Streak)
When you do all that algebra that I forgot after my management lobotomy, I think you come up with:
Final Wins = 55.88 + Streak * (.655)
Or,
Streak = (Final Wins – 55.88)/.655,
Christ, all this mental activity means I need a quick power nap. So just a sec….(an hour later)…all right. We’re ready to solve for that big winning streak. To do so, we shove the magic “85” in for “Final Wins,” fire up good old WOPR, and get …
44.458
That means 44 isn't good enough. That, if Brooklyn wins the next 45 games in a row before falling back to their current baseline, they will be in the playoffs. Assuming, that is, 85 wins makes it in. If they need 87 wins to make it, the necessary streak goes to 48 wins in a row.
So, yeah. I’d say the Robins need to get their act in gear now if they are going to make that happen.
There is, after all, a chance!
