The Tigers beat the White Sox 13-4 on Saturday, lowering the White Sox winning percentage on the season to .238. That is below the .250 winning percentage of the 1962 Mets, the modern record for mediocrity*. Time to update the probability of Chicago finishing with no more than 40 wins.

*It was pointed out to me yesterday that mediocre means average work. To me, mediocre carries a much stronger negative connotation If you think of average as being one standard deviation from the mean, mediocre to me happens at the lower end of that average range. I am comfortable sticking with that description.

They need to go no better than 9-23 the rest of the way to finish with a worse winning percentage than the Mets. The lowest winning percentage that doesn’t include 30 wins in the 95 percent confidence interval for 130 games is .313. The probability of no more than 9 wins at that level is 0.43. For replacement level of .296, the probability stands at 0.51 So the odds of a worse finish are basically even.

If you are looking for a more optimistic view, the White Sox are -6 wins by the Pythagorean Won-Loss percentage. That would put their 95 percentage confidence interval probability at .363, which reduces their probability of finishing with no more than 40 wins to 0.22, or about 1 in 5.