Born Under a Bad Sign

by odradek on Jun 11, 2010 2:36 AM EDT

Today, June 11, is a day sacred to Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck. Luck, or more appropriately, the lack of luck, is a subject familiar to all followers of the hapless Cleveland Indians. Every team suffers misfortune, of course. Some teams catch more than their share of breaks (see the Cincinnati Reds this season). But the Tribe has been different. The Indians get dumped on, year in and year out. The Romans considered Fortuna to be a fickle or wayward woman. But Clevelanders see little of this, because for us she shows only one side: her bad one.

There are many examples. Consider the recent draft. Three (or was it four?) premium talents, followed by a legion of also-rans. Where does the Tribe draft? Fifth, of course, just out of the money. It's supposed to even out, but it doesn't. The best Tribe team in 80 years, and what happens? A strike. Snow. Fingers. Boras. And so on and so forth.

So what, you might ask, and you would be right. Bemoaning Cleveland luck won’t get you very far, and it’s not an endearing habit. Nor is it original. But lately I’ve been thinking about the place of Fortuna in baseball, and it has given me pause. There are times when I believe the entire game is random. Consider yesterday’s seventh inning: a single followed by two walks. (And then, of course, two strikeouts.) Why not two walks followed by a single? So much of the game is beyond the realm of talent or intent. Bloop hits, seeing-eye grounders, BABIP, RISP, draft choices—all merely rolls of the dice. What pitchers you face, which umpires call strikes and balls. The weather. The variables make fools of all of us. At times the game itself seems a child of chance, controlled by Dame Fortuna.

Branch Rickey said luck is the residue of design, but what did he know? He’s from Portsmouth, Ohio (also home of Al Oliver and Larry Hisle). Luck drives the game in extraordinary ways. It seems to dominate everything else. But it cannot be controlled or even predicted. Mostly the actions of fortune are inexplicable and baffling. Nobody knows how it works, or why.

Rationalists decry luck, though they will begrudgingly acknowledge its existence. Someday, perhaps, there will be a quantitative definition of the term, and we will see plainly when one team gets every bounce, and when Fortuna smiles on them. Louis Pasteur said, boldly, that fortune favors the prepared mind. But I think that’s ridiculous, and there’s no way to anticipate it. I prefer Lefty Gomez’s version: "I’d rather be lucky than good." Let this serve as a small offering to Fortuna. May she, finally, give the Cleveland Indians a break or two. Please.

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We’ve gotten some big breaks man. Remember the bug game? Or pretty much everything that happened in 2007? I mean, we somehow managed to win 96 games with a three-man bullpen that featured a closer whose fastball topped out at 88 MPH and an eighth inning guy who was a converted shortstop with a metal plate in his shoulder. Remember how Cliff Lee magically transformed himself from a mediocre #4 starter to the most dominant lefty in baseball? I think the Indians historically have seen more than their share of bad fortune, but in recent years we haven’t been overly victimized by bad luck.

If you don't respect Aaron Laffey, I will fight you.

by Cap'n Snegiryov on Jun 11, 2010 7:41 AM EDT reply actions

I don’t mind a small offering to fortune on Carlosmas. If I owned livestock, I’d burn one.

Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile

by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Jun 11, 2010 9:34 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, but would you dress up in a toga to do it? Would you hand out free bread to all the townspeople? I know that last one is rather a stretch in the city but if we’re going Roman it’s probably important to be rigorous on the ceremony side. Wouldn’t want to toast a bull fir no good reason after all. I just hope there’s room for rum in the process.

by MTF on Jun 11, 2010 10:33 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

I’m not worried about the bread loaves. Carlos will multiply them.

Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile

by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Jun 11, 2010 10:12 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

Remember how Cliff Lee magically transformed himself from a mediocre #4 starter to the most dominant lefty in baseball?

Good luck would have been for that to happen in 2007. Lee had an ERA+ of 72 that year, and a palatial estate in Buffalo. One more win that year would have meant home field advantage. No Fenway games six or seven.

by odradek on Jun 11, 2010 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions

If Lee had been the most “dominant lefty” in 2007, chances are good that Boston doesn’t win 3 straight games in the ALCS (regardless of where the games were played at), which means that Boston wouldn’t have won the WS.

