The title of this piece seems beyond obvious, right? However, one of the more popular current Mets topics concerns the importance of their performances against teams at or above .500 and against teams below it. Specifically, the discussion centers around whether or not it is realistically possible for the team to make the postseason by beating up on weaker teams while struggling against the stronger ones. The Mets have so far taken this dynamic to the extreme. The team has completely demolished lesser teams (21-7) while struggling mightily against teams with a .500 or better record (6-15). The theory is that winning against bad teams can offset losses to the good teams enough to eke your way into the playoffs.
So is that a sound theory or just the hope of a fan base getting antsy about how their team has performed against stronger competition? To get some clarity, we’ll take a quick look back at how last year’s playoff teams fared against these two distinct levels of competition. For the sake of brevity, from this point forward we’ll refer to teams at or above .500 as “strong teams” and those below .500 as “weak teams.” Also, “playoff teams” here includes all wildcard teams, even if they didn’t win their play-in game. The table below lists how the 2014 playoff teams performed in that context.
| Team | W | L | ≥.500 | <.500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAA | 98 | 64 | 41-43 | 57-21 |
| BAL | 96 | 66 | 51-40 | 45-26 |
| WSN | 96 | 66 | 23-23 | 73-43 |
| LAD | 94 | 68 | 26-33 | 68-35 |
| STL | 90 | 72 | 39-33 | 51-39 |
| DET | 90 | 72 | 49-39 | 41-33 |
| KCR | 89 | 73 | 44-45 | 45-28 |
| SFG | 88 | 74 | 27-31 | 61-43 |
| PIT | 88 | 74 | 33-39 | 55-35 |
| OAK | 88 | 74 | 44-40 | 44-34 |
Perhaps surprisingly, half of the 2014 playoff teams were actually under .500 against strong teams. This included, remarkably, the team with the most wins in the majors. The Angels managed to win 98 games despite being (slightly) below .500 against strong teams. They achieved this feat by beating up on the weak teams to the tune of a .731 winning percentage. This really shouldn’t come as a shocker, but all of the playoff teams going back to 2010 did well against weak teams. This seems obvious, though, right? Is it possible that there’s credence to this theory?
Not so fast. Here’s a sobering fact for you: the Mets, at 55-40, had a better winning percentage against weak teams than the Cardinals, Athletics, and Tigers in 2014. Additionally, the Mets faced more weak teams in 2014 than all of the playoff teams except the Nationals, Dodgers, and Giants. It makes sense that, in order to be successful and make the playoffs, a team needs to win against lesser competition. This is true, but consider that a full 2/3 of MLB teams finished with records above .500 against weak teams in 2014. In fact, the Mets themselves finished in the top ten in winning percentage against weak teams.
Of course, strength of schedule and division opponents have a lot to do with it as well. The 2014 Mets played 95 games against weak teams while the Nationals played 116. That 21-game difference was the direct result of their inverse relationship and how many times they played each other. The strong Nationals beat the weak Mets 15 times in their 19 contests. The Nationals offset their modest 23-23 record against strong teams by going 73-43 against the weak teams. In this case, every team except the Nationals was a weak team in the NL East in 2014 and they took full advantage.
What separates playoff teams from the rest of the pack is how they perform against strong teams. It’s clear that you don’t need to have a winning record against strong teams to make the postseason, but you can’t be a doormat either. In case you were wondering, the Mets were 25th in the MLB in 2014 against strong teams at 24-43. Moreover, their 67 total games against strong teams was the seventh fewest in MLB.
The Mets certainly need to handle business against weak teams. They showed they can do that last year, and they’ve shown that they can do that this year. They’ll need to improve against stronger competition if they hope to make the postseason, however. As we’ve seen, they don’t even need to have a winning record against strong teams if they perform well enough against the weak teams. Their current .285 winning percentage against the strong ones is not going to cut it, though.
Not a big fan at looking at records vs. “good” and “bad” teams.
For one, at this point in the season, almost a third of the teams are within 3 games of .500 That means our record of 6-15 can “improve” to 12-17 if the Braves go on a 2-game winning streak and Baltimore wins its next game.
Secondly is the fact that teams get hot and cold throughout the season. For about 25 out of the 27 weeks last year, the Braves had a .500+ record. They have a terrible final 2 weeks which pushes their record below .500. Suddenly, all the games that were played against them earlier in the season, when they were above .500, are considered wins against a “bad” team.
