Wednesday, March 27, 2013
The 2013 MLB Projection Blowout
With Opening Day rapidly approaching, it’s time for my 2013 MLB projected standings blowout. The idea behind this series of posts is to try and project how the 2013 MLB season might look given what we think we may know right now. I’ve been doing a version of this since 2005, and you can see the results by looking at the following links.
2005
2006
2007
2008 Pt 1
2008 Pt 2
2009 AL
2009 NL
2010 AL
2010 NL
2011 AL
2011 NL
2012
A quick look at the previous seasons shows that the results are hit and miss. Projections don’t pretend to be omnisicent, so they can only tell us so much about how things play out. Hence the following disclaimers.
1) Projection systems are inherently limited in their accuracy, particularly for pitchers. We can get a rough idea of how most players will perform by looking at their past histories and how similar players have performed, and factoring in aging and regression, but abilities/talent can change in ways that can’t be forecasted.
2) Playing time distribution in these simulations will not match actual 2013 playing time. I used the rosters and depth charts available at MLB Depth Charts plus whatever I’ve read over the offseason as my guide to set these up as realistically as possible, but it’s a possible source of error. Rosters were set up to have 35-40 or so active players per team, and to get a reasonable amount of playing time from the bench and extra pitchers, to more closely model reality. Basically, no players are set to play more than 90% of the time, starting catchers are restricted to at most about 75% of the games, and I’ve made sure teams get a non-trivial amount of starts from their 6-8 starters. The healthier a team is in 2013, the more likely they will be to exceed these projections, and vice versa.
3) We cannot predict injuries and/or roster changes. These simulations do try to adjust projected playing time based on past health issues, so someone like Erik Bedard is not expected to make 30 starts. I’ve also included random injuries which may lead to some of the outlying results you see, but there’s no way to account for all the fluctuations that will happen with rosters this season.
4) These are NOT my predictions. These are projections based on running a computer simulation hundreds of thousands of times with projection data that is inherently limited. If your favorite team doesn’t project well, don’t blame me, blame the computers and spreadsheets that projected them. I guess you can blame me for the CAIRO results if you want, otherwise you can take heart in the 2006 Tigers projecting to win 80, the 2010 Giants projecting to go 81-81 or the 2012 Orioles projecting to win 70 games. These are not meant to tell you how the season is going to play out. I prefer to think of them more as a starting point for discussion, with a range of something like 10 wins in either direction based on how things actually end up playing out. You can look at them and argue about why you think some teams will be better or worse.
5) Since this is all automated, I don’t break ties. I simply award all ties a share of either the division title or wild cards when it happens which is why you may see some funny decimal places in the standings that follow.
6) These are the averages of hundreds of thousands of simulated seasons, so the results will tend to regress towards the mean. The final standings will not look like this, because they only play the season once. If the first place team in a division projects to win 85 games, it doesn’t mean 85 wins will win the division, but I’ll get into that into more detail further down in this post.
7) Even if you knew exactly what every player would do, and exactly how much they’d play, you would not get the standings right. A few one run games or a disparate performance in more crucial situations can cause any team to over/under achieve what their stats say they should have done. So if that’s true, you have to figure that since we have no idea what any individual player do or how much they’ll play, the margin of error on these is massive.
There’s too much stuff to fit it all into one post, so I’ve created a separate post for each projection system. I will use this post to show the results of the aggregate/average of all the projections. You can follow the links below to look at the individual projection systems’ results.
This year, I’m using five different projection systems. You can click on each of the links below to get some more information about each system and to see how their specific projected standings look.
CAIRO
Marcel
Oliver
Steamer
ZiPS
I should note that the Marcel projections used here were generated using Python code provided by Jeff Sackmann and are not the “official” projections, although they should be almost identical. I’ll also mention that ZiPS will have its own projected standings so these should not be considered the official version. Playing time distribution, run environments and park factors may cause some divergence between what ZiPS forecasts and what mine say. When in doubt, go with the official version.
With all the disclaimers out of the way, on to the projected standings. These are the combined results for all five projection systems. The standings are rounded to the nearest win so if the total W-L doesn’t add up to 2430-2430 that’s why.
| American League | |||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Blue Jays | 89 | 73 | 795 | 728 | 29.1% | 9.9% | 9.6% | 48.5% | 77-100 |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 715 | 644 | 27.6% | 9.5% | 8.8% | 45.9% | 77-100 |
| Yankees | 85 | 77 | 774 | 745 | 18.6% | 7.9% | 8.2% | 34.7% | 73-96 |
| Red Sox | 82 | 80 | 819 | 803 | 15.4% | 6.6% | 8.2% | 30.2% | 70-93 |
| Orioles | 79 | 83 | 738 | 766 | 9.3% | 4.5% | 5.8% | 19.6% | 68-90 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Tigers | 89 | 73 | 797 | 714 | 46.4% | 6.6% | 6.8% | 59.8% | 77-100 |
| Royals | 81 | 81 | 716 | 721 | 19.3% | 5.6% | 6.5% | 31.4% | 70-92 |
| Indians | 80 | 82 | 741 | 744 | 18.7% | 5.0% | 6.2% | 29.9% | 69-91 |
| White Sox | 76 | 86 | 718 | 767 | 12.4% | 4.0% | 4.8% | 21.2% | 65-88 |
| Twins | 67 | 95 | 693 | 825 | 3.2% | 0.9% | 1.6% | 5.6% | 56-78 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Angels | 91 | 71 | 763 | 656 | 40.0% | 12.3% | 9.3% | 61.7% | 80-103 |
| Rangers | 88 | 74 | 795 | 727 | 30.1% | 12.0% | 10.0% | 52.1% | 77-100 |
| Athletics | 87 | 75 | 731 | 679 | 24.6% | 12.1% | 10.0% | 46.6% | 75-98 |
| Mariners | 73 | 89 | 660 | 722 | 4.7% | 2.9% | 3.8% | 11.4% | 61-84 |
| Astros | 60 | 102 | 649 | 866 | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.7% | 1.6% | 49-72 |
| National League | |||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Nationals | 90 | 72 | 690 | 598 | 44.5% | 11.3% | 8.3% | 64.0% | 79-102 |
| Braves | 88 | 74 | 673 | 622 | 32.3% | 11.5% | 9.7% | 53.5% | 77-99 |
| Phillies | 80 | 82 | 665 | 680 | 15.1% | 7.2% | 7.9% | 30.1% | 69-92 |
| Mets | 73 | 89 | 645 | 703 | 5.3% | 3.1% | 4.2% | 12.6% | 61-84 |
| Marlins | 69 | 93 | 624 | 731 | 2.8% | 1.9% | 2.5% | 7.3% | 57-80 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Reds | 89 | 73 | 741 | 662 | 41.0% | 8.9% | 7.9% | 57.8% | 78-101 |
| Cardinals | 85 | 77 | 686 | 655 | 26.8% | 8.8% | 7.8% | 43.4% | 73-96 |
| Brewers | 79 | 83 | 704 | 733 | 13.4% | 5.5% | 6.5% | 25.3% | 67-90 |
| Pirates | 78 | 84 | 665 | 691 | 11.6% | 4.3% | 5.6% | 21.5% | 66-89 |
| Cubs | 74 | 88 | 652 | 705 | 7.2% | 3.3% | 4.1% | 14.6% | 63-85 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- |
| Dodgers | 87 | 75 | 677 | 618 | 30.9% | 9.4% | 8.9% | 49.2% | 76-99 |
| Giants | 87 | 75 | 665 | 613 | 28.3% | 9.1% | 9.0% | 46.4% | 76-98 |
| Diamondbacks | 84 | 78 | 716 | 696 | 22.7% | 8.1% | 8.0% | 38.8% | 73-95 |
| Padres | 78 | 84 | 643 | 668 | 11.0% | 4.4% | 5.4% | 20.8% | 66-89 |
| Rockies | 74 | 88 | 775 | 847 | 7.2% | 3.2% | 4.2% | 14.6% | 63-85 |
W: Projected final 2013 wins
L: Projected final 2013 losses
RS: Projected final 2013 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2013 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
W+/-: Projected wins within one standard deviation
As noted earlier, this is NOT saying that you can win the NL West by winning 87 games. It’s saying that the team that finished in first most frequently in that division averaged 87 wins over hundreds of thousands of seasons. Here are the average win totals for each spot in each division.
| Place | ALE | ALC | ALW | NLE | NLC | NLW |
| 1 | 94 | 91 | 95 | 94 | 92 | 92 |
| 2 | 89 | 84 | 89 | 87 | 85 | 87 |
| 3 | 85 | 79 | 83 | 80 | 81 | 83 |
| 4 | 81 | 74 | 73 | 73 | 76 | 78 |
| 5 | 75 | 66 | 60 | 66 | 70 | 71 |
| WC1 | 91 | 90 | ||||
| WC2 | 87 | 86 |
Here is how each division broke down in terms of percentages using the aforementioned pie charts.
In the AL East, we’ve got the mostly tightly bunched group of teams in baseball, with just 10 wins separating Toronto at the top and Baltimore at the bottom. Toronto and Tampa Bay look like they’re neck and neck as of right now. The Yankees are already ravaged by injuries and at this point it doesn’t seem like it would take a lot for them to end up having a losing season and even finish last. Should they lose Robinson Cano or CC Sabathia for any significant amount of time that may be exactly what happens. Boston has improved quite a bit from where they were at the end of last season, although they apparently still have a ways to go. The projections are expecting a big regression from Baltimore, although they have enough talented young players with upside that they could beat their projections by quite a bit.
The AL Central basically looks like Detroit and everyone else. Kansas City and Cleveland are jockeying behind the Tigers. It’ll be interesting to see what the Indians get out of Scott Kazmir, who did not have a Steamer projection and projected pretty poorly in all the other systems. He’s throwing harder than he was when last seen in the majors and could surprise some people. For the Royals, it looks like Big Game James may not get into many big games this year, although stranger things have happened. The White Sox are projected to fall off a bit from last season, and the Twins look like they aren’t going to be very good.
There’s a new floormat in the AL West, and it’s the Houston Astros. Can they lose 100+ games for the third year in a row? The projections think they can. Houston projects to be so bad that they have essentially balanced out the league difference between the AL and NL. Last year, the AL went 1150-1118 thanks to interleague play. If you add Houston’s 55-107 to that you get a record of 1205-1225. Los Anaheim looks like the favorite here and project to win more games than any other team in baseball, with Texas a strong second. The Angels do have some concerns in their rotation, which could open the door for the Rangers. Oakland projects to fall back a bit from last year, but still should be in contention. Seattle still doesn’t look particularly good, although they should score some more runs this year, which is something.
The Nationals project as favorites in the NL East, especially now that the restrictions are off Stephen Strasburg. The Braves aren’t quite at their level, but project to be pretty good as well. The Phillies appear to be showing their age, and if Roy Halladay doesn’t bounce back they could be in trouble. The Mets don’t look good to me, especially with Johan Santana looking iffy and the Marlins may be as bad as the Astros. If Placido Polanco is hitting cleanup to ‘protect’ Giancarlo Stanton, it’s hard to see them winning 60 games.
In the Central, the Reds look like the clear favorite. The Cardinals were closer before losing Chris Carpenter and Rafael Furcal, but they seem like the second best team in the division. Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are neck and neck with each other and the Cubs look to be bringing up the rear.
In the West, the Dodgers are spending money like there’s no tomorrow but I’m not so sure they’re spending it all that well. They project a hair better than San Francisco but given the margin of error inherent in projections there’s really no difference in their projections. The Diamondbacks had a bizarre offseason and losing Adam Eaton for two months hurts, but they should be in the mix if a few things go their way. The Padres look a bit better than I expected, although still not good and the Rockies stink.
Usually there’s a surprise team or two in here but this year nothing really stands out. In general it seems that aside from a handful of really bad teams we’re seeing more parity. Between that and the second wild card you can pretty much see any team in baseball sneaking into the postseason. Except the Astros.
And there you have it. The 2013 projection blowout. Results are not guaranteed.
On an unrelated note, our sister site, the Replacement Level Red Sox launches today. Check them out at replacementlevelredsox.com.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
CAIRO 2013 v0.4 and Still Slightly Early and Somewhat Useless 2013 Projected MLB Standings
I found some problems with my pitcher WAR calculations so I’ve made an update to CAIRO which is now up to version 0.4. It can be downloaded at the following link.
cairo_2013_v0.4.zip.
Version v0.5 now available. cairo_2013_v0.5.zip
Aside from the pitcher WAR fix the only other changes are moving players to new teams. And for the hell of it, I ran more projected standings reflecting those moves.
| Date | 2/12/2013 | |||||||
| Iterations | 100000 | |||||||
| American League | ||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Blue Jays | 90 | 72 | 810 | 727 | 29.1% | 10.2% | 9.6% | 48.9% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 715 | 645 | 25.4% | 10.2% | 9.6% | 45.2% |
| Yankees | 87 | 75 | 790 | 739 | 24.2% | 9.6% | 9.1% | 42.9% |
| Red Sox | 82 | 80 | 812 | 798 | 15.0% | 7.2% | 7.8% | 30.0% |
| Orioles | 76 | 86 | 731 | 790 | 6.2% | 3.5% | 4.7% | 14.4% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 800 | 735 | 40.1% | 5.6% | 6.9% | 52.6% |
| Indians | 81 | 81 | 746 | 735 | 21.8% | 5.1% | 6.0% | 32.8% |
| Royals | 80 | 82 | 723 | 734 | 19.2% | 4.9% | 5.7% | 29.7% |
| White Sox | 77 | 85 | 730 | 783 | 15.1% | 3.7% | 4.8% | 23.6% |
| Twins | 66 | 96 | 694 | 837 | 3.8% | 0.9% | 1.7% | 6.4% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Angels | 91 | 71 | 757 | 652 | 35.9% | 12.0% | 9.5% | 57.3% |
| Rangers | 89 | 73 | 795 | 722 | 31.7% | 12.5% | 9.8% | 54.0% |
| Athletics | 87 | 75 | 731 | 675 | 26.2% | 11.5% | 9.9% | 47.6% |
| Mariners | 73 | 89 | 668 | 724 | 5.7% | 3.0% | 4.4% | 13.1% |
| Astros | 58 | 104 | 647 | 894 | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.6% | 1.4% |
| National League | ||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Nationals | 92 | 70 | 707 | 592 | 46.7% | 10.5% | 8.2% | 65.4% |
| Braves | 88 | 74 | 682 | 632 | 28.0% | 11.5% | 8.8% | 48.3% |
| Phillies | 82 | 80 | 665 | 668 | 17.1% | 8.2% | 8.3% | 33.5% |
| Mets | 73 | 89 | 666 | 721 | 6.0% | 3.4% | 4.5% | 13.9% |
| Marlins | 66 | 96 | 625 | 759 | 2.2% | 1.2% | 2.1% | 5.5% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Reds | 91 | 71 | 746 | 650 | 41.9% | 9.5% | 7.6% | 59.0% |
| Cardinals | 86 | 76 | 699 | 660 | 27.3% | 8.6% | 8.0% | 43.9% |
| Brewers | 78 | 84 | 713 | 751 | 12.7% | 5.2% | 5.9% | 23.8% |
| Pirates | 78 | 84 | 670 | 691 | 11.7% | 4.9% | 6.3% | 22.9% |
| Cubs | 73 | 89 | 646 | 707 | 6.4% | 2.8% | 3.7% | 12.8% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Dodgers | 89 | 73 | 689 | 609 | 32.5% | 9.3% | 8.7% | 50.6% |
| Giants | 88 | 74 | 673 | 606 | 28.9% | 8.5% | 9.4% | 46.7% |
| Diamondbacks | 84 | 78 | 705 | 684 | 20.7% | 8.1% | 8.3% | 37.1% |
| Padres | 80 | 82 | 663 | 670 | 12.9% | 5.6% | 6.8% | 25.3% |
| Rockies | 72 | 90 | 776 | 884 | 5.0% | 2.7% | 3.6% | 11.3% |
W: Projected final 2013 wins
L: Projected final 2013 losses
RS: Projected final 2013 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2013 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
The big mover here is Cleveland, as they’ve gained 7 wins from the last set of projected standings and now look like about a .500 team. The Yankees stayed where they were, at about 87 wins and third place in the East.
I probably won’t run more standings until right before the season starts, which will include other projection systems and better rosters and depth charts. Then they’ll probably be only kind of useless.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
NYDN: Dickey to Jays makes Girardi’s job tougher
Joe Girardi’s job got a little tougher this week — and he knows it.
The Blue Jays continued their busy winter, trading four players to the Mets in exchange for R.A. Dickey, the National League’s reigning Cy Young Award winner.
Dickey joins a rotation that had already bulked up with the additions of Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson, adding them to incumbent starters Brandon Morrow and Ricky Romero to form a very deep starting five.
“The Blue Jays have done a lot to improve their team,” Girardi said in an e-mail to the Daily News. “Adding a pitcher like Dickey gives them another quality starter at the top of their rotation. When you look at Toronto’s rotation, it now has a lot of different looks and a lot of experience with Johnson, Buehrle and now Dickey.”
I don’t expect Dickey to repeat his 2012, but CAIRO still likes him a lot in 2013. As a Jay he projects to put up an ERA of around 3.65 over 211 innings which would be worth somewhere in the area of 4.5 - 5 wins. Here’s how the AL East now projects adding Dickey to the Jays, Stephen Drew to the Red Sox and a few other tweaks to the other teams’ depth charts.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Blue Jays | 90 | 72 | 805 | 724 | 28.2% | 10.3% | 9.9% | 48.4% |
| Yankees | 88 | 74 | 790 | 739 | 24.4% | 10.4% | 9.7% | 44.5% |
| Rays | 87 | 75 | 699 | 636 | 23.9% | 9.8% | 9.2% | 42.9% |
| Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 815 | 782 | 16.6% | 7.8% | 8.5% | 32.9% |
| Orioles | 77 | 85 | 729 | 781 | 6.8% | 4.1% | 5.6% | 16.6% |
The teams are still pretty tightly bunched, but Toronto’s got a bit of a separation from the pack now. Anyway, projected standings in December don’t really tell us all that much so please Orioles fans don’t kill me.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
How Does Signing Youkilis Impact the AL East?
I re-ran my projected standings with Kevin Youkilis getting 500 PA split among 3B, 1B and DH and here’s how it impacted the AL East projected standings.
Before:
| TM | W | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Rays | 86.0 | 25.8% | 8.4% | 10.2% | 44.4% |
| Blue Jays | 86.0 | 25.3% | 9.2% | 8.2% | 42.7% |
| Yankees | 85.0 | 23.0% | 8.6% | 7.7% | 39.3% |
| Red Sox | 84.0 | 20.1% | 7.7% | 8.4% | 36.2% |
| Orioles | 73.0 | 5.8% | 3.1% | 5.0% | 13.9% |
After:
| TM | W | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Blue Jays | 86.5 | 25.3% | 9.0% | 8.7% | 42.9% |
| Yankees | 86.4 | 25.0% | 8.7% | 9.2% | 42.9% |
| Rays | 86.0 | 24.6% | 8.7% | 8.8% | 42.1% |
| Red Sox | 82.6 | 17.9% | 6.9% | 8.4% | 33.2% |
| Orioles | 74.1 | 7.3% | 3.7% | 4.8% | 15.8% |
Difference:
| TM | W | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Blue Jays | 0.5 | -0.2% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.7% |
| Yankees | 1.4 | 0.1% | 1.5% | 3.6% | 5.0% |
| Rays | 0.0 | 0.3% | -1.4% | -2.3% | -3.6% |
| Red Sox | -1.4 | -0.8% | 0.0% | -3.0% | -3.0% |
| Orioles | 1.1 | 0.6% | -0.2% | 1.9% | 1.7% |
This includes all the other moves that were made since I ran these as well as some adjustments in playing time so that also affects this, but basically adding Youkilis if he can get 500 PA is worth about a win and a half or so. Is that worth $12M? It depends on how much you value a 5% increase in qualifying for the postseason I guess.
Monday, December 10, 2012
CAIRO 2013 v0.2’s Extremely Early and Completely Useless 2013 Projected MLB Standings
Since I was curious about how the big trade between Kansas City and Tampa Bay affected the AL East, I ran some projected standings based on rosters as of last night. As the title says, this is extremely early and completely useless so think of it more as a goof than anything too serious. So using CAIRO v0.2 and the depth charts from MLB Depth Charts and Rotochamp as a rough gauge of playing time, here’s how the 2013 MLB season looks as of December 10.
Update: CAIRO v0.5 is now available
| Date | 12/10/2012 | |||||||
| Iterations | 100000 | |||||||
| American League | ||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Rays | 86 | 76 | 698 | 643 | 25.8% | 8.4% | 10.2% | 44.4% |
| Blue Jays | 86 | 76 | 789 | 741 | 25.3% | 9.2% | 8.2% | 42.7% |
| Yankees | 85 | 77 | 771 | 738 | 23.0% | 8.6% | 7.7% | 39.3% |
| Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 788 | 759 | 20.1% | 7.7% | 8.4% | 36.2% |
| Orioles | 73 | 89 | 718 | 780 | 5.8% | 3.1% | 5.0% | 13.9% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Tigers | 91 | 71 | 791 | 709 | 46.2% | 7.3% | 6.0% | 59.5% |
| Royals | 84 | 78 | 717 | 701 | 24.7% | 6.4% | 8.3% | 39.4% |
| White Sox | 80 | 82 | 725 | 755 | 18.2% | 4.4% | 6.5% | 29.0% |
| Indians | 73 | 89 | 692 | 768 | 7.3% | 2.7% | 4.0% | 14.0% |
| Twins | 65 | 97 | 696 | 854 | 3.7% | 1.6% | 1.6% | 6.9% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Angels | 95 | 67 | 726 | 616 | 43.4% | 12.8% | 9.3% | 65.6% |
| Rangers | 88 | 74 | 762 | 699 | 24.7% | 12.1% | 10.6% | 47.5% |
| Athletics | 88 | 74 | 712 | 653 | 25.2% | 11.0% | 8.6% | 44.8% |
| Mariners | 74 | 88 | 626 | 692 | 6.0% | 4.3% | 5.0% | 15.3% |
| Astros | 60 | 102 | 651 | 850 | 0.6% | 0.4% | 0.8% | 1.8% |
| National League | ||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Nationals | 94 | 68 | 699 | 590 | 46.4% | 9.9% | 8.0% | 64.2% |
| Braves | 86 | 76 | 686 | 630 | 23.8% | 11.2% | 8.9% | 43.9% |
| Phillies | 82 | 80 | 666 | 657 | 18.0% | 7.0% | 7.9% | 32.9% |
| Mets | 75 | 87 | 665 | 715 | 8.3% | 4.7% | 5.3% | 18.2% |
| Marlins | 69 | 93 | 625 | 729 | 3.5% | 2.0% | 2.9% | 8.4% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Reds | 91 | 71 | 722 | 635 | 41.9% | 7.9% | 7.5% | 57.3% |
| Cardinals | 86 | 76 | 696 | 645 | 28.0% | 7.9% | 8.7% | 44.6% |
| Brewers | 78 | 84 | 711 | 742 | 12.7% | 5.2% | 6.5% | 24.4% |
| Pirates | 77 | 85 | 663 | 688 | 11.1% | 5.5% | 6.6% | 23.1% |
| Cubs | 71 | 91 | 635 | 721 | 6.3% | 2.4% | 3.5% | 12.1% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Dodgers | 90 | 72 | 677 | 587 | 35.0% | 9.3% | 9.0% | 53.4% |
| Giants | 87 | 75 | 663 | 598 | 27.6% | 9.8% | 8.2% | 45.6% |
| Diamondbacks | 81 | 81 | 692 | 678 | 15.9% | 7.1% | 7.1% | 30.1% |
| Padres | 81 | 81 | 659 | 654 | 15.9% | 7.7% | 7.6% | 31.3% |
| Rockies | 71 | 91 | 770 | 865 | 5.6% | 2.4% | 2.5% | 10.5% |
The Astros are going to make it awfully easy for the AL West teams to win the wild cards, aren’t they?
Did I mention that these are extremely early and completely useless?
Thursday, December 6, 2012
2013 CAIRO MLB Projections v0.2
I’ve decided to post an update for CAIRO since the Yankees have made so many significant moves. Well, maybe not but some teams have.
It can be downloaded at the following link.
cairo_2013_mlb_projections_v0.2.zip
Update: CAIRO v0.5 is now available
As far as what’s changed since version 0.1:
- I’ve moved players that have switched teams
- Added a few players like Kyuji Fujikawa
- Added a tab for projected wOBA platoon splits. You can replace CAIRO’s projected wOBA with any other you like and it will recalculate them. These are based on the work done on platoon splits in The Book and a spreadsheet designed by berselius from ObstructedView.net.
- Since I don’t bother with projecting playing time aside from whatever CAIRO spits out, I’ve got additional tabs for batters and pitchers based on the depth charts at RotoChamp. CAIRO’s more for statistical analysis than Fantasy but hopefully this will help out any people that want to use it for Fantasy and it’s set up so that I can update it very easily in future releases.
As a goof I ran 100 iterations of the 2013 MLB schedule to get some projected standings but won’t post the whole thing. Here’s how the AL East looks as of last night.
| Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 |
| TAM | 88 | 74 | 687 | 620 | 33.5 | 10.8 | 11.5 |
| NYA | 87 | 75 | 773 | 732 | 32.0 | 8.0 | 7.5 |
| TOR | 86 | 76 | 797 | 754 | 24.5 | 7.5 | 14.5 |
| BOS | 80 | 82 | 793 | 782 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.5 |
| BAL | 77 | 85 | 728 | 777 | 5.0 | 2.8 | 4.5 |
Get to work Cashman!
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Division “Lead”
Standings on July 27th, 2012
Current Standings
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
The Postseason Implications of this Series with Boston
| Now | W | L | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Red Sox | 73 | 89 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Red Sox 3-0 | W | L | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Red Sox 2-1 | W | L | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Red Sox | 74 | 88 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 2-1 | W | L | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Red Sox | 73 | 89 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 3-0 | W | L | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Red Sox | 72 | 90 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
W: Projected final 2012 wins
L: Projected final 2012 losses
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The Postseason Implications of this series with Baltimore
I have to admit that I really have no idea how good the 2012 Orioles are. Much has been made of the fact that they’ve been outscored this season, but that ignores the fact that their current roster is not the same as the roster they had earlier in the year. Team talent is not static, and any analysis that assumes that what the Orioles have done all season long is the best way to assess how good they are at this very moment is simplistic and lazy.
That being said, I’m kind of lazy myself and don’t feel like revising and re-running all their projections right now. But anyone that wants to discuss how good/bad the Orioles really are should at least acknowledge that they’re no longer giving starts to Tommy Hunter, Brian Matusz and Jake Arrieta, and what they did in the rotation in the first half of the year should have little bearing on how good the Orioles will be over the rest of the season. The fact is, they’re right in the heart of the postseason race and anything can happen from here on out. They very well could win the World Series if everything falls into place for them.
I also am fairly uncertain about how good the Yankees are right now. I’m reasonably sure they’re not the 94 win team they projected to be at the start of the year when they had Mo and Brett Gardner and Michael Pineda, and that they probably won’t be that good through the end of the year given the injuries they’ve been dealing with and the apparent loss of Curtis Granderson and Andruw Jones’s ability to hit a baseball. Jones should be less of a concern than Granderson, but Joe Girardi’s stubborn insistence on playing him against every LHP the Yankees face makes him a lot more important to this team than he ought to be. Especially when teams are champing at the bit to throw every LHP they can find against the Yankees, which is logical.
We also don’t know if/when they’ll get Mark Teixeira, Ivan Nova and Andy Pettitte back and what they’ll do if/when they do come back. All three have the potential to significantly improve this team, but all three have a very realistic chance of not being able to return and be effective. I don’t think that’s pessimistic, I just think it’s realistic. If the Yankees can get all three back, they improve the lineup and the rotation and the bullpen and start to look like one of the better teams in baseball, if not the best, again.
Rather than using projections and YTD performance for this run through the postseason implications of this series, I’m going to just assume that the Yankees and Orioles are roughly .500 teams. So consider this more theoretical than the typical postseason odds I run.
In that case, here’s how the postseason probabilites for the AL look as of this morning.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 90 | 72 | 782 | 677 | 45.0% | 13.6% | 15.5% | 74.1% |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 694 | 603 | 29.2% | 12.9% | 18.0% | 60.2% |
| Orioles | 89 | 73 | 699 | 737 | 25.8% | 12.5% | 14.8% | 53.0% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 88 | 74 | 754 | 703 | 61.7% | 1.8% | 4.2% | 67.6% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 742 | 692 | 38.3% | 2.3% | 6.9% | 47.5% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 68 | 94 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 96 | 66 | 834 | 698 | 94.8% | 3.8% | 0.6% | 99.2% |
| Athletics | 89 | 73 | 691 | 631 | 3.6% | 37.6% | 21.6% | 62.8% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.7% | 15.4% | 18.6% | 35.7% |
| Mariners | 78 | 84 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
And here’s how they look for each of the possible outcomes of this series.
| Orioles 4-0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Orioles | 90 | 72 | 699 | 737 | 55.6% | 11.6% | 12.6% | 79.8% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 694 | 603 | 27.8% | 11.6% | 16.3% | 55.7% |
| Yankees | 88 | 74 | 782 | 677 | 15.8% | 14.7% | 19.1% | 49.6% |
| Red Sox | 74 | 88 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 88 | 74 | 754 | 703 | 64.0% | 2.0% | 3.6% | 69.5% |
| Tigers | 86 | 76 | 742 | 692 | 35.3% | 3.0% | 5.4% | 43.7% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 67 | 95 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 95 | 67 | 834 | 698 | 93.9% | 4.4% | 0.9% | 99.2% |
| Athletics | 88 | 74 | 691 | 631 | 3.9% | 35.3% | 22.3% | 61.6% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.4% | 16.6% | 19.2% | 37.1% |
| Mariners | 77 | 85 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Orioles 3-1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Orioles | 89 | 73 | 699 | 737 | 39.0% | 14.6% | 15.7% | 69.3% |
| Yankees | 89 | 73 | 782 | 677 | 30.2% | 15.7% | 16.5% | 62.5% |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 694 | 603 | 30.6% | 13.4% | 15.9% | 59.9% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 88 | 74 | 754 | 703 | 64.1% | 2.3% | 4.2% | 70.5% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 742 | 692 | 35.7% | 2.6% | 4.9% | 43.2% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 67 | 95 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 96 | 66 | 834 | 698 | 94.5% | 3.9% | 1.3% | 99.6% |
| Athletics | 89 | 73 | 691 | 631 | 4.1% | 33.1% | 23.3% | 60.5% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.3% | 14.3% | 18.1% | 33.7% |
| Mariners | 78 | 84 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| 2-2 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 90 | 72 | 782 | 677 | 47.3% | 13.7% | 13.6% | 74.6% |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 694 | 603 | 30.1% | 12.7% | 16.1% | 58.8% |
| Orioles | 89 | 73 | 699 | 737 | 22.6% | 11.3% | 20.9% | 54.8% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 89 | 73 | 754 | 703 | 60.9% | 2.6% | 4.0% | 67.5% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 742 | 692 | 39.1% | 2.4% | 5.9% | 47.4% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 68 | 94 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 96 | 66 | 834 | 698 | 94.7% | 4.4% | 0.2% | 99.3% |
| Athletics | 89 | 73 | 691 | 631 | 4.2% | 35.6% | 21.5% | 61.3% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.2% | 17.2% | 18.0% | 36.4% |
| Mariners | 78 | 84 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 3-1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 91 | 71 | 782 | 677 | 67.5% | 10.5% | 8.7% | 86.7% |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 694 | 603 | 22.8% | 16.8% | 17.7% | 57.3% |
| Orioles | 88 | 74 | 699 | 737 | 9.7% | 11.3% | 18.5% | 39.4% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 88 | 74 | 754 | 703 | 63.4% | 2.0% | 2.8% | 68.2% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 742 | 692 | 36.6% | 3.0% | 5.5% | 45.1% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 68 | 94 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 96 | 66 | 834 | 698 | 94.2% | 4.2% | 0.9% | 99.2% |
| Athletics | 89 | 73 | 691 | 631 | 4.3% | 36.5% | 24.5% | 65.3% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.6% | 15.8% | 21.5% | 38.8% |
| Mariners | 78 | 84 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 4-0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 92 | 70 | 782 | 677 | 79.6% | 10.5% | 6.1% | 96.3% |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 694 | 603 | 17.9% | 22.0% | 23.6% | 63.5% |
| Orioles | 86 | 76 | 699 | 737 | 2.3% | 8.5% | 13.6% | 24.4% |
| Red Sox | 75 | 87 | 781 | 775 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 73 | 89 | 732 | 783 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 88 | 74 | 754 | 703 | 61.1% | 3.0% | 4.0% | 68.1% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 742 | 692 | 38.7% | 3.1% | 6.5% | 48.3% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 681 | 745 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Indians | 68 | 94 | 668 | 827 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 67 | 95 | 720 | 835 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 96 | 66 | 834 | 698 | 95.2% | 3.7% | 0.9% | 99.7% |
| Athletics | 89 | 73 | 691 | 631 | 3.6% | 35.1% | 24.5% | 63.2% |
| Angels | 87 | 75 | 772 | 699 | 1.1% | 13.8% | 20.7% | 35.6% |
| Mariners | 78 | 84 | 632 | 651 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
Remember that I’m assuming the Yankees are Orioles are .500 teams. If you think that’s too pessimistic for the Yankees and too optimistic for the Orioles adjust accordingly.
The Yankees, Orioles, Rays, White Sox, Tigers, A’s and Angels are all bunched within four games of each other, so it’s likely going to be a dogfight to qualify for the postseason. Hopefully the Yankees are better than a .500 team and can pull away from the pack a bit.
Getting back to Yanks vs. O’s, your pitching matchups for the series are:
Thursday, September 6, 2012
David Phelps, RHP (3-4, 3.13 ERA) vs. Jason Hammel, RHP (8-6, 3.54 ERA)
Phelps hasn’t been great over his last couple of starts, including his last start against Baltimore where he walked 6 in 4.2 innings. Hammel was the Orioles’ best starter through June 22 with a 2.61 ERA, but he lost effectiveness over his last four starts, probably at least partially due to a knee injury that ended up requiring surgery that put him on the DL on July 13. He’s making his first start since returning from the DL and may be rusty. Let’s hope so.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Phil Hughes, RHP (13-12, 4.18 ERA) vs. Wei-Yin Chen, LHP (12-8, 3.79 ERA)
Hughes was cruising through his last start against Baltimore through five innings, but the wheels came off in the sixth. Maybe if he walks Mark Reynolds every time he can keep the Yankees in this game. Wei-Yin Chen was dominant against the Yankees in his last start, but his bullpen and defense ended up making his final line look less than great in a game the Yankees stole thanks to a J.J. Hardy error.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
CC Sabathia, LHP (13-4, 3.42 ERA) vs. Joe Saunders, LHP (1-1, 4.63 ERA)
Two finesse lefties face off in the third game of this series. The Yankees really needed a big game from CC in his last start against Tampa, but didn’t get it. I’d like to think they’ll get it here but CC hasn’t looked like CC this year and while his peripheral stats are pretty similar to what they’ve been throughout his Yankee career, his fastball velocity is still down almost 2 mph and I think it’s having a significant impact on his effectiveness. Saunders is back from Little League, and has made one crappy start and one pretty good one. As a lefty, he’s sure to give the Yankees fits.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Freddy Garcia, RHP (7-6, 5.09 ERA) vs. Zach Britton, LHP (5-1, 4.15 ERA)
Garcia’s got a 7.53 ERA over his last three starts while averaging less than 5 innings per game. He’s given up 12 runs over those three games. Zach Britton has a 0.94 ERA over his last four starts, and has struck out 29 hitters in 28.2 innings while going 4-0. Oh, and he’s a lefty.
I hate these pitching matchups. It will be a monumental task for the Yankees to win this series. I suppose Phelps vs. Hammel might be okay if Phelps rebounds a bit and Hammel is rusty. I’d be shocked if Hughes outpitched Chen. CC should be able to beat Saunders, but WTF knows? And that last game looks like a disaster.
I think we’re looking at a split here at best, and wouldn’t be surprised to see the Orioles taking 3 out of 4. Even if that happens, that just means the Yankees will be down by a game in the division as they head to Boston for three games while the Orioles get to host Tampa Bay for three. Unfortunately, this will probably be Boston’s version of the postseason. Fortunately, Boston’s probably not all that good right now and it may not matter.
I realize we feel like the Yankees should be in the postseason every year given their payroll, but it’s kind of fun to have meaningful games in September, isn’t it? Living and dying on every pitch for a month is an emotional roller coaster but that’s part of the entertainment factor of baseball, and one we don’t necessarily get enough of as Yankee fans who usually are watching their team set up their postseason rotation over the last few weeks of the year. It’s like an extended version of the postseason.
It also might be a good reminder that just getting into the postseason is a pretty good accomplishment in and of itself and the season’s not a failure if the Yankees don’t win the World Series. Despite what Randy Levine will surely say at the end of the year if they don’t.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Yankees.com: Yankees’ grip on East lead looser after loss
“It’s not a good feeling,” the Yankees’ Robinson Cano said. “You lose some games, and you just want to win games. You don’t want to put your head down. We’ve just got to turn the page; just be ready for tomorrow.”
That may be more difficult for Cano than others; the second baseman felt discomfort in his left hip trying to flag down the go-ahead hit, Chris Gimenez’s soft eighth-inning dribbler off losing pitcher David Robertson, as it scooted through the right side of the infield.
The Yankees do not expect Cano’s injury to force him to miss more than a day, but now that they’ve seen what was once a 10-game lead in the AL East trimmed to a single contest by virtue of the Orioles’ win over the Blue Jays, off-days are a luxury the Yankees can’t afford.
“I would love to keep the lead,” manager Joe Girardi said. “When you win the division, you don’t really care what you win by. You’d just love to keep the lead. That’s important.”
Scoring runs is also important. Staying healthy too. The Yankees seem to suck at both lately.
Friday, August 31, 2012
NJ.com: Carig: Yankees face Orioles in crucial series with first place in sight for Baltimore
However, sometimes numbers fail to project reality, and the status quo is rendered meaningless. Which is why as the Orioles arrive today for a three-game series, the Yankees find themselves faced with an unsettling reality.
Their lead in the American League East — which once stood at a seemingly insurmountable 10 games — has been whittled down to just three.
Inconceivable as it may have seemed just a month ago, an Orioles sweep this weekend would give them a share of first place with the Yankees, who have spent the last several weeks leaking oil.
