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I would guess you could pick any day of the season and get pretty similar results. The interesting thing mathematically is if any one day stands out.

Geez. That sounds pretty vanilla to me. Don’t go out on any limbs here.

52% is 84 wins in a 162 game season. So this is saying that teams that win in game 1 will win, on average, 83 more games. So that 1 win is predictive of 2 incremental wins over the remaining 161. I guess this means a single game sample is (very minimally) predictive of the entire season.

Go @sfgiants.com !

Good question! Probably. (I make a similar point in the article.)

Surprising win% based on this. ...it's still funny youtu.be/okXhAC78d4Q?...

No, since it is tracking current teams back through time, meaning they were playing teams that no longer exist.

Which games of the season were most deterministic? Least? A team that won its first game had to have a .515 winning percentage over 161 games to top a .52 winning over 162. If one assumes that for the first game of the season, teams start their best pitcher, and better teams have better #1 SPs…

Better ace pitchers.

. sounds like a 🪙-flip…. *unless* there’s some variance-based yardstick to discern if 49 v 52 are signif different (not likely due to chance or random variance) … is there? Scanned your newsletter and didn’t see one but some stats genius (you?) would know what yardstick is appropriate here

This got me missing when the Red Sox were my team: spring and summer hope, knowing it would all end in heartbreak. I miss those days before they finally won (I threw my hat away when I saw a kid at an lowa gas station rockin' a Red Sox cap). Anyway, I like the Kraken these days.

Well, 6 in 10 Opening Day winners go on to have a winning season, vs 4 in 10 who lose.

It's almost like it doesn't matter.