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Mind you, teams can still fool us this deep into the campaign. A team projected to play .550 ball doesn’t go 11-9 every 20 games. Even just this season, we’ve seen the Reds go 16-9 and then 6-10. The Twins went 11-7, then 7-16. The Rays are 24-8 since a 2-5 start. The Tigers’ season breaks down as 4-9, then 14-8, then 1-5. The Cubs? 7-9 followed by 20-5. Even the baseball-ruining Dodgers are 4-7 after a 20-9 start.
I cannot say this enough: Whatever you think the in-season variance of a team’s performance is, it’s higher than that.