Cleveland would also had a good chance of winning the WS, though perhaps the Rockies wouldn’t have had to wait nearly two weeks to play (i.e. we would have knocked out Boston in 4-5 games, thereby somewhat negating that wait inbetween the NLCS and WS for Colorado), but Cleveland still would have had a very good shot of winning the WS in 2007 against the Rockies, even if the Rockies had had less down time than they did.

No, Lee’s turnaround came one year later in 2008, at the same time Carmona started to struggle, Westbrook would go down with TJ surgery, Byrd was about to be let go, and Sabathia was about to be traded.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 13, 2010 1:39 AM EDT up reply actions

That wait doesn’t change. it’s not basketball, the days on which the series begin are fixed.

Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile

by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Jun 13, 2010 9:14 AM EDT up reply actions

That’s right – good point and thanks for the correction.

The only way the Rockies wouldn’t have waited around is if they would have taken longer to dispose of the D’Backs, which I presumed to remain the same in my hypothetical example of us taking out Boston if the 2007 Lee had been the 2008-2010 Lee we’ve seen over the 2.5 years.

That makes it more likely that the Indians would have been favored and would have beaten the Rockies, since I think the long layoff was a major reason why they weren’t much of a match for Boston, not because Boston was significantly better than Colorado, especially the way Colorado was playing. That layoff certainly didn’t do them any favors, and probably wouldn’t have against us either.

This goes back to the main point – if Lee had been back in 2007 what he is today and has been for the past 2 years, 2007 may have turned out very differently than it did, but Lee didn’t find himself until 2008, one year “too late” regarding the 2007 ALCS against Boston.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 13, 2010 8:33 PM EDT up reply actions

To conclude that point above, it could go back to lady Fortuna – Lee not finding himself until AFTER that postseason, not BEFORE that postseason, whereas Lee might have been added to the roster and made a difference like he did for Philly in 2009.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 13, 2010 8:34 PM EDT up reply actions

Easy with the self-pity here oddie. Maybe over all our luck’s been a little worse than some clubs, but then again we were extraordinarily lucky in the 90s. I know I’ve worn this out but we got some truly outstanding players in those drafts, signed a few iffy players that turned into pivotal pieces and had more than our share of come-from-behind fantasy wins – kinda like last night – back then.

So we’ve had a bad patch as of late – Miller, Sizemore, Hafner etal – but our times commin’. Ain’t nothin’ but a thing.

Resident LGT results-oriented boob.

by mauichuck on Jun 11, 2010 2:42 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

We weren’t extraordinarily lucky in every sense in the 90s, obviously.

I worked out the math one time, trying to estimate the odds of winning zero championships for those specific six playoff berths. That is, I assigned a different probability to each of the six teams based on their overall strength, and then calculated out the six events. I came up with something like 45-48% chance of winning zero, which is a little more than I thought it would be.

Still, we were slightly unlucky not to win one.

by Jay on Jun 11, 2010 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions

I didn’t mean to indicate self-pity. I don’t think the Tribe was lucky in the 1990s. The best team of the 1990s—maybe the best Tribe team in 40 years—was screwed by a strike. The 1995 team went cold in the World Series, and Jose Mesa!

Look at the White Sox in 2005. That’s luck, from start to finish.

by odradek on Jun 11, 2010 8:36 PM EDT up reply actions

The 1995 team partly went cold, and partly was due in by some questionable strike zones given to Glavine and Maddux (especially Glavine in Game 6 – no team in history would have hit those pitches because many of them were off the plate. If Glavine had been forced to throw it over the plate, I highly doubt he would shut us out on 1 hit. I could see him giving up only 2-3 runs, maybe only 1, perhaps, but not a shutout on just 1 hit – the Indians probably could have managed 4-6 hits off of him. And, remember that we only gave up 1 run in that game, so 2-3 runs would have been enough to beat him and force Game 7, and Smoltz was the one pitcher who I think the Tribe matched up best with – power arm versus power lineup, just as they did in Game 3).

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Jun 13, 2010 1:43 AM EDT up reply actions

Ain’t nothin’ but a G thing.

Never knew chuck was from dat hood,

by talonk on Jun 11, 2010 10:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Also! I wasn’t so much interested in how much the Tribe has been yanked around as I am in realizing how much of the game is beyond anyone’s control. You can do everything right—draft wisely, position your players properly, stockpile arms, etc.—and still get a lousy season. I’ve come to realize that many of the actions I’ve faulted Shapiro for were actually prudent and perhaps even smart, but he has been extraordinarily unfortunate.

by odradek on Jun 11, 2010 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions