The Mets beat the White Sox 2-0 on Sunday, lowering the White Sox winning percentage on the season to .225. 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.

They need to go no better than 9-15 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 137 games is .296. The probability of no more than 9 wins at that level is 0.86. The White Sox are now at to the replacement winning percentage of .296! A generous view of their winning percentage puts them at replacement level.

If you are looking for a more optimistic view, the White Sox are -7 wins by the Pythagorean Won-Loss percentage. That would put their 95 percentage confidence interval probability at .351, which reduces their probability of finishing with no more than 40 wins to 0.68, or two in three. All indicators now point the the White Sox finishing with no more than 40 wins! I’m sticking to my best guess of a 39-123 finish.