The Orioles are really pissing Pythagoras off. The Yankees can help soothe him by winning two or three of the games in this series. Your pitching match ups for this series:
Friday, August 31
Miguel Gonzalez, RHP (5-3, 3.66 ERA) vs. Hiroki Kuroda, RHP (12-9, 2.98 ERA)
Saturday, September 1
Wei-Yin Chen, LHP (12-7, 3.78 ERA) vs. Freddy Garcia, RHP (7-5, 4.90 ERA)
Sunday, September 2
To Be Announced Chris Tillman, RHP (7-2, 3.26 ERA) vs. David Phelps, RHP (3-4, 2.96 ERA)
Not digging that Saturday match up much, and to be announced is never an easy pitcher to face so tonight’s game seems pretty freaking important. Plus winning tonight would guarantee that the Yankees would still be in first place on Monday, and that would be cool.
Update The postseason odds implications of this series are below.
| Now | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 93 | 69 | 794 | 674 | 87.5% | 5.5% | 4.2% | 97.1% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 695 | 607 | 9.4% | 23.5% | 27.1% | 60.0% |
| Orioles | 86 | 76 | 689 | 754 | 3.1% | 6.8% | 14.0% | 24.0% |
| Red Sox | 77 | 85 | 801 | 760 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 88 | 745 | 777 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Orioles 3 - 0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 91 | 71 | 794 | 674 | 70.5% | 10.6% | 7.4% | 88.4% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 695 | 607 | 15.6% | 16.4% | 21.5% | 53.4% |
| Orioles | 88 | 74 | 689 | 754 | 13.9% | 13.8% | 21.7% | 49.3% |
| Red Sox | 77 | 85 | 801 | 760 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 88 | 745 | 777 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Orioles 2 -1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 92 | 70 | 794 | 674 | 81.7% | 8.4% | 4.5% | 94.6% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 695 | 607 | 12.8% | 18.4% | 24.8% | 55.9% |
| Orioles | 87 | 75 | 689 | 754 | 5.5% | 11.9% | 18.6% | 36.0% |
| Red Sox | 77 | 85 | 801 | 760 | 0.0% | - | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 88 | 745 | 777 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 2-1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 93 | 69 | 794 | 674 | 88.4% | 5.6% | 3.0% | 96.9% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 695 | 607 | 10.4% | 22.7% | 27.5% | 60.6% |
| Orioles | 86 | 76 | 689 | 754 | 1.2% | 7.8% | 14.2% | 23.3% |
| Red Sox | 77 | 85 | 801 | 760 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 88 | 745 | 777 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Yankees 3-0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 94 | 68 | 794 | 674 | 92.9% | 4.4% | 2.0% | 99.3% |
| Rays | 88 | 74 | 695 | 607 | 6.2% | 24.1% | 29.8% | 60.1% |
| Orioles | 85 | 77 | 689 | 754 | 0.8% | 5.9% | 12.1% | 18.9% |
| Red Sox | 77 | 85 | 801 | 760 | 0.0% | - | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 88 | 745 | 777 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
Friday, August 24, 2012
NYDN: Yankees may need dominant final run to best AL East rivals
With six games remaining against the Rays and seven against the Orioles — all 13 of those games coming during a 17-day stretch beginning Aug. 31 — the Yankees will have every opportunity to control their own destiny.
“We play everyone,” Derek Jeter said. “It’s going to be tough, but all the teams that are close to us, we play. If we win, we win.”
The Rays have been the hottest team in baseball, entering Thursday 18-6 since July 28 to trim their deficit in the AL East from 9½ games to three.
While it’s true that the division will likely be decided mostly by how the Yankees, Rays and Orioles play against each other over the final stretch of the season, here’s how the three teams’ schedules compare.
| Orioles | xW | Rays | xW | Yankees | xW |
| 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.47 | 2 vs Athletics | 1.14 | 3 @ Indians | 1.90 |
| 4 vs White Sox | 1.77 | 3 @ Rangers | 1.41 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.85 |
| 3 @ Yankees | 1.06 | 4 @ Blue Jays | 2.22 | 3 vs Orioles | 1.94 |
| 3 @ Blue Jays | 1.35 | 3 vs Yankees | 1.50 | 3 @ Rays | 1.50 |
| 4 vs Yankees | 1.57 | 3 vs Rangers | 1.53 | 4 @ Orioles | 2.43 |
| 3 vs Rays | 1.24 | 3 @ Orioles | 1.76 | 3 @ Red Sox | 1.57 |
| 3 @ Athletics | 1.26 | 3 @ Yankees | 1.38 | 3 vs Rays | 1.62 |
| 3 @ Mariners | 1.33 | 4 vs Red Sox | 2.18 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.85 |
| 3 @ Red Sox | 1.19 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.79 | 3 vs Athletics | 1.77 |
| 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.47 | 2 @ Red Sox | 1.01 | 3 @ Twins | 1.89 |
| 3 vs Red Sox | 1.31 | 4 @ White Sox | 2.04 | 4 @ Blue Jays | 2.31 |
| 3 @ Rays | 1.12 | 3 vs Orioles | 1.88 | 3 vs Red Sox | 1.69 |
xW are expected wins for each series using Bill James’s Log 5 methodology accounting for home field advantage. According to that, the Orioles should win about 16 of their remaining games, the Rays should win about 20 and the Yankees should win about 22. If we remove the games against each other, the schedules look like this.
| Orioles | xW | Rays | xW | Yankees | xW |
| 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.47 | 2 vs Athletics | 1.14 | 3 @ Indians | 1.90 |
| 4 vs White Sox | 1.77 | 3 @ Rangers | 1.41 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.85 |
| 3 @ Blue Jays | 1.35 | 4 @ Blue Jays | 2.22 | 3 @ Red Sox | 1.57 |
| 3 @ Athletics | 1.26 | 3 vs Rangers | 1.53 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.85 |
| 3 @ Mariners | 1.33 | 4 vs Red Sox | 2.18 | 3 vs Athletics | 1.77 |
| 3 @ Red Sox | 1.19 | 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.79 | 3 @ Twins | 1.89 |
| 3 vs Blue Jays | 1.47 | 2 @ Red Sox | 1.01 | 4 @ Blue Jays | 2.31 |
| 3 vs Red Sox | 1.31 | 4 @ White Sox | 2.04 | 3 vs Red Sox | 1.69 |
| 11.14 | 13.31 | 14.83 |
The most difficult part of the Orioles’ schedule over the rest of the season is probably those four games against the White Sox and the three games in Oakland. They also have 9 games left vs. Toronto, who should be better with this weekend’s expected returns of Jose Bautista and Brandon Morrow.
The Rays probably have the most difficult remaining schedule of the three teams with six games against Texas and four games at Chicago.
In theory, the Yankees have the benefit of playing the slumping Indians and Twins three times apiece and have 10 games left against Toronto, although that’s likely to be less of an advantage with Bautista back and Morrow probably starting three of those games.
The common thorn in the ass for all three teams is the six games they have against Boston. As much as the Red Sox have underwhelmed this season, they’ll surely relish the chance to play spoiler for someone.
On paper, the Yankees have the easiest schedule of the three teams, but it probably won’t matter much if they don’t play well against Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
Friday, August 17, 2012
NYDN: Boston Red Sox visit Yankees with improbable dream to earn AL wild card spot
Boston is teetering on falling out of contention, despite winning in Baltimore Thursday night, 6-3. Players have complained to ownership about manager Bobby Valentine on more than one occasion. Owners have held a clandestine meeting with players, and Valentine wasn’t invited. And subsequent to this, all public sentiment has been supportive of the manager. It’s perplexing and reeks of dysfunction. A Yankees sweep could be the wreck on the hiighway.
The Sox say they still believe they will get hot, even though they’ve lost a lot more than they’ve won since the July 26 secret meetings (there also was one between ownership and Valentine). Their reality is it has to happen soon. The teams that lead for the AL wild cards are on pace to win approximately 87 games; the Sox could get there by winning about two out of every three to finish.
Here’s how I have MLB’s postseason odds looking as of this morning.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% |
| Yankees | 95 | 67 | 814 | 678 | 87.6% | 8.0% | 1.4% | 97.0% |
| Rays | 87 | 75 | 695 | 623 | 9.8% | 31.6% | 21.4% | 62.8% |
| Orioles | 82 | 80 | 690 | 765 | 1.7% | 7.7% | 11.3% | 20.6% |
| Red Sox | 80 | 82 | 804 | 741 | 0.6% | 3.0% | 5.7% | 9.3% |
| Blue Jays | 75 | 87 | 765 | 780 | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.7% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| White Sox | 90 | 72 | 751 | 699 | 66.2% | 6.8% | 8.5% | 81.5% |
| Tigers | 87 | 75 | 760 | 722 | 33.5% | 13.8% | 14.3% | 61.6% |
| Indians | 73 | 89 | 712 | 813 | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Royals | 71 | 91 | 679 | 749 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Twins | 69 | 93 | 727 | 836 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Rangers | 94 | 68 | 816 | 711 | 86.5% | 5.1% | 2.8% | 94.3% |
| Angels | 84 | 78 | 750 | 691 | 6.3% | 11.5% | 18.9% | 36.7% |
| Athletics | 84 | 78 | 667 | 657 | 6.7% | 11.9% | 14.4% | 33.0% |
| Mariners | 76 | 86 | 648 | 674 | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.9% |
| National League | ||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Nationals | 98 | 64 | 709 | 601 | 75.0% | 19.8% | 5.1% | 99.8% |
| Braves | 94 | 68 | 747 | 643 | 24.8% | 49.7% | 15.8% | 90.3% |
| Mets | 77 | 85 | 700 | 748 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
| Phillies | 75 | 87 | 673 | 692 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Marlins | 71 | 91 | 630 | 712 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Reds | 96 | 66 | 703 | 614 | 78.6% | 7.6% | 7.6% | 93.8% |
| Cardinals | 90 | 72 | 774 | 653 | 14.6% | 14.2% | 35.3% | 64.1% |
| Pirates | 87 | 75 | 676 | 684 | 6.5% | 6.8% | 24.2% | 37.5% |
| Brewers | 76 | 86 | 730 | 730 | 0.0% | - | 0.5% | 0.5% |
| Cubs | 65 | 97 | 616 | 731 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Astros | 55 | 107 | 610 | 800 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% |
| Giants | 87 | 75 | 683 | 652 | 50.1% | 0.7% | 3.5% | 54.3% |
| Dodgers | 86 | 76 | 647 | 632 | 36.2% | 0.7% | 4.3% | 41.2% |
| Diamondbacks | 83 | 79 | 717 | 681 | 13.5% | 0.2% | 2.8% | 16.4% |
| Padres | 70 | 92 | 618 | 695 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
| Rockies | 65 | 97 | 766 | 871 | 0.0% | - | - | - |
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
The Yankees can’t eliminate Boston with a sweep this weekend, but they can make it almost impossible for them to win the AL East. If the Yankees sweep Boston and then go 21-20 over the rest of the season, Boston would have to go 36-7 just to tie them. If the Yankees went 14-27 they’d end up at the 87 wins that the wild card leaders are on target for and Boston would still have to go 29-14 to tie them.
Here are the pitching matchups for this series.
Friday, August 17
Franklin Morales vs. Phil Hughes
Saturday, August 18
Jon Lester vs. David Phelps
Sunday, August 19
Josh Beckett vs. Hiroki Kuroda
Since seemingly turning the corner with his start on May 6, Phil Hughes has had the occasional bad start. However, until his last two turns in the rotation he’s been able to rebound in the following game. On May 28 he gave up 7 runs in 5.1 innings in Anaheim and followed that up with a complete game four-hitter where allowed just one run in Detroit. He gave up six runs at home against Atlanta on June 28 and followed that up with 8 shutout innings vs. Cleveland. Since May 6, Hughes hadn’t allowed more than three runs in any two consecutive starts until his last two.
But now that he’s had back-to-back poor starts I have to admit my faith in him is shaken. Tonight’s game would be a nice way to redeem some of that faith, but I’m not betting on him.
I like the other two match ups a bit better. I’ll be pretty disappointed if the Yankees don’t take at least two of these three games.
Monday, June 4, 2012
2012 MLB Projected Standings and Postseason Odds through June 3
It’s been a while since I last ran these, so here’s how things look as of this morning. Team projections are based about 2/3 on their average pre-season projection from here and 1/3 on YTD performance in component runs scored and allowed, with some adjustments for roster changes and injuries.
| Date | 6/4/2012 | ||||||||||
| Iterations | 1000000 | ||||||||||
| American League | |||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Yankees | 90 | 72 | 811 | 705 | 35.5% | 16.8% | 13.6% | 65.9% | -4.6 | -25 | -7 |
| Rays | 89 | 73 | 740 | 667 | 30.4% | 18.0% | 14.1% | 62.5% | 0.0 | -25 | -16 |
| Red Sox | 86 | 76 | 836 | 750 | 21.2% | 15.1% | 14.2% | 50.4% | -4.1 | 7 | 16 |
| Blue Jays | 82 | 80 | 776 | 755 | 9.1% | 8.5% | 10.9% | 28.5% | 0.4 | 2 | -20 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 711 | 782 | 3.8% | 4.6% | 6.9% | 15.3% | 7.9 | -1 | -37 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| White Sox | 85 | 77 | 731 | 735 | 43.4% | 4.1% | 5.5% | 53.0% | 9.0 | 24 | -37 |
| Indians | 81 | 81 | 749 | 763 | 24.3% | 3.6% | 5.4% | 33.3% | -0.9 | -18 | 11 |
| Tigers | 81 | 81 | 756 | 738 | 23.5% | 3.1% | 5.1% | 31.7% | -4.7 | -28 | 2 |
| Royals | 74 | 88 | 685 | 747 | 7.6% | 1.0% | 2.1% | 10.6% | -0.5 | -20 | -18 |
| Twins | 66 | 96 | 701 | 837 | 1.3% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 1.7% | -5.6 | -29 | 15 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 97 | 65 | 840 | 690 | 80.3% | 6.5% | 4.0% | 90.8% | 5.7 | 33 | -12 |
| Angels | 85 | 77 | 700 | 639 | 16.8% | 15.2% | 12.6% | 44.7% | -5.0 | -42 | -22 |
| Mariners | 74 | 88 | 680 | 721 | 1.9% | 2.4% | 3.8% | 8.1% | -0.2 | -2 | -20 |
| Athletics | 71 | 91 | 645 | 713 | 1.0% | 0.8% | 1.6% | 3.5% | -5.0 | -62 | -43 |
| National League | |||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Nationals | 88 | 74 | 659 | 614 | 29.3% | 12.0% | 10.8% | 52.1% | 3.8 | -24 | -42 |
| Braves | 87 | 75 | 730 | 681 | 25.0% | 11.2% | 10.7% | 47.0% | -0.6 | 16 | 15 |
| Marlins | 85 | 77 | 689 | 667 | 19.8% | 10.2% | 10.3% | 40.3% | 1.6 | -18 | -14 |
| Phillies | 85 | 77 | 693 | 640 | 18.4% | 10.4% | 10.5% | 39.3% | -4.2 | -5 | 11 |
| Mets | 80 | 82 | 694 | 747 | 7.6% | 5.2% | 6.8% | 19.6% | 6.5 | 11 | -6 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Reds | 91 | 71 | 701 | 643 | 50.0% | 11.7% | 8.1% | 69.8% | 3.8 | -14 | -17 |
| Cardinals | 89 | 73 | 758 | 676 | 35.7% | 13.0% | 9.7% | 58.4% | 2.0 | 27 | -2 |
| Brewers | 80 | 82 | 701 | 699 | 8.3% | 4.8% | 6.0% | 19.1% | -4.7 | 2 | 34 |
| Pirates | 77 | 85 | 611 | 693 | 4.9% | 2.9% | 4.3% | 12.0% | 5.3 | -57 | -59 |
| Astros | 69 | 93 | 630 | 745 | 0.8% | 0.4% | 0.8% | 2.0% | 5.7 | 25 | -11 |
| Cubs | 65 | 97 | 630 | 744 | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.7% | -6.1 | -26 | -6 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Giants | 87 | 75 | 660 | 638 | 39.4% | 6.1% | 6.4% | 51.8% | 2.5 | -12 | -10 |
| Dodgers | 87 | 75 | 659 | 659 | 38.3% | 6.2% | 6.8% | 51.3% | 11.6 | 18 | -31 |
| Diamondbacks | 80 | 82 | 681 | 683 | 13.9% | 3.5% | 4.9% | 22.4% | -3.7 | -12 | 10 |
| Rockies | 77 | 85 | 784 | 782 | 7.9% | 2.2% | 3.5% | 13.6% | -5.5 | 37 | 52 |
| Padres | 65 | 97 | 604 | 694 | 0.5% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.7% | -10.6 | -43 | 5 |
W: Projected final 2012 wins
L: Projected final 2012 losses
RS: Projected final 2012 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2012 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
W+/-: 2012 revised projected wins minus 2012 pre-season projected wins
RS+/-: 2012 revised projected runs scored minus 2012 pre-season projected runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2012 revised projected runs allowed minus 2012 pre-season projected runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
The Yankees have regained their rightful place at the top of the division, although they can lose that tomorrow pretty easily. They’re projecting to end the year almost five wins worse than they originally projected to, but at least so far no one aside from Texas in the AL looks like they’re likely to be much better.
The biggest surprise for me here is the White Sox, who are nine games ahead of their pre-season projections and now have a greater than 50% chance at their division. There is little evidence of luck in their component stats, so they haven’t gotten lucky in terms of wins vs. actual performance so far this year. Whether it will continue is the question, but no one else in their division looks all that great so why not?
I am getting way too much schadenfreude out of the Phillies now projecting to fourth and Cliff Lee having 0 wins despite a 3.00 ERA. Good choice Cliff! THe Nationals now hold a slight edge over the Braves in a pretty balanced division from top to bottom.
The Reds have passed St. Louis in the NL Central, which currently looks like a two team race. The Cubs and Padres are probably duking it out for worst team in baseball, which should please Twins and Astros fans.
The Dodgers are still the biggest overall gainer vs. pre-season projections although now it appears they’ll be neck and neck with San Francisco for the NL West.
There are still four months left, so a lot of this can/will change. So consider it more of a checkpoint than a prediction.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
What if the Yankees Had Performed at an Average Rate with Runners on Base?
With all the harping on the Yankees’ performance with runners in scoring position of late, I wondered how many more wins they’d have if they had just performed at an average rate in all base/out situations and weren’t so unclutch.
If we replace the Yankees actual runs scored in each game with the linear weights batting runs instead, they’d be 22-20 instead of 21-21. The only game they lost that they would have won was 4/24/2012 vs. Texas, the game where Yu Darvish out-dueled Hiroki Kuroda..
So no, this team really hasn’t been that unlucky. They just haven’t played very well.
Chicago Tribune: Yankees lose again, slip to .500
NEW YORK—They uttered the type of morale-boosting words teams search for when the results give them little to do but think of a brighter future.
Humbled by yet another loss in which their offense full of All-Stars stalled out, the New York Yankees emerged from their 6-0 defeat to the Kansas City Royals at on a windy, rainy Monday night vowing things would get better.
They could not get much worse at this point, as home runs by Mike Moustakas and Jeff Francoeur and 6 2/3 shutout innings by winning pitcher Felipe Paulino pushed the Yankees into a last-place tie with the Boston Red Sox.
Their sixth loss in their last seven games not only placed the Yankees (21-21) next to their usual neighbors at the top of the AL East at the bottom instead, but dropped them to .500 for the first time since April 18. Their struggling and sick first baseman, Mark Teixeira, endured a similar individual indignity, getting dropped to seventh in the lineup in his first start in four days, marking his lowest spot in the order in eight years, according to STATS LLC.
Remember when Boston was on the verge of collapse and we were all having fun?
