The Oakland A's have been incredibly unlucky this season
The Oakland A's have been a surprising disappointment this season, sitting at 25-37, a whopping 9.5 games out of first place in the AL West. But the A's have actually been the unluckiest team in baseball so far, as stats actually suggest they should have a winning record and be right in the thick of the playoff hunt.
The chart below is a comparison of a team's actual record to their expected record based on how many runs each team has scored and allowed*. Each of the teams listed below has a record that is at least one win greater than expected or at least one win fewer than expected. The 11 teams not listed are within one win of where they should be.
The results show that the A's should actually have a record of 32-30, which would have them just 2.5 games out of first place. The Blue Jays have also been more unlucky than most with an expected record of 36-25, which would be good enough for first place in the AL East by 2.0 games. At the other end, the White Sox have been the luckiest team in baseball with an actual record that is 4-5 wins better than it should be.
* Using the difference between the number of runs scored and the number of runs given up, we calculated each team's Pythagorean Win Percentage which tells us how many games a team typically wins based on their run differential.