Leap of Dave

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Ed Farmer's birthday: Hear Him call A Triple Play

Sunday, October 5, 2025

Stats Sunday: Most Improved Baseball Teams of 2025

The Regular season of MLB came to an end last month some would say that for the White Sox it did so mercifully. I would beg to differ.

Me (In my best Dickensonian pauper's voice) : Please Sir, may I differ? Please?!? Could I kindly differ?

When you lose 100 or more games in a season 3 years in a row as my beloved South Sliders (misspelling intended) have it would ostensibly make sense for anyone covering the team to write an end of the season review as a post-mortem. Over the past few weeks I have read many that looked just like that,

However, as I mulled it over in my mind, I realized that the 2025 record of 60 wins paired with 102 losses , an abysmal 21 games below .500, was in actuality 19 wins better than their record setting (in a bad way) 2024 season total. This made me wonder how the White Sox would match up to the rest of the league in terms of most improved win total from 2024 to 2025.

2025 MLB Teams (Listed from most improved to least improved regular season from 2024 to 2025)

Team 2024 2025

1. Toronto Blue Jays 74-88 94-68 +20

2. Chicago White Sox 41-121 60-102 +19

3. Miami Marlins 62-100 79-83 +17

4. Los Angeles Angels 63-99 72-90 +9

5. Chicago Cubs 83-79 92-70 +9

6. Boston Red Sox 81-81 89-73 +8

7. Athletics 69-93 76-87 +7

8. Cincinnati Reds 77-85 83-79 +6

9. Seattle Mariners 85-77 90-72 +5

10. Milwaukee Brewers 93-69 97-65 +4

11. Texas Rangers 78-84 81-81 +3

12. Detroit Tigers 86-76 87-75 +1

13. Philadelphia Phillies 95-67 96-66 +1

14. San Francisco Giants 80-82 81-81 +1

15. New York Yankees 94-68 94-68 E

16. Houston Astros 88-73 87-75 -1.5

17. Tampa Bay Rays 80-82 77-85 -3

18. San Diego Padres 93-69 90-72 -3

19. Kansas City Royals 86-76 82-80 -4

20. Cleveland Guardians 92-69 83-74 -4.5

21. Washington Nationals 71-91 66-96 -5

22. St. Louis Cardinals 83=79 78-84 -5

23. Pittsburgh Pirates 76-86 71-91 -5

24. Los Angeles Dodgers 98-64 93-69 -5

25. New York Mets 89-73 83-79 -6

26. Arizona Diamondbacks 89-73 80-82 -9

27. Minnesota Twins 82-80 70-92 -12

28. Atlanta Braves 89-73 76-86 -13

29. Baltimore Orioles 91-71 75-87 -16

30. Colorado Rockies 61-101 43-119 -18

Analysis: I marked each record in bold if that team went to the playoffs the year listed. Of the 7 teams that made the playoffs in 2024 and 2025, three did so with more wins than the previous year, 1 team had the identical record each campaign, and 3 won more games in 2024 than they did this year.

Of the 3 cities with 2 teams , Chicago was the only city that had both teams improve let alone be in the top 5 of improved teams.

Top 10 most improved home and road teams. (Teams in bold are in tp 10 in both categories)

Home Road

Blue Jays +15 White Sox +9

Red Sox + 10 Athletics +9

White Sox + 10 Marlins +9

Marlins + 8 Blue Jays +5

Angels +7 Mariners +3

Padres +7 Mets +3

Yankees +6 Cubs +3

Cubs + 6 Angels +2

Reds + 6 Guardians +1

Brewers +5 Nationals +1

Pirates + 5 Giants + 1

So, yes the improvements from one year to the next for our Chicago teams is something to be celebrated. Similar improvements next year are not impossible dreams. If The Cubs improve by 9 wins next year they would be past the 100 win mark. If the Sox win 19 more games next year they would only finish 2 games below .500. Will that happen, who knows? But steps in the right direction are signs of life not cause for a post-mortem.

Saturday, September 13, 2025

WHYDFML Index ratings of the AP Top 25 College Football teams

I love stats. I don't love sports because of stats but statistics is one of the love languages I use to convey my love of sports.

