While watching (to be accurate, listening, because I was painting a house so I got to hang with Andy Freed and Dave Wills for three days) the Rays sleepwalk their way through the weekend series against the Angels, I was reminded of a savvy observation by veteran baseball-man Jim Ferguson.
Note. This is actually the team plane that Vince Naimoli bought. I am sure Stu has upgraded it since taking over.
“Fergie” is one of the Rays’ official scorers. Before moving south, Fergie was the PR Director for the Big Red Machine (and many other Reds’ teams). Sitting in media dining one afternoon, before a Thursday get-away-day-game, Fergie observed how expansion has created travel challenges for newer franchises. That afternoon, Devil Rays were headed out on a 6-hour mid-week flight to Seattle for a weekend series with the Mariners. Fergie made the point that the older franchises have a distinct travel advantage because their home cities were chosen before air-travel was popular, thus they are closer together.
And he’s right. This season, the Rays will take 38 flights totaling approximately 101 hours of flight time (according to the flight time estimator at www.howmanyhours.com). Fergie’s Reds, on the other hand, will only spend 65 hours suspended above the continental United States during the course of their 38 flights. The Orioles (who are the most centrally located AL East team geographically) will spend 71 hours in the air over 37 flights.
I think it is fair to say that exhaustion cost the Rays at least one, if not two, games this weekend. Looking ahead, there are at least four more series that will begin after a long, nighttime flight. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Rays will lose 3 of those 4 series openers (and I think the effect goes beyond the first game, but, let’s stick to the conservative estimate), the Rays’ extra 31-hours of air travel will cost them at least 4 games this season if not 6 or 8.
That is huge number in the no-margin-for-error 2011 AL East.
Really interesting point. It might be cool to look at the Rays’ and other teams’ records in games following a long flight to see where the impact hits most. I think you might be right that the worst effect may actually be game 2 or 3 of the series as the first one you can get through on adrenaline. The immediate question in my mind would be the ’01 Mariners who presumably won a lot of games after long trips though I do think their schedule does tend to be in blocks playing long road trips every time they go East while teams like Tampa are sometimes forced to go the MidWest for just a 3 game series, which is still a pretty long travel day.
Later this month the Rays come to Toronto for two games before heading to Miami then back up to Detroit. If it was arranged differently that schedule could involve a quick hop to Miami, a 3 hour flight to Toronto, a quick hop to Detroit then home. Instead the team will take four 3 hour flights in a week.
That Miami trip is interesting and, I suspect that there is a conspiracy theory afoot there. Near the end of the Reign of Vince, the Rays actually took buses to Miami for their interleague series there. Buses! Greg Vaughn had a few choice words for management before flying himself commercial to the game.
Anyway, after that, it seems like the Rays rarely travel to Miami directly from here. I always suspected that was the result of some under-the-table deal with MLBPA but cannot prove it.
Great stuff – I do love a good conspiracy theory!