Innumeracy and the Wild Card Race: USA Today Edition

USA Today is publishing wild card race standings for MLB that show incorrect GB (games behind).*

Here’s what they currently show:

Here’s a blowup of the top two rows for the AL:

It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize from the PCT that the Rays are a better team than the Orioles. And GB should show that. It doesn’t. Instead, it shows them as even.

There are a couple of ways to calculate GB, but the way I learned back in the early 70’s is to 1) subtract the bottom team’s wins from the top team’s wins, 2) subtract the top team’s losses from the bottom team’s losses, 3) add up those two figures and divide by 2. In this case you’d get 2 as the GB of the Orioles. This is not what USAToday shows.

The point of GB is to measure the minimum number of games for the bottom team to “catch” the top team. In this case, if the teams play 2 games each, and the Rays lose both, and the Orioles win both, they’ll each have the same record of 68-56.

* I really don’t pay much attention to this, but I noticed it on Monday in the local paper’s reprint, and it’s still there on Tuesday in the USAToday website.

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Comments

[Trent McBride]

I think it is because, according to new rules (i.e. there are now two wild card teams in each leagure), they both qualify for the postseason. The GB is calculated for each team based on the worse of the two wild card teams.

Your point would apply to both leagues.

[Addison Acton]

I recently came across your article and have been reading along. I want to express my admiration of your writing skill and ability to make readers read from the beginning to the end.

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