Some of my favorite stats are the ones I make up like the STBFI Or the WHYDFML Index that is reference in the title of this post. The STBFI stands for Soon To Be Fired Index and WHYDFML stands for What Have You Done For Me Lately,

The STBFI is straightforward, forward it is a list of the major coaches and managers in a city, (for me it's Chicago )in order of the likelihood that they will be the next person on the list to be fired or otherwise leave their position. The WHYDFML (pronounced y dee eff em el) is actually a name for many statistics that measure productivity from most to least recent.

Each Sunday during the college football season, The Associated Press releases a poll of the top 25 teams in College football. I decided to look out this past Sunday's rankings thtough the lens of one of the WHYDFML indices.

This particular index takes the results of the last 5 games and scores them this way. A win in the most recent game counts as 5 wins whereas a loss in the least recent game counts as only 1 loss. In cases of ties a tie would be treated as 1/2 the points in the win column and 1/2 the points in the loss column . You then fihure out the win percentage by taking the adjusted win amount and dividing it by the adjusted total game amount.

For example, if there are 4 teams that are 4-1 in their 5 most recent games (let's call them Teams A through E), and each one of them lost a different game on the time line between most and least recent they would all have different winning percentages in their WHYDFML Index.

Let's say Team A just lost their most recent game after winning the previous four. Their results would wook like this with the point value for the loss or win in parentheses:

L(5)W(4)W(3)W(2)W (1)

This would make Team 10-5 with a winning percentage of .667 (10/15)

If Team B won 3 games in a row, then lost, and then won again, their results, adjusted record and winning percentage would look like this

W(5)L(4) W(3) W(2) W(1) 11-4 ..733

Team C

W (5) W(4) L (3) W(2) W (1) 12-3 .800

Team D

W (5) W (4) W (3) L (2) W (1) 13-2 .867

Team E

W (5) W(4) W(3) W (2) L (1) 14-1 .933

Now that we have a better understanding of the WHYDFML index, we can compare the AP top 25 using said index. At this point in the season, most teams have played 2 games. Some, like Notre Dame, have only played one, and some, like Iowa State, have already played 3. In order to use a record over the last 5 games, we will need the results of the last 2-4 games of the previous season, including bowl games and playoffs. I will list each team from the best to worst by its WHYDFML winning percentage, with the best ranking breaking any ties.

Team C L5R L5C WHYDFML AP Rank

Ohio State 2-0 5-0 1.000 WWWWW 15-0 1.000 1

LSU 2-0 5-0 1.000 WWWWW 15-0 1.000 3

Illinois 2-0 5-0 1.000 WWWWW 15-0 1.000 9

Missouri 2-0 5-0 1.000 WWWWW 15-0 1.000 25

Iowa State 3-0 4-1 .800 WWWWL 14-1 .933 14

Ole Miss 2-0 4-1 .800 WWWWL 14-1 .933 17

South Florida 2-0 4-1 .800 WWWLW 13-2 .867 18

Penn State 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 2

Oregon 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 4

Georgia 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 6

South Carolina 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 11

Tennessee 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 15

Utah 2-0 3-2 .600 WWWLL 12-3 .800 20

Texas Tech 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 21

Auburn 2-0 4-1 .800 WWLWW 12-3 .800 24

Florida State 2-0 3-2 .600 WWLWL 11-4 .733 10

Indiana 2-0 3-2 .600 WWLWL 11-4 .733 22

Miami (FL) 2-0 3-2 .600 WWLLW 10-5 .667 5

Oklahoma 2-0 3-2 .600 WWLLW 10-5 .667 13

Michigan 1-1 4-1 .800 LWWWW 10-5 .667 23

Texas A&M 2-0 2-3 .400 WWLLL 9-6 .600 16

Texas 1-1 3-2 .600 WLLWW 8-7 .533 7

Clemson 1-1 2-3 .400 WLLWL 7-8 .467 12

Alabama 1-1 2-3 .400 WLLWL 7-8 .467 19

Notre Dame 0-1 3-2 .600 LLWWW 6-9 .400 8

Notre Dame by virtue of their loss in the CFP finals, their first week loss to Miami and a second week bye has the lowest percentage of the AP 25. Illinois, Ohio,State, LSU, and Missouri have all won 5 of their last 5 games but if any of them lose this week they will be down near the bottom to .667 and some won’t stay on the AP 25 with a loss.

I meant to share this on Sunday after I did all the research, but had a very busy week. I will try to publish an updated list after the new AP poll comes out tomorrow.