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Postseason Implications of This Week’s Series with Tampa Bay
The Yankees begin a six game homestand tonight with Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is tied for first place with Baltimore, but it’s a pretty safe bet that they’re better than Baltimore and are a bigger threat to the Yankees’ chances at winning the division.
At the beginning of the season, the Yankees projected about three games better than Tampa Bay (94 wins vs. 91 wins) but the Rays now have a 3.5 game lead and the Yankees are a bit weaker with Michael Pineda on the shelf. Based on what’s happened so far and playing out the rest of the season according to how the teams project going forward gives me a final AL East standings projection that looks something like this.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rays | 91 | 71 | 761 | 682 | 44.6% | 26.0% | 12.8% | 83.4% | 2.1 | -4 | -1 |
| Yankees | 91 | 71 | 833 | 718 | 42.8% | 26.0% | 13.2% | 82.0% | -3.7 | -4 | 6 |
| Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 841 | 769 | 6.9% | 9.2% | 16.6% | 32.7% | -7.1 | 12 | 35 |
| Blue Jays | 82 | 80 | 773 | 755 | 4.9% | 8.3% | 13.4% | 26.6% | 1.2 | 0 | -21 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 719 | 783 | 0.9% | 2.3% | 4.8% | 8.0% | 8.3 | 6 | -36 |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
W+/-: 2012 revised projected wins minus 2012 pre-season projected wins
RS+/-: 2012 revised projected runs scored minus 2012 pre-season projected runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2012 revised projected runs allowed minus 2012 pre-season projected runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
The pitching matchups for this series are as follows.
Tuesday, May 8: The Undefeated James Shields (5-0, 3.05 ERA) vs. Ivan Nova (3-1, 5.58 ERA)
Wednesday, May 9: Jeff Niemann (2-3, 4.05 ERA) vs. David Phelps (0-1, 3.74 ERA)
Thursday, May 10: David Price (5-1, 2.35 ERA) vs. CC Sabathia (4-0, 4.15 ERA)
So here are how the standings and postseason odds change based on the various potential outcomes of this series.
| Rays 3-0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rays | 93 | 69 | 761 | 682 | 61.0% | 18.8% | 8.3% | 88.1% | 3.8 | -4 | -1 |
| Yankees | 89 | 73 | 833 | 718 | 26.2% | 28.5% | 17.0% | 71.7% | -5.3 | -4 | 6 |
| Red Sox | 83 | 79 | 841 | 769 | 5.6% | 11.7% | 15.4% | 32.8% | -7.5 | 12 | 35 |
| Blue Jays | 83 | 79 | 773 | 755 | 6.2% | 10.2% | 15.1% | 31.5% | 1.5 | 0 | -21 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 719 | 783 | 1.0% | 2.8% | 5.4% | 9.2% | 8.3 | 6 | -36 |
| Rays 2-1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rays | 92 | 70 | 761 | 682 | 51.9% | 21.4% | 12.5% | 85.7% | 2.7 | -4 | -1 |
| Yankees | 90 | 72 | 833 | 718 | 36.4% | 26.4% | 14.6% | 77.4% | -4.3 | -4 | 6 |
| Red Sox | 83 | 79 | 841 | 769 | 5.6% | 10.5% | 16.7% | 32.8% | -7.4 | 12 | 35 |
| Blue Jays | 83 | 79 | 773 | 755 | 5.4% | 9.6% | 12.9% | 27.9% | 1.4 | 0 | -21 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 719 | 783 | 0.8% | 2.0% | 6.5% | 9.3% | 8.0 | 6 | -36 |
| Yankees 2-1 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 91 | 71 | 833 | 718 | 44.7% | 24.9% | 13.9% | 83.5% | -3.4 | -4 | 6 |
| Rays | 91 | 71 | 761 | 682 | 40.4% | 24.5% | 13.2% | 78.1% | 1.8 | -4 | -1 |
| Red Sox | 83 | 79 | 841 | 769 | 7.9% | 9.9% | 16.1% | 34.0% | -7.2 | 12 | 35 |
| Blue Jays | 82 | 80 | 773 | 755 | 5.5% | 8.4% | 12.7% | 26.5% | 1.2 | 0 | -21 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 719 | 783 | 1.5% | 3.0% | 5.7% | 10.2% | 8.2 | 6 | -36 |
| Yankees 3-0 | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 92 | 70 | 833 | 718 | 52.1% | 22.1% | 11.3% | 85.5% | -2.6 | -4 | 6 |
| Rays | 90 | 72 | 761 | 682 | 33.9% | 26.6% | 15.7% | 76.2% | 0.8 | -4 | -1 |
| Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 841 | 769 | 7.7% | 11.2% | 15.1% | 34.0% | -7.1 | 12 | 35 |
| Blue Jays | 82 | 80 | 773 | 755 | 5.1% | 7.6% | 14.5% | 27.2% | 1.2 | 0 | -21 |
| Orioles | 78 | 84 | 719 | 783 | 1.1% | 2.4% | 6.4% | 10.0% | 8.4 | 6 | -36 |
Sure, it’s early. And yes, the Yankees play the Rays enough times over the rest of the season to make up any ground they lose in this series, but this is still a pretty important series. You might even say it’s the most important series of the season so far.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
How have the first two weeks of the 2012 MLB season changed team projections?
We’re roughly about 10% of the way throught the 2012 regular season, which is a pretty small sample size to make sweeping observations about how good or bad teams are. That doesn’t mean that what’s happened to this point isn’t important, because it is. I wanted to see what teams have seen the biggest shifts in their outlooks based on how they projected coming into the year compared what they have done since.
The way I looked at this involves three basic steps.
1) Get 2012 projections. In this case I’m using the average of the 2012 MLB projection blowout that I ran at the beginning of April.
2) Estimate revised team strength. For now, this is just a basic weighted average of the team’s projections heading into the year and their Pythagenpat performance to this point. I’m not making any adjustments for injuries/roster changes/etc., yet, although as we get deeper into the season I’ll probably do that.
3) Run the rest of the 2012 MLB season through my Monte Carlo simulator and see what happens. This includes a variable that alters team strength in each iteration to account for things that projections can’t account for.
Here’s what it says.
| Date | 4/22/2012 | ||||||||||
| Iterations | 100000 | ||||||||||
| American League | |||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC1 | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Yankees | 94 | 68 | 848 | 718 | 49.0% | 14.1% | 24.0% | 87.1% | -0.8 | 12 | 7 |
| Rays | 87 | 75 | 764 | 695 | 23.9% | 15.0% | 34.6% | 73.5% | -2.0 | -1 | 12 |
| Red Sox | 83 | 79 | 828 | 765 | 13.9% | 11.2% | 28.1% | 53.1% | -7.6 | -2 | 32 |
| Blue Jays | 81 | 81 | 780 | 775 | 11.6% | 7.8% | 21.4% | 40.9% | -0.5 | 6 | 0 |
| Orioles | 70 | 92 | 712 | 812 | 1.6% | 1.9% | 6.2% | 9.7% | 0.1 | -1 | -6 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Tigers | 88 | 74 | 780 | 730 | 46.6% | 6.1% | 17.7% | 70.4% | 2.9 | -4 | -6 |
| Indians | 86 | 76 | 779 | 758 | 33.4% | 8.2% | 22.3% | 63.9% | 3.6 | 12 | 7 |
| White Sox | 78 | 84 | 706 | 755 | 11.2% | 4.4% | 12.9% | 28.5% | 1.6 | -1 | -18 |
| Royals | 70 | 92 | 697 | 771 | 4.5% | 0.8% | 5.6% | 10.9% | -4.8 | -8 | 6 |
| Twins | 70 | 92 | 720 | 824 | 4.2% | 0.9% | 3.7% | 8.8% | -1.6 | -11 | 3 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 99 | 63 | 822 | 679 | 78.2% | 7.4% | 8.0% | 93.6% | 8.4 | 15 | -24 |
| Angels | 85 | 77 | 738 | 667 | 17.0% | 16.4% | 28.9% | 62.3% | -5.1 | -3 | 6 |
| Mariners | 73 | 89 | 672 | 734 | 2.8% | 3.2% | 7.8% | 13.8% | -1.5 | -10 | -7 |
| Athletics | 72 | 90 | 687 | 739 | 2.0% | 2.8% | 9.0% | 13.8% | -4.1 | -20 | -17 |
| National League | |||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Braves | 90 | 72 | 734 | 664 | 32.5% | 11.3% | 23.7% | 67.5% | 2.3 | 20 | -2 |
| Phillies | 88 | 74 | 677 | 611 | 25.9% | 12.4% | 21.6% | 59.9% | -1.4 | -21 | -17 |
| Nationals | 88 | 74 | 674 | 639 | 27.5% | 10.4% | 24.4% | 62.3% | 3.8 | -8 | -17 |
| Marlins | 82 | 80 | 699 | 672 | 11.3% | 8.4% | 18.2% | 37.9% | -1.8 | -8 | -9 |
| Mets | 74 | 88 | 677 | 749 | 2.8% | 3.0% | 8.5% | 14.3% | 0.2 | -6 | -3 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Cardinals | 94 | 68 | 740 | 662 | 53.9% | 10.5% | 16.8% | 81.1% | 7.2 | 9 | -17 |
| Brewers | 86 | 76 | 700 | 677 | 21.2% | 9.5% | 19.0% | 49.7% | 1.2 | 1 | 13 |
| Reds | 84 | 78 | 699 | 665 | 18.7% | 9.6% | 21.5% | 49.7% | -2.9 | -16 | 5 |
| Pirates | 73 | 89 | 639 | 726 | 3.3% | 1.8% | 6.2% | 11.3% | 1.5 | -29 | -26 |
| Cubs | 68 | 94 | 652 | 757 | 1.8% | 1.6% | 2.8% | 6.2% | -3.2 | -4 | 7 |
| Astros | 66 | 96 | 607 | 747 | 1.2% | 0.3% | 1.2% | 2.7% | 1.9 | 3 | -8 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | WC2 | PS% | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Giants | 85 | 77 | 672 | 649 | 29.6% | 5.3% | 14.9% | 49.8% | 0.6 | 0 | 2 |
| Dodgers | 83 | 79 | 649 | 674 | 22.7% | 5.3% | 11.1% | 39.1% | 8.1 | 8 | -17 |
| Diamondbacks | 83 | 79 | 687 | 677 | 22.8% | 4.3% | 14.1% | 41.2% | -1.3 | -6 | 3 |
| Rockies | 81 | 81 | 751 | 744 | 20.1% | 4.9% | 12.6% | 37.6% | -1.2 | 3 | 13 |
| Padres | 72 | 90 | 638 | 690 | 4.8% | 1.4% | 5.1% | 11.3% | -3.5 | -9 | 2 |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC1: Wild card win percentage
WC2: Wild card win percentage
PS: Postseason percentage (Div + WC1 + WC2)
W+/-: 2012 revised projected wins minus 2012 pre-season projected wins
RS+/-: 2012 revised projected runs scored minus 2012 pre-season projected runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2012 revised projected runs allowed minus 2012 pre-season projected runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
Good thing for Cliff Lee he signed with the young upstart Phillies instead of the old decrepit Yankees. And remember how the Rangers and Angels looked to be neck and neck heading into the year? Yeah. The Dodgers seem to have snuck their way into the division race now, but other than that the division standings look pretty similar to how they did entering the season.
And here’s a chart that shows the changes in revised team wins projections for each team.
| TM | W+/- |
| Rangers | 8.4 |
| Dodgers | 8.1 |
| Cardinals | 7.2 |
| Nationals | 3.8 |
| Indians | 3.6 |
| Tigers | 2.9 |
| Braves | 2.3 |
| Astros | 1.9 |
| White Sox | 1.6 |
| Pirates | 1.5 |
| Brewers | 1.2 |
| Giants | 0.6 |
| Mets | 0.2 |
| Orioles | 0.1 |
| Blue Jays | -0.5 |
| Yankees | -0.8 |
| Rockies | -1.2 |
| Diamondbacks | -1.3 |
| Phillies | -1.4 |
| Mariners | -1.5 |
| Twins | -1.6 |
| Marlins | -1.8 |
| Rays | -2.0 |
| Reds | -2.9 |
| Cubs | -3.2 |
| Padres | -3.5 |
| Athletics | -4.1 |
| Royals | -4.8 |
| Angels | -5.1 |
| Red Sox | -7.6 |
The Rangers have been destroying the competition and look like they’re probably the best team in baseball. The Dodgers and Cardinals are the biggest positive surprises in the National League so far. The Angels are the biggest disappointment in the AL.
But the Red Sox have to be the most pleasant surprise in baseball for me.
Friday, April 20, 2012
A Tale of Two Log 5s
The Yankees have been a bit under their expected record to this point using Bill James’s log 5 expectations given pre-season projections for them and their respective opponents and adjusting for home/road advantage/disadvantage.
The Red Sox have been more than a bit under their expected record using the same criteria. Here’s how they compare.
| Team | NYA | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Opp | xW | aW |
| 6-Apr | @TAM | 0.53 | 0 |
| 7-Apr | @TAM | 0.53 | 0 |
| 8-Apr | @TAM | 0.53 | 0 |
| 9-Apr | @BAL | 0.65 | 1 |
| 10-Apr | @BAL | 0.65 | 1 |
| 11-Apr | @BAL | 0.65 | 1 |
| 13-Apr | LAA | 0.52 | 1 |
| 14-Apr | LAA | 0.52 | 0 |
| 15-Apr | LAA | 0.52 | 1 |
| 16-Apr | MIN | 0.64 | 0 |
| 17-Apr | MIN | 0.64 | 1 |
| 18-Apr | MIN | 0.64 | 0 |
| 19-Apr | MIN | 0.64 | 1 |
| 7.68 | 7.00 |
| Team | BOS | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Opp | xW | aW |
| 5-Apr | @DET | 0.53 | 0 |
| 7-Apr | @DET | 0.53 | 0 |
| 8-Apr | @DET | 0.53 | 0 |
| 9-Apr | @TOR | 0.56 | 1 |
| 10-Apr | @TOR | 0.56 | 0 |
| 11-Apr | @TOR | 0.56 | 0 |
| 13-Apr | TAM | 0.51 | 1 |
| 14-Apr | TAM | 0.51 | 1 |
| 15-Apr | TAM | 0.51 | 1 |
| 16-Apr | TAM | 0.51 | 0 |
| 17-Apr | TEX | 0.50 | 0 |
| 18-Apr | TEX | 0.50 | 0 |
| 6.33 | 4.00 |
xW: Expected wins using log 5 and these pre-season projections
aW: Actual wins
The Yankees actually project as slight favorites in this series at 1.56 - 1.44. Here’s how the two teams’ would compare to their overall log 5 based on the various potential series outcomes.
Yankee sweep: Yankees aW: 10, xW: 9.23, Boston aW: 4, xW: 7.77
Yankees 2-1: Yankees aW: 9, xW: 9.23, Boston aW: 5, xw: 7.77
Boston 2-1: Yankees aW: 8, xW: 9.23, Boston aW: 6, xW: 7.77
Boston sweep: Yankees aW: 7, xW: 9.23, Boston aW: 7, xW: 7.77
So the Yankees really only need to win one of these games to remain closer to their relative expectations than Boston.
I’d obviously like to see more than that.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
April 2012 Log 5 Expectations for the Yankees
To determine how much I should panic after an 0-2 start, I put together a log 5 expectation chart for the Yankees in April. Bil James developed the log 5 methodology to assign win probabilities for a baseball game, and it’s basically team 1’s winning percentage plus 0.5 minus team 2’s winning percentage. For winning percentages I’m using the average of my 2012 projection blowout and I’m also incorporating a 0.04 home field advantage.
| Date | Game | xW | xL | cxW | cxL | aW | aL | caW | caL | delta |
| 4/6 | Yankees @ Rays | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -0.48 |
| 4/7 | Yankees @ Rays | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.97 | 1.03 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -0.97 |
| 4/8 | Yankees @ Rays | 0.48 | 0.52 | 1.45 | 1.55 | 0 | 2 | -1.45 | ||
| 4/9 | Yankees @ Orioles | 0.60 | 0.40 | 2.05 | 1.95 | 0 | 2 | -2.05 | ||
| 4/10 | Yankees @ Orioles | 0.60 | 0.40 | 2.65 | 2.35 | 0 | 2 | -2.65 | ||
| 4/11 | Yankees @ Orioles | 0.60 | 0.40 | 3.26 | 2.74 | 0 | 2 | -3.26 | ||
| 4/13 | Angels @ Yankees | 0.56 | 0.44 | 3.82 | 3.18 | 0 | 2 | -3.82 | ||
| 4/14 | Angels @ Yankees | 0.56 | 0.44 | 4.38 | 3.62 | 0 | 2 | -4.38 | ||
| 4/15 | Angels @ Yankees | 0.56 | 0.44 | 4.95 | 4.05 | 0 | 2 | -4.95 | ||
| 4/16 | Twins @ Yankees | 0.67 | 0.33 | 5.62 | 4.38 | 0 | 2 | -5.62 | ||
| 4/17 | Twins @ Yankees | 0.67 | 0.33 | 6.29 | 4.71 | 0 | 2 | -6.29 | ||
| 4/18 | Twins @ Yankees | 0.67 | 0.33 | 6.96 | 5.04 | 0 | 2 | -6.96 | ||
| 4/19 | Twins @ Yankees | 0.67 | 0.33 | 7.64 | 5.36 | 0 | 2 | -7.64 | ||
| 4/20 | Yankees @ Red Sox | 0.48 | 0.52 | 8.12 | 5.88 | 0 | 2 | -8.12 | ||
| 4/21 | Yankees @ Red Sox | 0.48 | 0.52 | 8.59 | 6.41 | 0 | 2 | -8.59 | ||
| 4/22 | Yankees @ Red Sox | 0.48 | 0.52 | 9.07 | 6.93 | 0 | 2 | -9.07 | ||
| 4/23 | Yankees @ Rangers | 0.47 | 0.53 | 9.54 | 7.46 | 0 | 2 | -9.54 | ||
| 4/24 | Yankees @ Rangers | 0.47 | 0.53 | 10.01 | 7.99 | 0 | 2 | -10.01 | ||
| 4/25 | Yankees @ Rangers | 0.47 | 0.53 | 10.48 | 8.52 | 0 | 2 | -10.48 | ||
| 4/27 | Tigers @ Yankees | 0.59 | 0.41 | 11.07 | 8.93 | 0 | 2 | -11.07 | ||
| 4/28 | Tigers @ Yankees | 0.59 | 0.41 | 11.66 | 9.34 | 0 | 2 | -11.66 | ||
| 4/29 | Tigers @ Yankees | 0.59 | 0.41 | 12.25 | 9.75 | 0 | 2 | -12.25 | ||
| 4/30 | Orioles @ Yankees | 0.68 | 0.32 | 12.93 | 10.07 | 0 | 2 | -12.93 |
xW: Expected win probability for this game
xL: Expected loss probability for this game
cxW: Cumulative expected win probabilities
cxL: Cumulative expected loss probabilities
aW: Actual wins
aL: Actual losses
caW: Cumulative actual wins
caL: Cumulative actual losses
delta: caW minus cxW. Positive means better than expected
Obviously you can’t win partial games, so it’s better to look at the big picture here. The delta basically shows where the Yankees are relative to where they should be. They’re now one game under their season-opening projection, and can get back within about one-half with a win today.
The Yankees would have to go about 13-10 this month if they want to be on pace to get to their average 94 win projection.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
The 2012 MLB Projection Blowout - ZiPS Edition
Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections are generally considered one of the best around. Dan does a lot of work with his own projected standings and other things at ESPN. You can see his AL and NL projections there if you’re an Insider.
