Mariners are the best (at mediocrity)
Flip a coin 10 times. Did it come up heads exactly 5 times? It probably didn’t – chance is like that. Five heads is the most likely outcome of 10 flips. But most of the time even on a perfectly fair coin heads won’t end up with exactly a .500 record.
The M's have played 66 games. Now flip a coin 66 times - did you come up with exactly 33 heads? Probably not - the formula says that will happen slightly less than 10% of the time. Which means that the M’s - who are at .500 after 66 games - are in the 90th percentile of mediocrity. Even something designed to end up at .500 over the long term doesn’t tend to get there exactly.
Yeah, I’m cherry-picking by writing this post at the exact day the M’s happen to be at .500. So how do you measure mediocrity? (Oh shit, Now I’m going to have to write song lyrics to "Seasons of Love" in addition to my bastardization of "Sounds of Silence" aren’t I ).
Well, as I write this, the M’s are the only team at exactly .500 in MLB. Their run differential is +10, which closer to even than all but 3 teams (Red Sox, Pirates, Cubs). But not only are the M’s at exactly .500, they’ve stayed very close to mediocre all year. They have been at .500 eleven different times this year (not counting opening day), tied for second with the Marlins, Mets and Angels, behind only the Red Sox who have been at .500 fifteen different times.
But the M’s have hewed to that .500 mark better than any other team. They’ve never more than 5 games below (April 29) or 3 games above .500 (on May 28). No other team has stayed that close to mediocre all season long. The Red Sox were a heady 21 and 14 on May 6th. Take a look at this graph to see how consistently mediocre the M’s have been compared to any other team.
Maybe you could argue that the M’s are less mediocre than the Red Sox, but if there were a mediocrity playoffs, we would clearly win the division and and might have the home field advantage throughout. That’s what we’ve wanted right?