How Joe Espada helped kill the best method of grading the Astros

Millions of Americans regularly misunderstand science on a daily basis. Sabermetrics is a science. A lot of us owe a debt of gratitude to Bill James as the pioneer of our craft. However, even he would say that his discoveries and assumptions should be tested and improved on if necessary. The Pythagoran theory is one of those that statheads have been using religiously for going on four decades.

The idea behind the theory is that you could correctly predict a team's overall record by using a formula of runs scored and runs allowed to spit out an expected winning percentage. Very few teams actually hit their expected record. Most teams finish a few games above or below their expected record. As you might expect, the best teams usually overachieve and the worst teams usually underachieve. At least, that is the historical record.

This all seems like academic stuff, but those of us that comment about the game often use that record as one of the grades on a manager. It is very difficult to determine if a team actually overachieves or underachieves without it. Unfortunately, we have learned a lot about how math works and we have learned that there are certain events that predict who overachieves and who underachieves.

The two biggest ones involve a team's record in one run games and in blowout games. The conventional wisdom is that the best teams win the close ones, but historically this has actually not been the case. Most teams finish around .500 and that is the general expectation of Pythagoras. If you look at a history of the Astros run you will see that they have won a little more than half of the one run games throughout their dominant run. Coming into this season, they have been destroying their competition to the tune of a .700 winning percentage in blowout games coming into this season.

The current iteration of the Astros are 15-16 in one run games. That would seem to be in line with what you would expect, but we will get back to that in a minute. They are 13-26 in blowout games which is a complete reverse of what they normally have done. Obviously, that probably points to the overall quality of the team. So far, we haven't even gotten into Espada directly, but it does point to the fact that this team punts more games than what it used to.

Historically, a manager outperforming the pythagorean record is considered to be successful. However, other usual metrics aren't supporting that this season for Joe Espada and the Astros.

Officially, the Astros sit at 75-75 as you are reading this, but Pythagoras says they should be 70-80. That means that Espada is doing a good job right? Not so fast my friend. One of the predictors of one run success is a strong bullpen. Since Josh Hader has come back he has not blown a single save. Bryan Abreu has also pitched better since Hader's return. Throw in Steven Okert and A.J. Blubaugh and you have a stronger pen than most teams have. Yet, their record in one run games has gotten worse in that time.

To be perfectly fair, there are lots of good reasons for that. Some of those reasons are independent of Espada or anything the Astros are specifically doing. One of those is poor situational hitting that has plagued this team for a couple of seasons now. Obviously, we can break down those numbers at another time. All of it will be factored in when they are making final decisions on the entire staff and not just Espada.

I make no bones about the fact that I am ready to move on from Espada. I concede an argument for him doing a good job, but the use of Pythagoras is outdated and lazy. When you consider that the Astros have not lost a game when leading after eight innings with Hader as closer shows that the record in one run games should be better than what it is. Again, we aren't talking big margins here. It could be three games. However, sitting with a four game lead with 12 games to go would be a lot more comfortable than a one game lead.

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