RIP 2011 Astros Season

Note:  This was written before the final game of the season.

It doesn't take a sabermetrician to know that the Astros aren't really a 105 loss team.  If you do want to look at Pythagorean expectation which accounts for luck or the lack thereof, the Astros should have lost 98 games.  But reading higher level math formulas generally makes my brain bleed.

I would prefer to look at what happened with four individual players this season to help explain what happened.

Brett Myers
Myers had a lifetime win percentage of .550 before this season.  This season he had a .350 win percentage.  He had a bad year.  The .550 lifetime win percentage would have translated into 4 fewer losses.

J.A. Happ
Happ had a lifetime win percentage of .678 before this season.  This season he had a .286 win percentage.  Even though many thought he was due for a regression, I don't think they expected this much of a regression.  If you use his win percentage of .556 for Houston last season, he would have 6 fewer losses, 8 fewer losses if you go with his lifetime win percentage.

Brandon Lyon
Brandon Lyon converted 50% of his save opportunities this year; his lifetime save conversion rate before this year was 75% which would translate into 2 fewer losses.

Wilton Lopez
Last season, Wilton was 5-2.  He issued 5 walks and allowed 1 of 33 inherited runners to score.  This year, he was 2-6.  He issued 17 walks and allowed 16 of 34 inherited runners to score.  This one is harder to quantify, but if you look at his first half stats when he was struggling (1-4 with 13 walks) vs. his second half stats when he was more like his 2010 self (1-2 with 4 walks), I think you could safely erase 2 losses from that column if Wilton had performed more like he did in 2010.

This is entirely unscientific and I'm certain that the sabermetricians are rolling their eyes, but if these four individuals had performed even close to their prior success, we could be looking at 14-16 fewer losses and a record of 70-91 to 72-89 going into the final game of the season.  And we would be saying, "Well, that's not bad at all for a team in rebuilding mode."

Many things did not go well for the Astros in 2011, but they weren't as bad as their record.  And now, for the first time in a long time, reinforcements are on the way.  Our farm system is gradually getting stronger.  We will get the #1 draft pick in 2012.  And we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try to learn something from a very painful season.