Projecting the American League
Projecting the National League
Since I’m not an insider, I used Dan’s projectons to run my own standings. As with PECOTA, these should be considered unofficial.
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL East | NYA | 95 | 67 | 875 | 743 | 47.8% | 22.6% | 12.8% | 83.2% | 85 - 105 |
| AL East | TAM | 93 | 69 | 807 | 687 | 28.3% | 27.8% | 15.1% | 71.2% | 83 - 103 |
| AL East | BOS | 91 | 71 | 863 | 755 | 22.5% | 24.9% | 15.7% | 63.1% | 81 - 101 |
| AL East | TOR | 80 | 82 | 818 | 821 | 1.4% | 3.3% | 4.6% | 9.2% | 70 - 90 |
| AL East | BAL | 69 | 93 | 751 | 870 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 59 - 79 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL Central | DET | 84 | 78 | 812 | 776 | 47.4% | 0.8% | 9.2% | 57.4% | 74 - 94 |
| AL Central | CLE | 83 | 79 | 792 | 768 | 37.2% | 0.8% | 7.0% | 44.9% | 73 - 93 |
| AL Central | KC | 76 | 86 | 731 | 781 | 7.5% | 0.0% | 1.1% | 8.6% | 66 - 86 |
| AL Central | CHA | 74 | 88 | 730 | 827 | 4.9% | 0.0% | 1.0% | 5.8% | 64 - 84 |
| AL Central | MIN | 72 | 90 | 762 | 846 | 3.1% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 3.7% | 62 - 82 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL West | LAA | 92 | 70 | 772 | 670 | 53.6% | 9.0% | 15.0% | 77.7% | 82 - 102 |
| AL West | TEX | 91 | 71 | 833 | 727 | 45.1% | 10.2% | 17.1% | 72.3% | 81 - 101 |
| AL West | SEA | 74 | 88 | 705 | 768 | 1.2% | 0.4% | 0.8% | 2.4% | 64 - 84 |
| AL West | OAK | 73 | 89 | 722 | 791 | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.9% | 63 - 83 |
| AL | WC1 | 94 | ||||||||
| AL | WC2 | 91 | ||||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL East | PHI | 91 | 71 | 702 | 622 | 50.7% | 15.5% | 9.4% | 75.6% | 81 - 101 |
| NL East | ATL | 88 | 74 | 712 | 665 | 26.9% | 17.9% | 10.0% | 54.7% | 78 - 98 |
| NL East | FLA | 84 | 78 | 712 | 680 | 13.3% | 11.6% | 9.1% | 33.9% | 74 - 94 |
| NL East | WAS | 82 | 80 | 654 | 646 | 8.7% | 8.0% | 7.5% | 24.1% | 72 - 92 |
| NL East | NYN | 72 | 90 | 679 | 762 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.9% | 1.7% | 62 - 82 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL Central | CIN | 86 | 76 | 719 | 678 | 34.6% | 9.0% | 11.5% | 55.1% | 76 - 96 |
| NL Central | STL | 86 | 76 | 719 | 673 | 31.7% | 10.1% | 10.5% | 52.4% | 76 - 96 |
| NL Central | MIL | 86 | 76 | 709 | 655 | 30.3% | 9.0% | 12.1% | 51.5% | 76 - 96 |
| NL Central | PIT | 75 | 87 | 685 | 736 | 3.1% | 1.0% | 2.0% | 6.2% | 65 - 85 |
| NL Central | CHN | 70 | 92 | 657 | 766 | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.9% | 60 - 80 |
| NL Central | HOU | 63 | 99 | 602 | 759 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 53 - 73 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL West | SF | 86 | 76 | 689 | 652 | 42.5% | 5.7% | 10.2% | 58.4% | 76 - 96 |
| NL West | ARI | 86 | 76 | 693 | 660 | 39.6% | 6.6% | 10.2% | 56.4% | 76 - 96 |
| NL West | COL | 80 | 82 | 757 | 767 | 12.2% | 3.1% | 4.1% | 19.4% | 70 - 90 |
| NL West | SD | 76 | 86 | 637 | 679 | 5.0% | 1.5% | 2.3% | 8.8% | 66 - 86 |
| NL West | LAN | 72 | 90 | 624 | 697 | 0.7% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 1.5% | 62 - 82 |
| NL | WC1 | 90 | ||||||||
| NL | WC2 | 87 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
PS%: Total percentage team qualified for the postseason (DIV + WC1 + WC2)
W 1 Std: Wins within one standard deviation
The 2012 MLB Projection Blowout - Oliver Edition
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL East | NYA | 94 | 68 | 801 | 683 | 56.0% | 22.7% | 7.6% | 86.4% | 84 - 104 |
| AL East | BOS | 90 | 72 | 798 | 719 | 26.6% | 27.3% | 12.6% | 66.5% | 80 - 100 |
| AL East | TAM | 86 | 76 | 749 | 701 | 11.3% | 18.2% | 9.3% | 38.7% | 76 - 96 |
| AL East | TOR | 83 | 79 | 751 | 733 | 6.1% | 10.0% | 9.8% | 25.9% | 73 - 93 |
| AL East | BAL | 71 | 91 | 684 | 781 | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 61 - 81 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL Central | DET | 88 | 74 | 760 | 696 | 67.2% | 1.5% | 14.1% | 82.7% | 78 - 98 |
| AL Central | CHA | 79 | 83 | 695 | 711 | 13.0% | 2.4% | 5.5% | 20.9% | 69 - 89 |
| AL Central | CLE | 79 | 83 | 753 | 771 | 12.9% | 1.9% | 5.9% | 20.7% | 69 - 89 |
| AL Central | KC | 76 | 86 | 705 | 754 | 4.7% | 0.7% | 2.4% | 7.7% | 66 - 86 |
| AL Central | MIN | 73 | 89 | 716 | 793 | 2.2% | 0.4% | 1.4% | 3.9% | 63 - 83 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL West | LAA | 88 | 74 | 730 | 668 | 52.4% | 5.7% | 14.5% | 72.5% | 78 - 98 |
| AL West | TEX | 87 | 75 | 762 | 706 | 42.3% | 7.2% | 12.2% | 61.8% | 77 - 97 |
| AL West | SEA | 77 | 85 | 686 | 724 | 3.9% | 1.2% | 3.7% | 8.7% | 67 - 87 |
| AL West | OAK | 74 | 88 | 707 | 767 | 1.5% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 3.5% | 64 - 84 |
| AL | WC1 | 91 | ||||||||
| AL | WC2 | 88 | ||||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL East | ATL | 89 | 73 | 687 | 625 | 37.8% | 17.0% | 10.0% | 64.8% | 79 - 99 |
| NL East | MIA | 87 | 75 | 677 | 627 | 28.3% | 13.3% | 9.9% | 51.5% | 77 - 97 |
| NL East | PHI | 86 | 76 | 680 | 632 | 21.5% | 14.6% | 11.2% | 47.3% | 76 - 96 |
| NL East | WAS | 84 | 78 | 667 | 646 | 12.3% | 11.6% | 9.3% | 33.2% | 74 - 94 |
| NL East | NYN | 72 | 90 | 654 | 726 | 0.1% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 1.1% | 62 - 82 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL Central | CIN | 91 | 71 | 695 | 615 | 63.2% | 8.3% | 10.4% | 81.9% | 81 - 101 |
| NL Central | STL | 86 | 76 | 707 | 666 | 27.1% | 12.3% | 10.3% | 49.7% | 76 - 96 |
| NL Central | MIL | 81 | 81 | 672 | 672 | 8.1% | 5.8% | 6.5% | 20.3% | 71 - 91 |
| NL Central | CHN | 73 | 89 | 646 | 716 | 1.4% | 0.3% | 1.2% | 3.0% | 63 - 83 |
| NL Central | PIT | 70 | 92 | 649 | 748 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 60 - 80 |
| NL Central | HOU | 66 | 96 | 603 | 729 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 56 - 76 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL West | COL | 86 | 76 | 708 | 665 | 44.2% | 5.7% | 10.7% | 60.6% | 76 - 96 |
| NL West | ARI | 83 | 79 | 665 | 649 | 24.3% | 4.6% | 8.3% | 37.2% | 73 - 93 |
| NL West | SF | 83 | 79 | 654 | 640 | 25.9% | 3.9% | 8.0% | 37.8% | 73 - 93 |
| NL West | LAN | 75 | 87 | 636 | 683 | 3.2% | 1.5% | 2.6% | 7.2% | 65 - 85 |
| NL West | SD | 74 | 88 | 649 | 702 | 2.4% | 0.5% | 1.4% | 4.3% | 64 - 84 |
| NL | WC1 | 90 | ||||||||
| NL | WC2 | 87 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
PS%: Total percentage team qualified for the postseason (DIV + WC1 + WC2)
W 1 Std: Wins within one standard deviation
The 2012 MLB Projection Blowout - Marcel Edition
Marcel was developed by Tangotiger of The Book fame.
Although it’s considered the most basic projection system, it is generally as good as any other system since added complexity really hasn’t shown to add all that much accuracy over Marcel, and the principles behind it are solid and should be the basis for any good forecasting system. Marcel tends to regress more heavily towards the mean, so the standings here will be more compressed in the other systems. Marcel does not factor in minor league performance or performances in other leagues, and does not adjust for park. Any player who has not played in MLB will project as average. In Marcel, Tsuyoshi Wada and Yu Darvish have the same projection for example, so keep that in mind as you peruse the standings.
Here’s how it sees things looking in 2012.
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL East | NYA | 92 | 70 | 800 | 695 | 46.3% | 21.2% | 9.2% | 76.7% | 82 - 102 |
| AL East | BOS | 89 | 73 | 801 | 727 | 26.7% | 23.2% | 11.1% | 61.1% | 79 - 99 |
| AL East | TAM | 88 | 74 | 754 | 681 | 20.6% | 20.9% | 12.3% | 53.8% | 78 - 98 |
| AL East | TOR | 84 | 78 | 753 | 733 | 6.5% | 11.6% | 8.3% | 26.3% | 74 - 94 |
| AL East | BAL | 68 | 94 | 682 | 802 | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 58 - 78 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL Central | DET | 84 | 78 | 756 | 723 | 41.0% | 1.5% | 9.9% | 52.4% | 74 - 94 |
| AL Central | CLE | 83 | 79 | 755 | 738 | 33.7% | 2.0% | 8.4% | 44.1% | 73 - 93 |
| AL Central | CHA | 79 | 83 | 697 | 714 | 13.1% | 2.0% | 5.1% | 20.2% | 69 - 89 |
| AL Central | KC | 78 | 84 | 708 | 735 | 11.0% | 1.2% | 3.6% | 15.7% | 68 - 88 |
| AL Central | MIN | 70 | 92 | 711 | 818 | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 1.8% | 60 - 80 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL West | LAA | 87 | 75 | 725 | 671 | 44.6% | 5.7% | 13.0% | 63.3% | 77 - 97 |
| AL West | TEX | 87 | 75 | 762 | 703 | 40.3% | 7.1% | 11.3% | 58.6% | 77 - 97 |
| AL West | OAK | 80 | 82 | 710 | 715 | 10.9% | 2.2% | 5.4% | 18.5% | 70 - 90 |
| AL West | SEA | 77 | 85 | 680 | 721 | 4.2% | 1.0% | 2.6% | 7.8% | 67 - 87 |
| AL | WC1 | 91 | ||||||||
| AL | WC2 | 88 | ||||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL East | PHI | 90 | 72 | 729 | 651 | 47.0% | 13.3% | 9.9% | 70.1% | 80 - 100 |
| NL East | ATL | 88 | 74 | 729 | 668 | 32.2% | 17.5% | 11.1% | 60.8% | 78 - 98 |
| NL East | WAS | 85 | 77 | 710 | 681 | 15.6% | 14.0% | 8.9% | 38.5% | 75 - 95 |
| NL East | MIA | 80 | 82 | 715 | 727 | 4.8% | 4.9% | 7.1% | 16.8% | 70 - 90 |
| NL East | NYN | 74 | 88 | 698 | 759 | 0.6% | 0.9% | 1.6% | 3.1% | 64 - 84 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL Central | CIN | 89 | 73 | 734 | 664 | 54.2% | 8.5% | 9.8% | 72.5% | 79 - 99 |
| NL Central | STL | 85 | 77 | 749 | 718 | 25.9% | 9.2% | 10.5% | 45.6% | 75 - 95 |
| NL Central | MIL | 83 | 79 | 714 | 693 | 19.1% | 9.5% | 7.7% | 36.3% | 73 - 93 |
| NL Central | PIT | 72 | 90 | 687 | 772 | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 1.4% | 62 - 82 |
| NL Central | CHN | 71 | 91 | 675 | 773 | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.9% | 61 - 81 |
| NL Central | HOU | 66 | 96 | 638 | 771 | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 56 - 76 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL West | COL | 86 | 76 | 746 | 696 | 40.9% | 6.6% | 11.1% | 58.6% | 76 - 96 |
| NL West | ARI | 84 | 78 | 704 | 682 | 26.1% | 6.4% | 9.3% | 41.8% | 74 - 94 |
| NL West | SF | 84 | 78 | 688 | 670 | 27.5% | 6.5% | 8.9% | 42.9% | 74 - 94 |
| NL West | LAN | 76 | 86 | 669 | 714 | 3.8% | 1.4% | 2.0% | 7.2% | 66 - 86 |
| NL West | SD | 74 | 88 | 679 | 737 | 1.7% | 0.7% | 1.4% | 3.8% | 64 - 84 |
| NL | WC1 | 90 | ||||||||
| NL | WC2 | 87 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
PS%: Total percentage team qualified for the postseason (DIV + WC1 + WC2)
W 1 Std: Wins within one standard deviation
CAIRO 2012 v1.0 and Final Pre-season MLB Standings Projection
I’ve uploaded the final pre-season 2012 CAIRO projections and projected standings. They can be downloaded here.
Yeah, I know Opening Day was technically last week. Sue me.
Here are the standings and of course, the pie charts. I should be posting more projected standings from other systems later today, so I’ll save the disclaimers and explanations for after that’s all done.
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL East | NYA | 96 | 66 | 848 | 713 | 52.8% | 19.6% | 11.1% | 83.5% | 86 - 106 |
| AL East | BOS | 91 | 71 | 857 | 751 | 23.7% | 21.0% | 16.1% | 60.8% | 81 - 101 |
| AL East | TAM | 91 | 71 | 765 | 667 | 22.4% | 25.7% | 14.9% | 63.0% | 81 - 101 |
| AL East | TOR | 79 | 83 | 771 | 793 | 0.8% | 2.4% | 3.1% | 6.2% | 69 - 89 |
| AL East | BAL | 70 | 92 | 736 | 838 | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 60 - 80 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL Central | DET | 87 | 75 | 803 | 741 | 55.2% | 1.3% | 10.3% | 66.8% | 77 - 97 |
| AL Central | CLE | 84 | 78 | 759 | 721 | 36.4% | 2.4% | 9.3% | 48.0% | 74 - 94 |
| AL Central | CHA | 74 | 88 | 699 | 806 | 3.0% | 0.2% | 0.8% | 4.0% | 64 - 84 |
| AL Central | KC | 73 | 89 | 682 | 754 | 3.6% | 0.2% | 0.8% | 4.6% | 63 - 83 |
| AL Central | MIN | 71 | 91 | 725 | 815 | 1.8% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 2.1% | 61 - 81 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| AL West | TEX | 93 | 69 | 809 | 685 | 54.2% | 12.7% | 17.3% | 84.1% | 83 - 103 |
| AL West | LAA | 92 | 70 | 739 | 640 | 44.7% | 14.3% | 14.6% | 73.6% | 82 - 102 |
| AL West | OAK | 74 | 88 | 685 | 753 | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.9% | 1.7% | 64 - 84 |
| AL West | SEA | 73 | 89 | 669 | 742 | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.6% | 1.2% | 63 - 83 |
| AL | WC1 | 93 | ||||||||
| AL | WC2 | 90 | ||||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL East | PHI | 91 | 71 | 690 | 610 | 51.0% | 15.1% | 9.0% | 75.0% | 81 - 101 |
| NL East | ATL | 86 | 76 | 705 | 664 | 20.5% | 16.4% | 10.2% | 47.1% | 76 - 96 |
| NL East | WAS | 85 | 77 | 669 | 632 | 17.7% | 12.8% | 9.7% | 40.1% | 75 - 95 |
| NL East | FLA | 83 | 79 | 710 | 694 | 10.3% | 8.6% | 7.0% | 25.9% | 73 - 93 |
| NL East | NYN | 74 | 88 | 665 | 737 | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 2.2% | 64 - 84 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL Central | STL | 89 | 73 | 728 | 654 | 47.2% | 11.1% | 9.4% | 67.7% | 79 - 99 |
| NL Central | MIL | 86 | 76 | 695 | 646 | 29.2% | 11.6% | 11.8% | 52.6% | 76 - 96 |
| NL Central | CIN | 85 | 77 | 707 | 670 | 22.7% | 10.8% | 11.2% | 44.8% | 75 - 95 |
| NL Central | PIT | 71 | 91 | 653 | 743 | 0.6% | 0.3% | 1.0% | 1.9% | 61 - 81 |
| NL Central | CHN | 71 | 91 | 648 | 748 | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.9% | 61 - 81 |
| NL Central | HOU | 61 | 101 | 584 | 752 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 51 - 71 |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PS% | W 1 Std |
| NL West | SF | 85 | 77 | 663 | 634 | 36.5% | 5.2% | 10.2% | 51.9% | 75 - 95 |
| NL West | ARI | 84 | 78 | 692 | 674 | 33.9% | 3.0% | 9.2% | 46.0% | 74 - 94 |
| NL West | COL | 82 | 80 | 755 | 750 | 21.2% | 2.9% | 6.6% | 30.7% | 72 - 92 |
| NL West | SD | 76 | 86 | 635 | 674 | 4.1% | 0.9% | 1.6% | 6.6% | 66 - 86 |
| NL West | LAN | 75 | 87 | 622 | 671 | 4.3% | 0.3% | 2.5% | 7.1% | 65 - 85 |
| NL | WC1 | 90 | ||||||||
| NL | WC2 | 88 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
PS%: Total percentage team qualified for the postseason (DIV + WC1 + WC2)
W 1 Std: Wins within one standard deviation
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
CAIRO 2012 v0.5 and More Somewhat Useless Projected Standings
I’ve uploaded the latest version of the 2012 MLB CAIRO projections. They can be downloaded here.
The only changes from version 0.4 were moving players who were signed/traded to their new teams. I think this will probably be the last release until right before Opening Day unless I find any issues.
I figured since I’ve updated again I’d run another set of projected standings so here is what they look like.