And then finally is the fact that one opponent (usually a team in your division) can be the difference between a “good” and “bad” team. The Mets were 4-15 against the Nats last year and 75-68 against everyone else. Do the Mets deserve to be lumped into the “bad” pile because they played a disproportionate amount of games against one opponent which they struggled mightily against?
For what it’s worth, and despite sprinklings of the literal words “good” and “bad,” the distinction here was made as “strong” and “weak.” In terms of previous years’ production, if you believe a team with a record below .500 is not a “weak” team based on their record then more power to you. I could have misinterpreted you here, though.
At this point in the season, this is what we have. Matt Harvey may win the Cy Young by the end of this year, but he was beatable yesterday and clearly beatable the start before. He was beatable in these moments. If the team is “weak” at this point, it means they were beatable. Of course every team is “beatable” on any given night, but what I mean here is if they’ve got a mediocre record at this point then they’ve been playing like a mediocre team.
We can revisit these labels based on final records when we get there, but we’re not there yet. This is what we have and this is how these teams have performed thus far.
Your final point was addressed in the third-to-last paragraph. Also, the 2014 Mets didn’t deserve to be in the weak/bad pile because they only struggled against the Nats. They deserve it because they were 19 games under .500 against teams at .500 or with a winning record total. You can’t expect to do well if you get buried by the only really great team in your division. For the sake of argument, even if the Mets played those 19 games (typo in the article will be fixed shortly) to, say, 10-9, they still would’ve fallen short of the final wildcard spot.
The point is that they need to beat up on the weaker teams more severely in general (which they did well last year), and/or perform better against the stronger teams. Especially those in their division .
“if you believe a team with a record below .500 is not a “weak” team based on their record then more power to you.”
So i have 2 remarks.
A lot of teams fluctuate around the .500 mark, especially early in the season, so a “weak” team this week may be a “strong” team next week, and then two weeks later they are back to being a “weak” team. Case in point, the Braves, who are now .500 again change the Mets split to 10-17 for .500+ and 17-6 for <.500. A metric that fluctuates too often becomes useless.
Secondly, why is .500 the demarcation line between "strong" and "weak"?
So i'm going to answer this question backwards. I think we would all agree that a playoff contender is more strong than weak. What describes a playoff contender? This may differ for everyone, but i think that if you're within 4 games of a playoff spot, you're a playoff contender. At this present moment, the Padres are 24-27 and 4 games out of a wild card spot. Therefore, the Padres are a "strong" team. So therefore why couldn't a record of 3-games under .500 be considered the demarcation line between "strong" and "weak"?
I guess my point is that metrics like this are interesting, but ultimately provide little value to make decisions upon
I suppose not unexpectedly, I agree with the main premise, but see the answer quite differently.
Good and bad is a decision that flexes through time as you note, but I think it’s worth looking at the last 10 to determine whether a team is good or bad because of the transient nature of good or bad. That said, the cardinals are good, Phillies are bad.
Name I can’t see how a team that is below .500 can be considered “strong” by any common sense analysis. Being close to a wild card is not going to change the statistics and should be considered irrelevant.
The Mets just might not be better than those teams. When you can’t score runs, your going to lose games.
After the Marlins sweep the Met’s at Citifield the Met’s will be 21-10? and headed in their usual direction. You don’t need a great offense to win (Giants) Consistent SP, hitters who know can hit with men on base and an up the middle defense. the Met’s are 0 for 3 on those specs and that’s why they will continue to fall in the standings. Can’t wait for the west coast trip! If the Met’s ahd their hands full with central Division how are they going to fare against the Dodgers and Giants. yes the Padres and D’Backs are coming up on the schedule but both teams play better at home.
Rob I enjoyed the analysis and research. I also concur with your conclusion that the .285 winning percentage won’t cut it if it continues. The Mets need to get to the post season where their starting pitching becomes a great equalizer (but their defense may doom them in low scoring games).
We must keep in mind that the Mets are beating these bad teams with hardly any production coming from catcher and third, while the outfield has been extremely streaky. We haven’t had two outfielders hot at seemingly any one time this season. If we can get moderately healthy, get something out of third and start to get more consistent pitching, we should be able to compete with the stronger teams of the league. But things have to fall into place first, and right now it’s a long shot.