/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54991261/usa-today-10077967.0.jpg)
Hello and welcome to the 10th of somewhere between several and many looks at the historical and statistical tidbits that arise from having a W-L record somewhere near the tail end of possible. Inspired by the 1-9 post, I've painstakingly collected the data from the Baseball-Reference season logs for each team-season from the Wild Card era (1995-2016) and, through ExcelMagic TM, am now passing the savings along to you! Onward!
Important programming note: If you somehow interpret this as 1) analysis, which 2) is drawing a conclusion about the Jays' expected rest of season performance based on how teams that started similarly performed, and 3) are outraged by your inference, please see this very important link.
Record
The Blue Jays are 23-27
Could you express that in low-res 1990s gif form with a large watermark?
Number of teams with the same record since 1995
Of the 654 team seasons from 1995 to 2016, 58 teams (8.9%) have started a season 23-27. For some reason every time I write one of these articles the Jays manage to go .500 in the intervening games. The most recent teams to start the season 23-27 are the 2016 Colorado Rockies (75-87) and Milwaukee Brewers (73-89).
How many of those teams made the playoffs?
7 teams, or 12%.
The least recent team to do so was 2006 Minnesota Twins. The Twins won the AL Central with a record of 96-66, playing .652 ball from game 51 onward. Cy Young winner Johan Santana and face of MLB The Show Joe Mauer led the team with 6.7 and 5.8 fWAR respectively. The team also featured former Blue Jay Shannon Stewart (0.1 fWAR), future former Blue Jay Francisco Liriano (2.9), pretend French-Canadian Justin Morneau, and 1980s time travelling nemesis Boof Bonser (1.0). The Twinkies won the division on the final day of the season after the Detroit Tigers pooped their way to 5 straight losses to close Septober.
Give me an end of season record distribution
99th percentile: .593 (96-66 MIN 2006)
90th percentile: .543
75th percentile: .496
50th percentile: .469 (76-86 CHW 2015)
25th percentile: .445
10th percentile .414
1st percentile: .389 (63-99 TB 1998)
According to this new and improved table, given your chosen projected estimates of the Blue Jays' true talent going forward and the number of wins required to make the playoffs, the Jays have a ___% chance of making the playoffs
Over their remaining games, the Blue Jays would have to play like a ___ team to win ___ games
Summarize the above in one word
Sideways.