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| AL East | NYA | 97 | 65 | 844 | 692 | 54.3% | 22.5% | 8.0% | 84.8% |
| AL East | TAM | 92 | 70 | 772 | 660 | 23.2% | 27.4% | 14.1% | 64.8% |
| AL East | BOS | 92 | 70 | 862 | 745 | 22.1% | 27.0% | 15.3% | 64.4% |
| AL East | TOR | 78 | 84 | 758 | 795 | 0.4% | 1.2% | 2.6% | 4.1% |
| AL East | BAL | 70 | 92 | 734 | 847 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| AL Central | DET | 88 | 74 | 814 | 741 | 60.7% | 1.6% | 12.7% | 75.0% |
| AL Central | CLE | 84 | 78 | 763 | 729 | 32.1% | 0.8% | 9.5% | 42.4% |
| AL Central | CHA | 74 | 88 | 705 | 805 | 3.5% | 0.2% | 1.0% | 4.7% |
| AL Central | KC | 74 | 88 | 687 | 762 | 3.3% | 0.0% | 0.8% | 4.1% |
| AL Central | MIN | 67 | 95 | 720 | 861 | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.5% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| AL West | TEX | 92 | 70 | 812 | 695 | 51.2% | 8.6% | 17.0% | 76.8% |
| AL West | LAA | 91 | 71 | 741 | 653 | 47.0% | 9.9% | 16.6% | 73.5% |
| AL West | OAK | 76 | 86 | 685 | 735 | 0.7% | 0.6% | 1.7% | 2.9% |
| AL West | SEA | 74 | 88 | 673 | 729 | 1.2% | 0.2% | 1.0% | 2.4% |
| AL | WC1 | 94 | |||||||
| AL | WC2 | 91 | |||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL East | PHI | 92 | 70 | 701 | 605 | 60.8% | 12.4% | 9.1% | 82.2% |
| NL East | WAS | 86 | 76 | 676 | 625 | 18.6% | 18.2% | 9.1% | 45.8% |
| NL East | ATL | 85 | 77 | 700 | 676 | 13.2% | 12.5% | 11.0% | 36.7% |
| NL East | FLA | 82 | 80 | 708 | 699 | 7.3% | 8.0% | 7.1% | 22.3% |
| NL East | NYN | 75 | 87 | 670 | 733 | 0.3% | 1.2% | 1.8% | 3.2% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL Central | STL | 90 | 72 | 737 | 654 | 47.8% | 12.4% | 10.3% | 70.5% |
| NL Central | CIN | 87 | 75 | 715 | 665 | 27.3% | 11.6% | 12.1% | 51.0% |
| NL Central | MIL | 86 | 76 | 696 | 645 | 24.6% | 12.3% | 11.7% | 48.6% |
| NL Central | CHN | 71 | 91 | 650 | 745 | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.5% |
| NL Central | PIT | 68 | 94 | 649 | 764 | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| NL Central | HOU | 60 | 102 | 584 | 773 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.3% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL West | SF | 85 | 77 | 663 | 630 | 38.1% | 3.1% | 8.4% | 49.5% |
| NL West | ARI | 84 | 78 | 659 | 634 | 33.5% | 3.6% | 8.9% | 46.1% |
| NL West | COL | 81 | 81 | 761 | 759 | 18.3% | 3.0% | 6.6% | 27.9% |
| NL West | SD | 76 | 86 | 633 | 668 | 5.2% | 0.8% | 2.2% | 8.2% |
| NL West | LAN | 75 | 87 | 621 | 669 | 4.9% | 0.7% | 1.8% | 7.3% |
| NL | WC1 | 90 | |||||||
| NL | WC2 | 88 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
These look more realistic to me than the last set I ran with Marcel. Probably a bit high on the Yankees, but since CAIRO was created to make the Yankees look better than they are that stands to reason.
I am a bit surprised that Washington now projects better than Atlanta, even if it’s just a one game edge. The only other major differences from this and the Marcel version is St. Louis at the top of the NL Central and San Francisco and Arizona above Colorado, both of which make sense to me.
Anyway, it’s still early, this is still not that useful, etc.,
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Still Too Early 2012 MLB Standings Projection
Instead of running these with CAIRO this time I used Marcel, mainly out of curiosity in seeing what an unbiased projection that was not created to make the Yankees look better than they are would say.
It says this.
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% | ||||
| AL East | NYA | 92 | 70 | 785 | 682 | 45.3% | 20.3% | 10.4% | 76.0% | ||||
| AL East | BOS | 90 | 72 | 830 | 750 | 27.9% | 26.1% | 10.8% | 64.8% | ||||
| AL East | TAM | 88 | 74 | 717 | 646 | 23.7% | 21.2% | 12.2% | 57.1% | ||||
| AL East | TOR | 81 | 81 | 723 | 727 | 3.0% | 6.9% | 6.8% | 16.7% | ||||
| AL East | BAL | 70 | 92 | 694 | 806 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.3% | ||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% | ||||
| AL Central | DET | 84 | 78 | 747 | 708 | 43.0% | 2.4% | 10.1% | 55.4% | ||||
| AL Central | CLE | 83 | 79 | 722 | 708 | 30.6% | 2.9% | 7.8% | 41.3% | ||||
| AL Central | CHA | 79 | 83 | 686 | 703 | 15.2% | 1.5% | 4.2% | 20.9% | ||||
| AL Central | KC | 79 | 83 | 691 | 714 | 10.8% | 1.9% | 4.1% | 16.9% | ||||
| AL Central | MIN | 68 | 94 | 693 | 813 | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.5% | ||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% | ||||
| AL West | LAA | 87 | 75 | 719 | 663 | 43.7% | 6.1% | 11.4% | 61.2% | ||||
| AL West | TEX | 87 | 75 | 765 | 707 | 38.2% | 6.9% | 13.4% | 58.6% | ||||
| AL West | OAK | 82 | 80 | 682 | 674 | 14.9% | 3.1% | 7.4% | 25.3% | ||||
| AL West | SEA | 76 | 86 | 649 | 689 | 3.2% | 0.7% | 1.6% | 5.5% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL East | PHI | 90 | 72 | 689 | 615 | 44.8% | 16.5% | 10.7% | 72.0% |
| NL East | ATL | 89 | 73 | 668 | 608 | 38.2% | 19.2% | 9.9% | 67.3% |
| NL East | WAS | 83 | 79 | 645 | 634 | 10.8% | 10.3% | 8.1% | 29.2% |
| NL East | FLA | 80 | 82 | 682 | 690 | 5.7% | 5.2% | 5.4% | 16.3% |
| NL East | NYN | 74 | 88 | 630 | 680 | 0.6% | 1.5% | 1.2% | 3.2% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL Central | CIN | 89 | 73 | 719 | 647 | 60.4% | 8.4% | 10.9% | 79.7% |
| NL Central | STL | 84 | 78 | 708 | 681 | 24.6% | 10.7% | 7.0% | 42.2% |
| NL Central | MIL | 81 | 81 | 678 | 672 | 13.1% | 6.7% | 7.7% | 27.5% |
| NL Central | PIT | 72 | 90 | 657 | 732 | 1.6% | 0.2% | 1.0% | 2.8% |
| NL Central | CHN | 70 | 92 | 668 | 761 | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 1.0% |
| NL Central | HOU | 66 | 96 | 617 | 749 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| Div | Team | W | L | RF | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL West | COL | 85 | 77 | 749 | 711 | 32.1% | 6.4% | 10.9% | 49.4% |
| NL West | ARI | 85 | 77 | 685 | 656 | 30.8% | 7.3% | 10.8% | 48.9% |
| NL West | SF | 85 | 77 | 629 | 606 | 29.6% | 5.4% | 11.3% | 46.3% |
| NL West | LAN | 76 | 86 | 618 | 659 | 4.1% | 1.5% | 2.7% | 8.2% |
| NL West | SD | 75 | 87 | 608 | 653 | 3.4% | 0.6% | 2.5% | 6.4% |
Div: Percent of time team won division
WC 1: Percent of time team won first wild card
WC 2: Percent of time team won second wild card
We still don’t know if there will be a second wild card yet, so you can chop off that column and subtract that percentage from the team’s over playoff percentage.
Because Marcel regresses more heavily than other projections and because it assumes every one who hasn’t played in MLB projects as league average, you see a tighter spread here than you’ll see in other projected standings. The standard deviation for team wins in my last CAIRO projections was about 9. In this version it’s 7.1. That may be more realistic if you think about how little we really know about how good/bad players and teams are, even though what will actually happen in 2012 will show a much bigger spread more in line with other projected standings.
Here are the average win totals for the placings in each division and for the two wild cards.
| Div | Place | Avg W |
| AL East | 1 | 96 |
| AL East | 2 | 91 |
| AL East | 3 | 86 |
| AL East | 4 | 80 |
| AL East | 5 | 69 |
| Div | Avg W | |
| AL Central | 1 | 89 |
| AL Central | 2 | 83 |
| AL Central | 3 | 79 |
| AL Central | 4 | 75 |
| AL Central | 5 | 67 |
| Div | Avg W | |
| AL West | 1 | 92 |
| AL West | 2 | 86 |
| AL West | 3 | 81 |
| AL West | 4 | 74 |
| AL WC 1 | 91 | |
| AL WC2 | 88 | |
| Div | Avg W | |
| NL East | 1 | 94 |
| NL East | 2 | 88 |
| NL East | 3 | 83 |
| NL East | 4 | 78 |
| NL East | 5 | 72 |
| Div | Avg W | |
| NL Central | 1 | 92 |
| NL Central | 2 | 85 |
| NL Central | 3 | 80 |
| NL Central | 4 | 74 |
| NL Central | 5 | 69 |
| NL Central | 6 | 63 |
| Div | Avg W | |
| NL West | 1 | 91 |
| NL West | 2 | 85 |
| NL West | 3 | 81 |
| NL West | 4 | 77 |
| NL West | 5 | 71 |
| NL WC1 | 89 | |
| NL WC2 | 87 |
What this shows is that on average a team needed 96 wins to win the AL East, etc.,.
Some obvious things to consider would be:
- the difference between Yu Darvish (and other imports) and a league average pitcher
- prospects who project better than league average
- players who switched to parks that will affect their projections since Marcel does not park-adjust
Despite all that, the ordinal rankings seem reasonable. The only differences between this and CAIRO in that regard are that I have St. Louis ahead of Cincinnati and the Diamondbacks and Giants ahead of Colorado.
This is current through Francisco Cordero signing with Toronto, and assumes Prince Fielder at 1B and Miguel Cabrera playing a terrible version of 3B for Detroit in 70% of their games, and DHing in 25% of them.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Still Way Too Early and Mostly Useless 2012 Projected Standings
I was goofing around with the second wild card thing in my simulator and ran an updated set of still way too early and mostly useless projected standings. I think I liked the last set better.
The same disclaimers from the last set apply here and you can read them by clicking the link in the previous paragraph, so I’m not going to repeat them. In summary, ignore these if you don’t like them.
| Div | Team | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| AL East | |||||||||
| 1 | BOS | 93.7 | 68.3 | 872 | 733 | 43.8% | 20.85% | 12.82% | 77.44% |
| 2 | NYA | 93.0 | 69.0 | 859 | 742 | 38.9% | 19.58% | 13.74% | 72.24% |
| 3 | TAM | 88.9 | 73.1 | 733 | 651 | 17.0% | 15.37% | 13.38% | 45.71% |
| 4 | TOR | 77.9 | 84.1 | 770 | 798 | 0.4% | 1.13% | 3.31% | 4.79% |
| 5 | BAL | 64.8 | 97.2 | 717 | 885 | 0.0% | 0.00% | 0.06% | 0.06% |
| AL Central | |||||||||
| 1 | DET | 88.9 | 73.1 | 785 | 702 | 63.2% | 1.78% | 14.80% | 79.74% |
| 2 | CLE | 85.0 | 77.0 | 749 | 706 | 30.6% | 3.40% | 9.19% | 43.14% |
| 3 | CHA | 75.7 | 86.3 | 707 | 789 | 4.2% | 0.15% | 1.82% | 6.12% |
| 4 | KC | 73.5 | 88.5 | 682 | 755 | 1.8% | 0.05% | 0.64% | 2.44% |
| 5 | MIN | 67.4 | 94.6 | 715 | 850 | 0.4% | 0.00% | 0.06% | 0.46% |
| AL West | |||||||||
| 1 | TEX | 94.1 | 67.9 | 817 | 680 | 52.9% | 16.77% | 14.32% | 83.94% |
| 2 | LAA | 93.3 | 68.7 | 746 | 637 | 46.2% | 18.67% | 12.96% | 77.83% |
| 3 | SEA | 76.5 | 85.5 | 658 | 697 | 0.9% | 1.30% | 2.57% | 4.72% |
| 4 | OAK | 74.0 | 88.0 | 650 | 713 | 0.1% | 0.95% | 0.93% | 1.98% |
| WC1 | 93.4 | ||||||||
| WC2 | 90.4 | ||||||||
| Div | Team | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC 1 | WC 2 | PL% |
| NL East | |||||||||
| 1 | PHI | 92.7 | 69.3 | 702 | 603 | 64.4% | 11.32% | 8.43% | 84.11% |
| 2 | ATL | 86.8 | 75.2 | 715 | 671 | 20.7% | 19.83% | 10.72% | 51.24% |
| 3 | WAS | 82.4 | 79.6 | 674 | 655 | 7.3% | 9.83% | 7.96% | 25.07% |
| 4 | FLA | 81.6 | 80.4 | 715 | 703 | 6.5% | 7.28% | 7.39% | 21.16% |
| 5 | NYN | 76.2 | 85.8 | 669 | 717 | 1.3% | 1.54% | 2.25% | 5.07% |
| NL Central | Team | ||||||||
| 1 | STL | 90.3 | 71.7 | 743 | 650 | 53.1% | 11.63% | 9.61% | 74.36% |
| 2 | CIN | 86.4 | 75.6 | 714 | 665 | 25.1% | 12.02% | 12.56% | 49.71% |
| 3 | MIL | 85.8 | 76.2 | 696 | 660 | 21.3% | 12.96% | 8.46% | 42.75% |
| 4 | CHN | 70.5 | 91.5 | 652 | 755 | 0.4% | 0.50% | 0.16% | 1.01% |
| 5 | PIT | 69.2 | 92.9 | 655 | 760 | 0.1% | 0.08% | 0.11% | 0.24% |
| 6 | HOU | 57.9 | 104.1 | 572 | 779 | 0.0% | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.01% |
| NL West | Team | ||||||||
| 1 | SF | 85.5 | 76.5 | 667 | 627 | 40.1% | 4.83% | 11.28% | 56.16% |
| 2 | ARI | 85.4 | 76.6 | 668 | 635 | 39.6% | 4.48% | 11.24% | 55.36% |
| 3 | COL | 79.3 | 82.7 | 767 | 784 | 10.4% | 1.62% | 4.36% | 16.34% |
| 4 | SD | 76.8 | 85.2 | 641 | 667 | 5.3% | 0.94% | 3.87% | 10.10% |
| 5 | LAN | 76.5 | 85.5 | 626 | 666 | 4.7% | 1.13% | 2.21% | 8.01% |
| WC1 | 90.3 | ||||||||
| WC2 | 87.7 |
Div: Percentage of times team won division
WC 1: Percentage of times team won first wild card
WC 2: Percentage of times team won second wild card
Nothing would make me happier than Houston winning the second wild card and going all the way. Maybe then the second wild card thing will die before completely ruining baseball.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
CAIRO 2012 v0.3 and Some Extremely Early and Completely Useless 2012 Projected Standings
I’m releasing CAIRO 2012 v 0.3 today which mainly fixes a problem with a handful of pitchers like Alexi Ogando and Ross Ohlendorf and moves players to new teams where applicable. I figure it’d be a good time to run some projected standings even though they are too early to be of any real value.
DISCLAIMER: This is very limited in telling us much about how 2012 will play out for a large number of reasons.
1) There are still a lot of roster changes coming. This may give us some sense of how the offseason has impacted teams to this point and it also shows us how things might look if nothing changed from now until April. Which won’t happen.
2) It’s too early to construct meaningful rosters for a lot of teams, so these projections will favor the teams that have essentially completed their 2012 rosters.
3) In addition to that, projection systems are inherently limited. They are designed to estimate a player’s true talent based on what they’ve done so far and also by factoring in things like age and how similar players have performed in the past. They will generally be in the ballpark for the general population of MLB players, but they can miss significantly on individual players which can obviously affect certain teams more heavily than others.
Anyway, using the depth charts from the wonderful MLB Depth Charts and includng playing time from players on the 40 man roster who don’t necessarily figure to be part of the the opening day 25 man rosters to account for organizational depth and playing out next season 100,000 times, here’s how CAIRO v0.3 sees things as of December 13, 2011. These were run with Aramis Ramirez as a Brewer, but I didn’t remove any of the non-tendered players from yesterday from their rosters.
| Date | 12/13/2011 | ||||||
| Iterations | 100000 | ||||||
| American League | |||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 94 | 68 | 862 | 740 | 59.0% | 16.8% | 75.9% |
| Red Sox | 91 | 71 | 868 | 763 | 31.1% | 26.1% | 57.2% |
| Rays | 85 | 77 | 717 | 654 | 9.5% | 11.8% | 21.4% |
| Blue Jays | 75 | 87 | 773 | 817 | 0.3% | 0.6% | 0.9% |
| Orioles | 68 | 94 | 741 | 853 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Tigers | 89 | 73 | 780 | 703 | 54.3% | 4.7% | 59.0% |
| Indians | 87 | 75 | 751 | 696 | 40.8% | 5.9% | 46.6% |
| White Sox | 77 | 85 | 723 | 795 | 3.3% | 1.5% | 4.8% |
| Royals | 73 | 89 | 684 | 760 | 1.6% | 0.2% | 1.8% |
| Twins | 66 | 96 | 698 | 829 | 0.0% | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Rangers | 93 | 69 | 812 | 697 | 58.0% | 13.7% | 71.6% |
| Angels | 90 | 72 | 720 | 640 | 39.5% | 16.6% | 56.1% |
| Mariners | 77 | 85 | 653 | 668 | 2.3% | 2.0% | 4.2% |
| Athletics | 71 | 91 | 636 | 686 | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.4% |
| National League | |||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Phillies | 92 | 70 | 681 | 598 | 60.6% | 10.5% | 71.1% |
| Braves | 87 | 75 | 711 | 662 | 24.9% | 13.8% | 38.7% |
| Marlins | 81 | 81 | 716 | 695 | 8.2% | 4.4% | 12.6% |
| Nationals | 80 | 82 | 665 | 668 | 4.9% | 3.2% | 8.1% |
| Mets | 76 | 86 | 669 | 710 | 1.4% | 1.6% | 3.0% |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Brewers | 92 | 70 | 700 | 646 | 52.5% | 14.3% | 66.7% |
| Cardinals | 90 | 72 | 708 | 648 | 36.8% | 19.3% | 56.2% |
| Reds | 84 | 78 | 724 | 704 | 10.1% | 10.8% | 20.9% |
| Cubs | 74 | 88 | 649 | 727 | 0.3% | 1.1% | 1.4% |
| Pirates | 70 | 92 | 656 | 758 | 0.4% | - | 0.4% |
| Astros | 60 | 102 | 569 | 759 | 0.0% | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Giants | 88 | 74 | 656 | 613 | 46.3% | 6.4% | 52.7% |
| Diamondbacks | 86 | 76 | 647 | 613 | 31.2% | 6.4% | 37.6% |
| Padres | 81 | 81 | 620 | 613 | 11.3% | 4.6% | 15.9% |
| Dodgers | 79 | 83 | 624 | 644 | 7.9% | 2.9% | 10.8% |
| Rockies | 76 | 86 | 726 | 776 | 3.4% | 0.6% | 4.0% |
The most shocking thing here is the Astros projecting to win 62 games IMO. I also am amused by the fact that the Marlins don’t really project any better than the Nationals despite all their largesse this offseason.
Also, be aware that I haven’t accounted for the stupid new second wild card thing yet, since I am not certain that it will be implemented for this upcoming season, and rremember that this is more for fun than utility and take it in the appropriate spirit.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Can The Yankees Get Swept By Tampa Bay and Still Win the AL East?
