Sunday, October 23, 2005

Streaking Tigers

There was a lot of talk this year about the inconsistency of the Detroit Tigers. All year long, media and fans alike moaned that “they are the streakiest team in baseball”. They would get on a roll for a few games but just when it seemed they had things figured out, they would fall back down again. All teams go through streaks but were the Tigers streakier than other teams?

Using raw data on winning and losing streaks from Baseball Prospectus, I determined that the Tigers had 25 streaks of three games or longer. This included:


  • 6 three game winning streaks and 5 three game losing streaks
  • 3 four game winning streaks and 4 four game losing streaks
  • 2 five game winning streaks and 3 five game losing streaks
  • 1 eight game losing streak
  • 1 nine game losing streak

Only the Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, each with 27 streaks of three games or longer, had more streaks of three games or longer than the Tigers. Furthermore, the 14 Tiger streaks of four games or longer were more than any other team in the majors.


While the Tigers had 23 or more streaks of three to five games (most in the majors), they had only two streaks of six games or longer, both of those coming in their horrible September stretch drive. Only the Toronto Blue Jays (0), St. Louis Cardinals (1) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1) had fewer streaks of six games or longer.


So, I can conclude that the Tigers were indeed streakier than most teams. They didn’t have a lot of really long streaks. However, they specialized in modest streaks of three to five games and they did that better (and worse) than any other team.

5 comments:

  1. These short streaks are the ones that make you frustrated...especially considering how close they seemed to come together. A lot of the season felt like the Tigers were winning 3, then losing 3, etc.

    Streakiness gets on my nerves.

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  2. I thought it was interesting that they had more of those 3-5 game streaks than any team in baseball. It shows that the perceptions of the media and fans were correct. I didn't get to prove people wrong this time. :-)

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  3. Man, you forget the ACTUAL Tiger streakers... during the Boston series, yeah? If only we'd had them for multiple games, we might have taken the Wild Card.

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  4. I was watching that game on TV. Jerry Remy was laughing uncontrollably for about 10 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know, I saw... and they kept just showing the relivers in the bullpen cracking up. I thought Remy might never get over that one, you know how he gets in his fits of insane giggles.

    ReplyDelete

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