FanPost

Tanking Doesn't Work in MLB! - Historical Stats Predict 5 years of Misery for Braves Fans


A statistical analysis of seasons played since 1975 (the free agency era) provides strong evidence that tanking does not work in Major League Baseball and that Braves fans are likely to be in for five full years of frustration.

Ever since the Braves embarked on this plan of "rebuilding", "replenishing the farm", or more succinctly, "tanking", we have argued with anyone that would listen that tanking might work in the NBA, but the strategy doesn't work in baseball. This culminated with an impassioned call into 680 The Fan this afternoon. While the hosts might not have agreed with the argument, they did offer a prize, which was....wait for it....two tickets to see the lousy Braves play the Brewers in an empty stadium.

We decided to see if statistics backed up the argument that tanking doesn't work in MLB.

Looking at a data set of all seasons played in the free agency era (1975 onward) by teams that have been in the league since 1969, there were 943 total season played by those teams over that time span. Tanking was defined as winning fewer than 70 games in a season, which has accounted for 20% of the teams' seasons since 1975. We also looked at the number of seasons below 81 wins (.500), and number of seasons above 93 wins. 93 was chosen because the average number of wins required to make the playoffs (measured since 1996) has been 94 games.

Looking at all seasons for all teams, including those who tanked and those who did not, there were 141 team-seasons with more than 93 wins, which is 15% of all seasons. In other words, in any given season over the past 40 years, there was a 15% chance that a team picked at random would win 94+ games that year.

However, when you look at teams that have tanked, only 3% won 94+ games the following season, 6% did so after two seasons and 9% did so after three seasons. It isn't until the fourth season after tanking that the probability of winning 94+ games recovers to 14%, nearly reaching the league-wide average.

Years after tanking - chance of winning 94+ games
1 season after tanking - 3%
2 seasons after tanking - 6%
3 seasons after tanking - 9%
4 seasons after tanking - 14%

In sum, if we count the actual tanking season, Braves fans can expect 5 years of misery before returning to just a league-average chance of making the playoffs, We looked out another two years, and found that in year 5 after tanking, teams had an 18% chance of winning 94+ games, but the following year, it drops back down to the league-wide average, suggesting the positive blip may be a statistical anomaly. Conversely, the tanking year and the following three years are statistical locks on misery, with teams winning an average of 76 games for three years after tanking.

But hey, at least Liberty Media is a saving some dough on payroll.

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