Here are the shedules for the rest of the season for the teams that are still relevant in the AL wild card/East race.
| Date | Yankees | w | Red Sox | w | Rays | w | Rangers | w | Angels | w |
| 9/20/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | @Athletics | 0 | @Blue Jays | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | @Athletics | 0 | @Blue Jays | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | ||||||
| 9/22/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | @Athletics | 0 | @Blue Jays | 0 | ||
| 9/23/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 0 | Mariners | 0 | Athletics | 0 |
| 9/24/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 0 | Mariners | 0 | Athletics | 0 |
| 9/25/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 0 | Mariners | 0 | Athletics | 0 |
| 9/26/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 | @Angels | 0 | Rangers | 0 |
| 9/27/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 | @Angels | 0 | Rangers | 0 |
| 9/28/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 | @Angels | 0 | Rangers | 0 |
| current | final | current | final | current | final | current | final | current | final | |
| W | 92 | 92 | 88 | 88 | 85 | 85 | 88 | 88 | 83 | 83 |
| L | 60 | 70 | 66 | 74 | 67 | 77 | 65 | 74 | 70 | 79 |
The good news is that the Yankees’ magic number over LAAA of AA is one. The next Yankee win or Angels loss makes it a three way dance, as Paul Heyman would call it. I am going to guarantee that the Angels lose one of their last nine games, so let’s play around with the three way dance scenarios.
Here’s where we are now.
| Date | Yankees | w | Red Sox | w | Rays | w |
| 9/20/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 0 | @Yankees | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 0 | @Yankees | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | ||
| 9/22/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | ||
| 9/23/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | |
| 9/24/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | |
| 9/25/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | |
| 9/26/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 |
| 9/27/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 |
| 9/28/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 0 | Yankees | 0 |
| current | final | current | final | current | final | |
| W | 92 | 92 | 88 | 88 | 85 | 85 |
| L | 60 | 70 | 66 | 74 | 67 | 77 |
Here’s where we are assuming Boston and Tampa Bay win all their non-Yankee games.
| Date | Yankees | w | Red Sox | w | Rays | w |
| 9/20/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 1 | @Yankees | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 1 | @Yankees | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | ||
| 9/22/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | ||
| 9/23/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/24/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/25/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/26/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 0 |
| 9/27/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 0 |
| 9/28/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 0 |
| current | final | current | final | current | final | |
| W | 92 | 92 | 88 | 93 | 85 | 88 |
| L | 60 | 70 | 66 | 69 | 67 | 74 |
A 1 in the ‘w’ column to the right of each team’s name is a win. I guess that means you can put it on the right side. So what this table shows is Boston winning all five of their games against the Orioles, which means 93 wins before considering whatever they may do against the Yankees and Tampa Bay sweeping Toronto.
The Rays have to win at least five games against the Yankees if they want to get to the 93 wins Boston would have if/when they win all their games against Baltimore. If that were to happen, we’d be looking at this:
| Date | Yankees | w | Red Sox | w | Rays | w |
| 9/20/2011 | Rays | 1 | Orioles | 1 | @Yankees | 0 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | Orioles | 1 | @Yankees | 1 |
| 9/21/2011 | Rays | 0 | @Yankees | 1 | ||
| 9/22/2011 | Rays | 1 | @Yankees | 0 | ||
| 9/23/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/24/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/25/2011 | Red Sox | 0 | @Yankees | 0 | Blue Jays | 1 |
| 9/26/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 1 |
| 9/27/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 1 |
| 9/28/2011 | @Rays | 0 | @Orioles | 1 | Yankees | 1 |
| current | final | current | final | current | final | |
| W | 92 | 94 | 88 | 93 | 85 | 93 |
| L | 60 | 68 | 66 | 69 | 67 | 69 |
In this scenario, the Yankees would have to sweep Boston to beat them out for the division and to give Tampa Bay the wild card. Any loss by Boston vs. the Orioles means the Yankees can take 2-3 against them and still go 2-5 vs. Tampa Bay.
Of course, it’s all moot if Tampa Bay doesn’t sweep the Blue Jays.
If the Yankees win two of their next four games vs. Tampa Bay and Boston wins their two games vs. Baltimore, the Yankees can clinch a tie for the AL East by winning one of the three games vs. Boston. If Boston loses one of their next two against Baltimore the Yankees can clinch the East against them at home. That would be fun.
So I’m hoping for a 2-2 split with Tampa Bay over the next four games with Boston losing one of the next two to the O’s which gives the Yankees three shots to clinch against Boston.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Yankees.com: Whatever
Freddy Garcia allowed three runs over 4 2/3 innings Sunday, while Yankees bats were held in check by Brandon Morrow in the series finale in Toronto
On September 6, the Yankees beat Baltimore 5-3. It was their sixth straight win and put them at 87-53, and 2.5 games up on Boston in the AL East. Actually, here are the complete AL standings on September 6.
| Tm | W | L | GB |
| NYY | 87 | 53 | — |
| BOS | 85 | 56 | 2.5 |
| TEX | 81 | 62 | 7.5 |
| DET | 80 | 62 | 8.0 |
| TBR | 77 | 64 | 10.5 |
| LAA | 77 | 65 | 11.0 |
| CHW | 71 | 69 | 16.0 |
| CLE | 70 | 69 | 16.5 |
| TOR | 70 | 72 | 18.0 |
| OAK | 64 | 78 | 24.0 |
| KCR | 60 | 83 | 28.5 |
| SEA | 59 | 82 | 28.5 |
| MIN | 58 | 84 | 30.0 |
| BAL | 55 | 85 | 32.0 |
The Yankees lost their last home game to Baltimore in 11 innings before embarking on a 10 game, four city road trip that is finally over. The Yankees lost a makeup game in Baltimore before flying out to Anaheim to drop the first two games of a three game series there. They then righted the ship briefly by winning the finale in Los Angeles and then taking the first two in Seattle. They dropped the finale in Seattle and the first one in Toronto and then split the final two games. So they went 4-6 on the trip, and 4-7 in their last 11 games.
We can play the expected record using log5 vs. actual record to see just how badly the Yankees underperformed over the last 11 games.
| Date | Game | xW | xL | aW | aL |
| 9/7/2011 | vs Orioles | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/8/2011 | @ Orioles | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/9/2011 | @ Angels | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/10/2011 | @ Angels | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/11/2011 | @ Angels | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 |
| 9/12/2011 | @ Mariners | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1 | 0 |
| 9/13/2011 | @ Mariners | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1 | 0 |
| 9/14/2011 | @ Mariners | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/16/2011 | @ Blue Jays | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0 | 1 |
| 9/17/2011 | @ Blue Jays | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1 | 0 |
| 9/18/2011 | @ Blue Jays | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0 | 1 |
| 6.3 | 4.7 | 4 | 7 |
xW/L: Expected wins/losses
aW/L: Actual wins/losses.
So they lost about two more games than they probably should have. If they’d won 2 of the 4 walk-off losses they’d have basically been where they should have been.
Here’s how the standings look now.
| Tm | W | L | GB | Gain |
| NYY | 91 | 60 | — | |
| DET | 89 | 64 | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| BOS | 87 | 65 | 4.5 | -2.0 |
| TEX | 88 | 65 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| TBR | 83 | 69 | 8.5 | 2.0 |
| LAA | 83 | 69 | 8.5 | 2.5 |
| TOR | 77 | 75 | 14.5 | 3.5 |
| CLE | 75 | 75 | 15.5 | 1.0 |
| CHW | 74 | 78 | 17.5 | -1.5 |
| OAK | 69 | 84 | 23.0 | 1.0 |
| KCR | 67 | 87 | 25.5 | 3.0 |
| SEA | 63 | 89 | 28.5 | 0.0 |
| BAL | 62 | 89 | 29.0 | 3.0 |
| MIN | 59 | 92 | 32.0 | -2.0 |
Gain is just the number of games each team gained on the Yankees since September 7.
The saving grace for this debacle of a stretch is that Boston actually played worse, which allowed the Yankees to pick up 2.5 games on them for the AL East. The Yankees were also able to pick up two important games on Minnesota.
Detroit made the biggest move up, which is an issue for possible home field advantage. The Tigers have a much easier schedule than the Yankees over the rest of the season, with only two road games (against Kansas City) and 7 home games, 4 against Baltimore and 3 against Cleveland. Texas also picked up ground in the race for home field advantage, but they have a more difficult schedule than Detroit with six road games against Oakland and California and three home games against Seattle.
The Yankees are probably still over 99% for making the postseason, and about 95% for winning the division. At the beginning of the season I’m sure any of us would have been happy to be in this position right now. But you can’t help but feel disappointed that the Yankees didn’t take advantage of a golden opportunity to put things away over the past week and get themselves into the best position possible heading into the postseason.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Down The Stretch They Come
Instead of just throwing a bunch of percentages up here like I’d normally do right about now, I wanted to take a more granular look at the remaining schedule for the AL postseason contenders.
The Yankees have won 88 games. The teams in the AL who can exceed that this point are Boston, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Texas, LAAAAAA of AA, Cleveland, the White Sox and Toronto. If all those teams won the rest of their games, here’s where they’d end the year.
| Team | W | L | GR | Max |
| NYY | 88 | 57 | 17 | 105 |
| BOS | 85 | 61 | 16 | 101 |
| DET | 84 | 62 | 16 | 100 |
| TB | 81 | 64 | 17 | 98 |
| TEX | 83 | 64 | 15 | 98 |
| LAA | 80 | 66 | 16 | 96 |
| CLE | 72 | 72 | 18 | 90 |
| CWS | 73 | 72 | 17 | 90 |
| TOR | 74 | 73 | 15 | 89 |
Because most of those teams play at least a few games against each other, they can’t all win all their remaining games. Cleveland has three games left with the Rangers and four games left with the White Sox, for example. So if they win all their games, Texas can only win at most 93, and the White Sox can only win 86, etc., I feel comfortable in saying that it’s not likely either Cleveland or the White Sox will win more games than the Yankees over the rest of the year. For the purposes of assessing the Yankees’ postseason chances, Detroit’s a non-factor in this scenario, because they can’t contend for the wild card AND win more games than the Yankees.
Toronto plays nothing but teams on that list for the rest of the year, with two vs. Boston, three vs. the Yankees, four vs. the Angels, three vs. the Rays, and three vs. the White Sox. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’ll lose at least two of those. So I’m going to only look at the other teams.
| Team | NYY | BOS | DET | TB | TEX | LAA |
| NYY | 3 | 6 | ||||
| BOS | 3 | 4 | ||||
| DET | ||||||
| TB | 6 | 4 | ||||
| TEX | 3 | |||||
| LAA | 3 |
Texas and California have three games left against each other.
Tampa Bay has six games left vs. the Yankees and four games vs. Boston.
The Yankees have those six games vs. the Rays and three games vs. Boston.
Detroit gets to beat up on cream puffs for the rest of the year, and are right now the team with the highest playoff probability in the American League. So I’m going to say they’re in.
That means you’ve got five teams fighting for three playoff spots.
The first number to think about is that 96 from Anaheim. If they get there, that means Texas can only get to 95. So 96 wins is effectively the clinching number to eliminate the AL west runner-up from the wild card. That obviously goes down each time Texas and LAA lose.
If Tampa Bay can get to 98, that means Boston can only get to 97 and the Yankees can only get to 99. So getting to that 97 from Boston is the bar for the Yankees, although it would only be a tie. Again, that obviously goes down as the Rays/Red Sox lose.
That means the Yankees’ magic number for tying for a postseason spot is nine, and for taking one outright is 10. In the event that the Yankees and Red Sox tied for the last spot, the season series between them wouldn’t matter, and there’d be a one game play-in.
Which the Sox would win handily.
Friday, September 9, 2011
What If?
What if the Yankees hadn’t handed the Orioles two wins on Wednesday and Thursday?
| W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| 101 | 61 | 88.7% | 11.4% | 100.0% |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
Instead, we’re looking at
| W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| 99 | 63 | 75.5% | 24.4% | 99.9% |
What if the Yankees get swept by Anaheim?
| W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| 97 | 65 | 57.1% | 42.3% | 99.4% |
Monday, September 5, 2011
Monte Carlo Standings and Postseason Odds Through September 4, 2011
| American League | |||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 99 | 63 | 870 | 657 | 63.0% | 36.7% | 99.7% |
| Red Sox | 98 | 64 | 860 | 694 | 36.9% | 62.3% | 99.3% |
| Rays | 87 | 75 | 705 | 630 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 1.0% |
| Blue Jays | 79 | 83 | 745 | 749 | - | - | - |
| Orioles | 64 | 98 | 694 | 841 | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Tigers | 89 | 73 | 740 | 724 | 94.2% | - | 94.2% |
| White Sox | 82 | 80 | 672 | 681 | 4.0% | - | 4.0% |
| Indians | 80 | 82 | 688 | 720 | 1.9% | - | 1.9% |
| Twins | 71 | 91 | 662 | 791 | - | - | - |
| Royals | 67 | 95 | 706 | 782 | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Rangers | 91 | 71 | 815 | 696 | 92.1% | 0.0% | 92.1% |
| Angels | 86 | 76 | 666 | 650 | 7.9% | 0.0% | 7.9% |
| Athletics | 75 | 87 | 654 | 668 | - | - | - |
| Mariners | 69 | 93 | 574 | 678 | - | - | - |
| National League | |||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Phillies | 103 | 59 | 736 | 555 | 98.0% | 2.0% | 100.0% |
| Braves | 94 | 68 | 678 | 605 | 2.0% | 95.4% | 97.4% |
| Mets | 80 | 82 | 723 | 733 | - | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Nationals | 75 | 87 | 632 | 688 | - | - | - |
| Marlins | 73 | 89 | 647 | 717 | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Brewers | 95 | 67 | 723 | 659 | 98.7% | 0.2% | 98.9% |
| Cardinals | 86 | 76 | 761 | 714 | 1.3% | 2.1% | 3.3% |
| Reds | 81 | 81 | 751 | 711 | - | - | - |
| Pirates | 74 | 88 | 633 | 706 | - | - | - |
| Cubs | 70 | 92 | 664 | 768 | - | - | - |
| Astros | 56 | 106 | 610 | 787 | - | - | - |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Diamondbacks | 89 | 73 | 713 | 689 | 83.2% | 0.1% | 83.3% |
| Giants | 85 | 77 | 575 | 585 | 15.9% | 0.3% | 16.2% |
| Dodgers | 80 | 82 | 641 | 630 | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.8% |
| Rockies | 78 | 84 | 744 | 751 | 0.1% | - | 0.1% |
| Padres | 71 | 91 | 614 | 637 | - | - | - |
W: Projected final 2011 wins
L: Projected final 2011 losses
RS: Projected final 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected final 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
Not looking like too much suspense aside from seeding at this point.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Where are we at?
I thought it’d be a good time to look at how the Yankees have performed relative to their schedule so far with the second half kicking off tonight.
