Sorry, but I need to rant.

I'm in a 16 team franchise league with a Cardinals team. FOUR times, I've had a lead of 5+ games in my division only to watch it evaporate in a matter of games. Now, in the last 18 games of the season, I come up against the current division leader (one-game lead) who I'm 12-3 against on the season and 6-0 at home, where the series is.

I lose the series, then lose a series to each of the two last place teams, including losing 2/3 at home to a team that's 23 games under .500 on the road. My lineup hasn't changed, my pitchers aren't fatigued...it's retarded that I'm going to cough up the division and playoffs with such an uncharacteristically (of this team) horrible performance in the last 18 games.

Talk to the Mets bro, it happens.

Is it just you or does it happen to everybody?

We all have our horror stories, unfortunately.

Try being up 3-0 in the last series of a TOC and lose 4 in a row... that happened to me twice... it sucks... makes you want to quit and never come back. I'd like to think some day it will even out.

I can tell you one thing. Over the past year the SIM has been more streaky then I have ever seen it in my 7 years of playing. I go on way more 7+ winning and losing streaks then I care to count anymore.

That's my issue, hvbll...consistency.

If I have a .500 for example, then so be it...it happens. But I recently had a team finish 80-82 and my season included win streaks of 7, 8 and 8 games, and losing streaks of 6, 7 and 8 games. You could argue the schedule was harder/easier at those points, but it still seems like an anomaly to me. Find me the last .500 team with 3 7+ game winning streaks and 3 7+ game losing streaks in the same season.

Every now and then...sure. The Mets were mentioned in this thread, so yes, freak collapses (and good runs) happen, but it seems to happen with A LOT of my teams lately.

I had a team recently finish 78-84 during the regular season; which was fine, I wasn't expecting much of them. But their streakiness during the second half of the season just killed me.

We were sitting at 44-47, when we lost 6 straight, won 1 game, then lost 8 more in a row.

We won 4 of 7 and seemed to have righted the ship, but then dropped 6 of 7. then W5, L2, W7, L5. Then won 5 of 6, lost 2, then won 8 of 9.

I had another recent progressive team sitting at 72-60, in contention in their division, then drop 11 straight to fall completely out of the pennant race. Finished 84-78.

A third recent team seemed to have the division locked up; we beat our closest rival the first 8 times we played each other and had a 5 game lead over them after 71 games. But then we lost 9 of the next 10 games against them and ended up losing the division by 8 games. How is it possible to beat a team 8 straight times and then lose 9 of the next 10 against them?

Oh wait...those weren't my teams...those were the 2009 Reds, Rays, and Red Sox.

Go to www.retrosheet.org, and click on any team...even any .500 team...and I think you'll be surprised by how streaky those teams seem to be.

2004 Cleveland Indians (80-82): started out 6-12, then won 6 of 7, then lost 6 of 7, then W5, L7, W4, L3, W3. Later in the season at 46-49, they won 7 of 8, then L4, then won 10 of 11, then lost 10 of 11. They later had an L5 and lost 6 of 7.

The 2008 Indians (81-81) had lots of streaks, including an L7, an L10, a W7, and a W10. The L10 was followed by winning 7 of 8. I think these 2 Indians examples are even more "streaky" than Jtpsops's .500 team listed above.

The 2007 Brewers won 10 of 11 and 9 of 10, but also had 2 L5 and an L6.

In general, .500 teams do not get to .500 by WLWLWLWWLLWWLL. They get there in a much more streaky fashion than people realize.

well said, contrarian

You see that with several (ie 3 or more) teams in EVERY league you're in? Every league you're in has 3 or more teams with a 15-game winning streak?

Maybe that is the case; it sure doesn't happen in the leagues I play in.

Nice examples, contrarian23.

Here's another one that would be hard to top:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYG/1916-schedule-scores.shtml

The 1916 NY Giants had a 17W streak and a 26W streak.

The rest of the time? Not so good: 43-66. Finished in 4th place.

Is it just YOU or does it happen to EVERYBODY.

You have contracted Juventinos Disease, albeit a milder form of it; thankfully.

A slightly more tempered point of view. I think the following three things are true:

1.) Most people significantly underestimate the extent to which pure random chance can produce long strings of consecutive events.

2.) The "volume" of trials most of us has seen far eclipses the volume of MLB seasons we've experienced. I've played in something like 375 seasons since I started on WIS in late 2006. That's way more seasons than in all of MLB history - about 3 times as many. So in less than 4 years I've seen more SIM games - way more - than have been played in all of MLB history. Most of you are in the same situation. We should expect to see a lot of things that are comparatively rare in MLB, just by virtue of the volume of games/teams/seasons we're exposed to. And we see them in a very compressed amount of time.

3.) I also believe that most SIM leagues have owners who do things, often deliberately, that encourage greater streakiness than if things were alone. For example, in my OLs, I probably play 20-30 games every year where I have no chance of winning. Where I play mostly AAA or 200K scrubs. No MLB team, not even the 1899 Spiders, ever put a team on the field that was that bad. I see the same strategy used by many owners - and some are even more extreme. These types of strategies will result in more (and longer) streaks.

Similarly, in progressives, especially ones that use "worst drafts first" rules, I see far greater variation in team quality than you would see in a real MLB season. The difference in quality of a 100M progressive team compared to a 50M team from the same year is much greater than the difference in quality between the 2009 Yankees and whatever the lowest payroll team was in MLB last year. Further, the weak progressive teams often deliberately use strategies that weaken their teams on the field. Both of these factors will result in more (and longer) streaks than you would see in MLB.

You raise valid points, contrarian...but there still seems to be some very odd occurrences.

I've had several 90+ win teams with 8-10 game losing streaks during the season. I'll admit I haven't done the research, but I'd suspect not many 90+ win MLB teams have suffered double-digit losing streaks during those seasons.

I do get your point about randomness though...if you flip a coin the odds of getting a head are 50%, but you may still get 7 heads in a row at some point. It just seems that type of streakiness happens with ALL my teams lately, regardless of how good or bad they are.

What bothers me is there's no rhyme or reason to it (which clearly is the definition of random, I know). If I played the bottom dwellers in my league and won 10 straight, then played all the division leaders and lost 10 straight, I'd chalk that up to the sked. I just always seem to go into the home stretch encouraged by my schedule, only to lose to last place teams who I've owned all season. Then when I come up against teams that have owned me, they still win.

I'm not going to stop playing WIS and I realize at some point it'll probably all even out, but it's still frustrating to be in the midst of it. At least the real MLB teams you mentioned have control over their performance...I guess now I know how RL managers feel when their players aren't producing.

Quote: Originally Posted By Jtpsops on 5/01/2010Sorry, but I need to rant.

I'm in a 16 team franchise league with a Cardinals team. FOUR times, I've had a lead of 5+ games in my division only to watch it evaporate in a matter of games. Now, in the last 18 games of the season, I come up against the current division leader (one-game lead) who I'm 12-3 against on the season and 6-0 at home, where the series is.

I lose the series, then lose a series to each of the two last place teams, including losing 2/3 at home to a team that's 23 games under .500 on the road. My lineup hasn't changed, my pitchers aren't fatigued...it's retarded that I'm going to cough up the division and playoffs with such an uncharacteristically (of this team) horrible performance in the last 18 games

It may be the law of averages. Were you really .800 better than the division leader at 12-3 head to head? Threaten to quit like I did. Since that I Won a WS and have made the playoffs 3 times in a row with the free teams...it wont let you quit but at least I havent paid anything.....hahah.