| Date | Game | xW | xL | aW | aL | aW-xW | cxW | cxL | caW | caL | caW-cxW |
| 3/31/2011 | vs Tigers | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/2/2011 | vs Tigers | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.7 |
| 4/3/2011 | vs Tigers | .64 | .36 | 0 | 1 | -.64 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/4/2011 | vs Twins | .67 | .33 | 1 | 0 | .33 | 2.6 | 1.4 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/5/2011 | vs Twins | .67 | .33 | 0 | 1 | -.67 | 3.3 | 1.7 | 3.0 | 2.0 | -0.3 |
| 4/6/2011 | vs Twins | 0 | 0 | .00 | 3.3 | 1.7 | 3.0 | 2.0 | -0.3 | ||
| 4/7/2011 | vs Twins | .67 | .33 | 1 | 0 | .33 | 3.9 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 2.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/8/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 0 | 1 | -.46 | 4.4 | 2.6 | 4.0 | 3.0 | -0.4 |
| 4/9/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 1 | 0 | .54 | 4.8 | 3.2 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 0.2 |
| 4/10/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 0 | 1 | -.46 | 5.3 | 3.7 | 5.0 | 4.0 | -0.3 |
| 4/12/2011 | vs Orioles | 0 | 0 | .00 | 5.3 | 3.7 | 5.0 | 4.0 | -0.3 | ||
| 4/13/2011 | vs Orioles | .71 | .29 | 1 | 0 | .29 | 6.0 | 4.0 | 6.0 | 4.0 | 0.0 |
| 4/14/2011 | vs Orioles | .71 | .29 | 1 | 0 | .29 | 6.7 | 4.3 | 7.0 | 4.0 | 0.3 |
| 4/15/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 0 | 1 | -.59 | 7.3 | 4.7 | 7.0 | 5.0 | -0.3 |
| 4/16/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 7.9 | 5.1 | 8.0 | 5.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/17/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 8.5 | 5.5 | 9.0 | 5.0 | 0.5 |
| 4/19/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .58 | .42 | 0 | 1 | -.58 | 9.1 | 5.9 | 9.0 | 6.0 | -0.1 |
| 4/20/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .58 | .42 | 1 | 0 | .42 | 9.7 | 6.3 | 10.0 | 6.0 | 0.3 |
| 4/22/2011 | @ Orioles | 0 | 0 | .00 | 9.7 | 6.3 | 10.0 | 6.0 | 0.3 | ||
| 4/23/2011 | @ Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 10.3 | 6.7 | 11.0 | 6.0 | 0.7 |
| 4/24/2011 | @ Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 10.9 | 7.1 | 12.0 | 6.0 | 1.1 |
| 4/25/2011 | vs White Sox | .65 | .35 | 0 | 1 | -.65 | 11.6 | 7.4 | 12.0 | 7.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/26/2011 | vs White Sox | .65 | .35 | 0 | 1 | -.65 | 12.2 | 7.8 | 12.0 | 8.0 | -0.2 |
| 4/27/2011 | vs White Sox | .65 | .35 | 1 | 0 | .35 | 12.9 | 8.1 | 13.0 | 8.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/28/2011 | vs White Sox | .65 | .35 | 1 | 0 | .35 | 13.5 | 8.5 | 14.0 | 8.0 | 0.5 |
| 4/29/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 0 | 1 | -.66 | 14.2 | 8.8 | 14.0 | 9.0 | -0.2 |
| 4/30/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 14.8 | 9.2 | 15.0 | 9.0 | 0.2 |
| 5/1/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 15.5 | 9.5 | 16.0 | 9.0 | 0.5 |
| 5/2/2011 | @ Tigers | .56 | .44 | 1 | 0 | .44 | 16.1 | 9.9 | 17.0 | 9.0 | 0.9 |
| 5/3/2011 | @ Tigers | .56 | .44 | 0 | 1 | -.56 | 16.6 | 10.4 | 17.0 | 10.0 | 0.4 |
| 5/4/2011 | @ Tigers | .56 | .44 | 0 | 1 | -.56 | 17.2 | 10.8 | 17.0 | 11.0 | -0.2 |
| 5/5/2011 | @ Tigers | .56 | .44 | 0 | 1 | -.56 | 17.7 | 11.3 | 17.0 | 12.0 | -0.7 |
| 5/6/2011 | @ Rangers | .51 | .49 | 1 | 0 | .49 | 18.2 | 11.8 | 18.0 | 12.0 | -0.2 |
| 5/7/2011 | @ Rangers | .51 | .49 | 0 | 1 | -.51 | 18.8 | 12.2 | 18.0 | 13.0 | -0.8 |
| 5/8/2011 | @ Rangers | .51 | .49 | 1 | 0 | .49 | 19.3 | 12.7 | 19.0 | 13.0 | -0.3 |
| 5/10/2011 | vs Royals | .71 | .29 | 1 | 0 | .29 | 20.0 | 13.0 | 20.0 | 13.0 | 0.0 |
| 5/11/2011 | vs Royals | .71 | .29 | 0 | 1 | -.71 | 20.7 | 13.3 | 20.0 | 14.0 | -0.7 |
| 5/12/2011 | vs Royals | .71 | .29 | 0 | 1 | -.71 | 21.4 | 13.6 | 20.0 | 15.0 | -1.4 |
| 5/13/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 21.9 | 14.1 | 20.0 | 16.0 | -1.9 |
| 5/14/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 22.5 | 14.5 | 20.0 | 17.0 | -2.5 |
| 5/15/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 23.0 | 15.0 | 20.0 | 18.0 | -3.0 |
| 5/16/2011 | @ Rays | .52 | .48 | 0 | 1 | -.52 | 23.5 | 15.5 | 20.0 | 19.0 | -3.5 |
| 5/17/2011 | @ Rays | .52 | .48 | 1 | 0 | .48 | 24.1 | 15.9 | 21.0 | 19.0 | -3.1 |
| 5/18/2011 | @ Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 24.7 | 16.3 | 22.0 | 19.0 | -2.7 |
| 5/19/2011 | @ Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 25.3 | 16.7 | 23.0 | 19.0 | -2.3 |
| 5/20/2011 | vs Mets | .64 | .36 | 0 | 1 | -.64 | 26.0 | 17.0 | 23.0 | 20.0 | -3.0 |
| 5/21/2011 | vs Mets | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 26.6 | 17.4 | 24.0 | 20.0 | -2.6 |
| 5/22/2011 | vs Mets | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 27.2 | 17.8 | 25.0 | 20.0 | -2.2 |
| 5/23/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 0 | 1 | -.66 | 27.9 | 18.1 | 25.0 | 21.0 | -2.9 |
| 5/24/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 28.6 | 18.4 | 26.0 | 21.0 | -2.6 |
| 5/25/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 29.2 | 18.8 | 27.0 | 21.0 | -2.2 |
| 5/27/2011 | @ Mariners | .60 | .40 | 0 | 1 | -.60 | 29.8 | 19.2 | 27.0 | 22.0 | -2.8 |
| 5/28/2011 | @ Mariners | .60 | .40 | 0 | 1 | -.60 | 30.4 | 19.6 | 27.0 | 23.0 | -3.4 |
| 5/29/2011 | @ Mariners | .60 | .40 | 1 | 0 | .40 | 31.0 | 20.0 | 28.0 | 23.0 | -3.0 |
| 5/30/2011 | @ Athletics | .57 | .43 | 1 | 0 | .43 | 31.6 | 20.4 | 29.0 | 23.0 | -2.6 |
| 5/31/2011 | @ Athletics | .57 | .43 | 1 | 0 | .43 | 32.2 | 20.8 | 30.0 | 23.0 | -2.2 |
| Date | Game | xW | xL | aW | aL | aW-xW | cxW | cxL | caW | caL | caW-cxW |
| 6/1/2011 | @ Athletics | .57 | .43 | 1 | 0 | .43 | 32.7 | 21.3 | 31.0 | 23.0 | -1.7 |
| 6/3/2011 | @ Angels | .56 | .44 | 0 | 1 | -.56 | 33.3 | 21.7 | 31.0 | 24.0 | -2.3 |
| 6/4/2011 | @ Angels | .56 | .44 | 1 | 0 | .44 | 33.8 | 22.2 | 32.0 | 24.0 | -1.8 |
| 6/5/2011 | @ Angels | .56 | .44 | 1 | 0 | .44 | 34.4 | 22.6 | 33.0 | 24.0 | -1.4 |
| 6/7/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 34.9 | 23.1 | 33.0 | 25.0 | -1.9 |
| 6/8/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 35.5 | 23.5 | 33.0 | 26.0 | -2.5 |
| 6/9/2011 | vs Red Sox | .54 | .46 | 0 | 1 | -.54 | 36.0 | 24.0 | 33.0 | 27.0 | -3.0 |
| 6/10/2011 | vs Indians | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 36.7 | 24.3 | 34.0 | 27.0 | -2.7 |
| 6/11/2011 | vs Indians | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 37.3 | 24.7 | 35.0 | 27.0 | -2.3 |
| 6/12/2011 | vs Indians | .66 | .34 | 1 | 0 | .34 | 38.0 | 25.0 | 36.0 | 27.0 | -2.0 |
| 6/13/2011 | vs Indians | .66 | .34 | 0 | 1 | -.66 | 38.6 | 25.4 | 36.0 | 28.0 | -2.6 |
| 6/14/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 39.2 | 25.8 | 37.0 | 28.0 | -2.2 |
| 6/15/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 39.8 | 26.2 | 38.0 | 28.0 | -1.8 |
| 6/16/2011 | vs Rangers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 40.4 | 26.6 | 39.0 | 28.0 | -1.4 |
| 6/17/2011 | @ Cubs | .61 | .39 | 0 | 1 | -.61 | 41.0 | 27.0 | 39.0 | 29.0 | -2.0 |
| 6/18/2011 | @ Cubs | .61 | .39 | 1 | 0 | .39 | 41.7 | 27.3 | 40.0 | 29.0 | -1.7 |
| 6/19/2011 | @ Cubs | .61 | .39 | 1 | 0 | .39 | 42.3 | 27.7 | 41.0 | 29.0 | -1.3 |
| 6/20/2011 | @ Reds | .53 | .47 | 1 | 0 | .47 | 42.8 | 28.2 | 42.0 | 29.0 | -0.8 |
| 6/21/2011 | @ Reds | .53 | .47 | 1 | 0 | .47 | 43.3 | 28.7 | 43.0 | 29.0 | -0.3 |
| 6/22/2011 | @ Reds | .53 | .47 | 0 | 1 | -.53 | 43.9 | 29.1 | 43.0 | 30.0 | -0.9 |
| 6/24/2011 | vs Rockies | .64 | .36 | 0 | 1 | -.64 | 44.5 | 29.5 | 43.0 | 31.0 | -1.5 |
| 6/25/2011 | vs Rockies | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 45.2 | 29.8 | 44.0 | 31.0 | -1.2 |
| 6/26/2011 | vs Rockies | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 45.8 | 30.2 | 45.0 | 31.0 | -0.8 |
| 6/28/2011 | vs Brewers | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 46.4 | 30.6 | 46.0 | 31.0 | -0.4 |
| 6/29/2011 | vs Brewers | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 47.1 | 30.9 | 47.0 | 31.0 | -0.1 |
| 6/30/2011 | vs Brewers | .64 | .36 | 1 | 0 | .36 | 47.7 | 31.3 | 48.0 | 31.0 | 0.3 |
| 7/1/2011 | @ Mets | .56 | .44 | 1 | 0 | .44 | 48.3 | 31.7 | 49.0 | 31.0 | 0.7 |
| 7/2/2011 | @ Mets | .56 | .44 | 1 | 0 | .44 | 48.8 | 32.2 | 50.0 | 31.0 | 1.2 |
| 7/3/2011 | @ Mets | .56 | .44 | 0 | 1 | -.56 | 49.4 | 32.6 | 50.0 | 32.0 | 0.6 |
| 7/4/2011 | @ Indians | .58 | .42 | 0 | 1 | -.58 | 50.0 | 33.0 | 50.0 | 33.0 | 0.0 |
| 7/5/2011 | @ Indians | .58 | .42 | 1 | 0 | .42 | 50.6 | 33.4 | 51.0 | 33.0 | 0.4 |
| 7/6/2011 | @ Indians | .58 | .42 | 0 | 1 | -.58 | 51.1 | 33.9 | 51.0 | 34.0 | -0.1 |
| 7/7/2011 | vs Rays | .60 | .40 | 0 | 1 | -.60 | 51.7 | 34.3 | 51.0 | 35.0 | -0.7 |
| 7/8/2011 | vs Rays | 0 | 0 | .00 | 51.7 | 34.3 | 51.0 | 35.0 | -0.7 | ||
| 7/9/2011 | vs Rays | .60 | .40 | 1 | 0 | .40 | 52.3 | 34.7 | 52.0 | 35.0 | -0.3 |
| 7/10/2011 | vs Rays | .60 | .40 | 1 | 0 | .40 | 52.9 | 35.1 | 53.0 | 35.0 | 0.1 |
xW: Expected win probability
xL: Expected loss probability
aW: Actual win
aL: Actual loss
aW-xW: Actual win minus expected win. Positive is good, negative is bad
cxW: Cumulative xW
cxL: Cumulative expected losses
caW: Cumulative actual wins
caL: Cumulative actual losses
caW-cxW: Cumulative actual wins minus cumulative expected wins
I’m using Bill James’s log5 method to computed expected wins and losses. Estimated team strengths are based on both pre-season projections and YTD performance.
The Yankees’ lowest point of the first half came on May 16, as a series-opening loss to the Rays after getting swept at home against Boston put them at 3.5 games behind expectations and 20-18. They’ve made up all that ground and bit more, peaking on July 2 with a win against the Mets that put them 1.2 games ahead of pace. Unfortunately, a blown Mariano Rivera save in the series finale against the Mets ended their winning streak at seven, and then Joe Girardi foolishness cost at least one of two games in Cleveland. They were able to recover by taking two of three games against Tampa Bay at home to close out the break, and put them at where they basically ought to be.
There are four first half games that need to be made up in the second half(highlighed in gray), which is going to be a problem. Thankfully, three of the four games are at home and the one road game is against Baltimore.
Friday, June 17, 2011
AL East Interleague Strength of Schedule: June 17-July 3, 2011
Out of curiosity, I did an estimate of the strength of Boston, Tampa Bay and the Yankees interleague schedule over the next two weeks. Here are the schedules with an estimate of the opponent’s winning percentage. This is based 40% on 2011 Pythagenpat and 60% on pre-season projections adjusted for roster changes, with home field advantage included.
| Date | Yankees | Opp w% | Red Sox | Opp w% | Rays | Opp w% |
| 6/17/2011 | @Cubs | 0.48 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | vs Marlins | 0.46 |
| 6/18/2011 | @Cubs | 0.48 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | vs Marlins | 0.46 |
| 6/19/2011 | @Cubs | 0.48 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | vs Marlins | 0.46 |
| 6/20/2011 | @Reds | 0.55 | vs Padres | 0.46 | @Brewers | 0.57 |
| 6/21/2011 | @Reds | 0.55 | vs Padres | 0.46 | @Brewers | 0.57 |
| 6/22/2011 | @Reds | 0.55 | vs Padres | 0.46 | @Brewers | 0.57 |
| 6/24/2011 | vs Rockies | 0.49 | @Pirates | 0.48 | @Astros | 0.43 |
| 6/25/2011 | vs Rockies | 0.49 | @Pirates | 0.48 | @Astros | 0.43 |
| 6/26/2011 | vs Rockies | 0.49 | @Pirates | 0.48 | @Astros | 0.43 |
| 6/28/2011 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | @Phillies | 0.57 | vs Reds | 0.51 |
| 6/29/2011 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | @Phillies | 0.57 | vs Reds | 0.51 |
| 6/30/2011 | vs Brewers | 0.53 | @Phillies | 0.57 | vs Reds | 0.51 |
| 7/1/2011 | @Mets | 0.52 | @Astros | 0.43 | vs Cardinals | 0.53 |
| 7/2/2011 | @Mets | 0.52 | @Astros | 0.43 | vs Cardinals | 0.53 |
| 7/3/2011 | @Mets | 0.52 | @Astros | 0.43 | vs Cardinals | 0.53 |
| 7.68 | 7.39 | 7.50 |
xW: Expected wins using log5.
Not much of a difference, although it’s somewhat irritating that both Boston and the Rays get to play the Astros while the Yankees don’t. Then again, I suppose playing the Cubs is close enough.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned how I feel about interleague play. Rather than go through a lengthy screed about why, I’ll just present the following.
| Team | W | L | W% |
| LAA | 51 | 24 | .680 |
| BOS | 49 | 26 | .653 |
| DET | 49 | 26 | .653 |
| CHW | 45 | 30 | .600 |
| MIN | 45 | 30 | .600 |
| TEX | 45 | 30 | .600 |
| NYY | 43 | 32 | .573 |
| SEA | 41 | 34 | .547 |
| KC | 40 | 35 | .533 |
| TB | 40 | 35 | .533 |
| BAL | 37 | 38 | .493 |
| OAK | 33 | 42 | .440 |
| TOR | 33 | 42 | .440 |
| CLE | 28 | 47 | .373 |
| Total | 579 | 471 | .551 |
That’s the record of every AL team vs. the National League since 2007. Now obviously the bulk of that is due to how good or bad each team is/was, but there’s also a pretty fair discrepancy between the strength of the various teams’ interleague schedules in any given season.
So a series of glorified exhibition games has a significant impact on the postseason race every year.
Anyway, I’ll just hope the Yankees don’t lose any pitchers in the act of doing something they are not qualified to do. At the very least maybe with enough pitchers bunting Joe Girardi will not need to further fuel his addiction to bunting with actual hitters.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
A Brief Foray into Run Differentials and Component Stats
At this point in the season, the Yankees have the second best winning percentage in the AL.
| Team | a% |
| CLE | .623 |
| NYY | .574 |
| BOS | .536 |
| TEX | .536 |
| DET | .527 |
| TBR | .527 |
| SEA | .509 |
| LAA | .500 |
| TOR | .500 |
| OAK | .474 |
| CHW | .466 |
| BAL | .463 |
| KCR | .455 |
| MIN | .315 |
Over a full season at the actual winning percentage the Yankees would be about a 93 win team, with Cleveland at 101.
Now of course over 1/3 of a season actual winning percentage can be misleading since teams might be winning or losing more games than their actual performance merits. So you can look at something like Pythagenpat to get a better sense of how well a team has played so far and what it might mean going forward.
| Team | p% |
| NYY | .629 |
| CLE | .582 |
| TEX | .563 |
| TBR | .543 |
| TOR | .542 |
| BOS | .540 |
| LAA | .506 |
| OAK | .496 |
| DET | .486 |
| CHW | .480 |
| SEA | .478 |
| KCR | .462 |
| BAL | .422 |
| MIN | .322 |
If you do that, the Yankees look more like a 102 win team, which would be eight wins better than Cleveland and 11 wins better than Boston.
Although Pythagenpat does a pretty good job of estimating a team’s level of play, their actual runs scored and runs allowed might be skewed due to better or worse than expected performances in high leverage situations that are not necessarily repeatable going forward.
You can use linear weights batting runs to account for that. What’s nice about doing that is you can put offense and pitching/defense on the same scale if you use all the same components.
| Team | b% |
| NYY | .599 |
| TEX | .568 |
| BOS | .562 |
| CLE | .559 |
| TOR | .533 |
| TBR | .526 |
| OAK | .526 |
| LAA | .524 |
| DET | .504 |
| CHW | .479 |
| SEA | .469 |
| KCR | .435 |
| BAL | .423 |
| MIN | .343 |
This method also shows that the Yankees have played better than any other team in the AL, and would have them at around 97 wins, five wins ahead of Cleveland and six games ahead of Boston.
We do need to be cognizant that how a team has played so far only tells us so much about how good they are now and how good they’ll be going forward. Regression towards the mean, injuries/roster changes and a whole host of other things are going to have an impact on how a team does moving forward.
But at least as of right now, the Yankees have probably been the best team in the league and the difference isn’t trivial.
All this is moot when Rafael Soriano returns to blow games though.
What A Difference Five Days Can Make
On May 28 in this post I referenced some standings projections I’d done at that point, which had the Red Sox projected to end the year around 93-69, with the Yankees at 91-71 and the Rays at 88-74. Here’s how that compares to a re-run as of last night’s games.
| Team | 5/28 xW | 6/1 xW | D xW |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 91.2 | 93.2 | 2.0 |
| Blue Jays | 76.6 | 78.5 | 1.9 |
| Rays | 87.5 | 86.6 | -0.9 |
| Orioles | 74.2 | 72.9 | -1.3 |
| Red Sox | 93.1 | 90.1 | -3.0 |
xW: Expected wins
Thank you White Sox.
Enjoy it while you can, since the Angels are going to sweep the Yankees this weekend and effectively return things to how they were on 5/28.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
TGS NY: Joe’s handling of ‘pen not so mighty
David Robertson got out of a bed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at 4:30 a.m. Eastern time Friday morning. Nearly 20 hours later, he was on the mound at Safeco Field, doing his job to perfection, pitching an overpowering eighth inning against the Mariners.
Trouble was, the game had already been lost two innings earlier.
But that’s what happens when a manager sticks to a game plan even if the game no longer fits his plan.
Robertson, back from a mission of mercy to his tornado-ravaged hometown, was no doubt the most tired man in the Yankee bullpen. He was also the only one able to do his job. Unfortunately, by the time he was asked to do it, it was too late. At the time, the Yankees trailed 4-3, and that’s the way it would stay.
I didn’t get to watch the game, so I’d be interested in everyone else’s take, but here’s how I see the situation. With Burnett at 97 pitches with five walks through five innings, I don’t think anyone would quibble with the fact that he was pulled prior to the sixth inning. So the question then is who should have started the bottom of the sixth. With Adam Kennedy (LHB), Miguel Olivo (RHB) and Carlos Peguero (LHB) due up, I can understand the thought process behind starting the sixth inning with Boone Logan. You need to get four innings out of your bullpen, so unless you want one of Robertson, Joba Chamberlain or Mariano Rivera to pitch two innings you needed to get some outs from someone other than those three.
Logan allowed a leadoff single to Kennedy. So now with a RHB up and with the likelihood of a pinch-hitter for Peguero to re-gain the platoon advantage, going to the bullpen for a RHP made sense as well. Unfortunately, Girardi opted for Luis Ayala instead of Robertson and that’s when the game was lost.
Ayala probably would have pitched an inning at some point in the game, so the real problem is that he and Logan didn’t do their jobs. However, once Kennedy reached Girardi should have used a better pitcher due to the leverage of the situation, and not the pitcher who’s ordinal spot in the bullpen hierarchy was now due. If you intended to pitch Robertson or Chamberlain if necessary anyway, they’d have been the better choices in that spot. If they extended themselves to get out of the inning, you could then go to Ayala to begin the seventh with whichever of Robertson or Chamberlain wasn’t used as a safety net to get the game to Rivera.
Again, the real issue is that Logan and Ayala didn’t execute. But it’s fair to say that Girardi’s deployment of the bullpen after Logan is also culpable.
The Yankees really don’t have much margin for error on this road trip if you look at the schedule for the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays over the rest of this West Coast swing.
| Date | Yankee | xW | xL | Red Sox | xW | xL | Rays | xW | xL |
| 5/28/2011 | @ Mariners | .58 | .42 | @ Tigers | .53 | .47 | vs Indians | .58 | .42 |
| 5/29/2011 | @ Mariners | .58 | .42 | @ Tigers | .53 | .47 | vs Indians | .58 | .42 |
| 5/30/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 5/31/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 6/1/2011 | @ Athletics | .51 | .49 | vs White Sox | .62 | .38 | vs Rangers | .54 | .46 |
| 6/2/2011 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 | ||||||
| 6/3/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 6/4/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 6/5/2011 | @ Angels | .54 | .46 | vs Athletics | .59 | .41 | @Mariners | .54 | .46 |
| 4.32 | 3.68 | 4.72 | 3.28 | 4.95 | 4.05 |
At this point Boston and the Rays have around a one game advantage over the Yankees over the next nine days, at which point the Yankees will return home to face Boston, Cleveland and Texas on a nine game home stand. It’s not inconceivable that the Yankees could be trailing Boston and/or Tampa Bay by three or four games by then. And that’s not exactly the kind of home stand that would allow the Yankees to catch up if they falter on the rest of this trip.
Right now I’ve got Boston projected to finish around 93-69, the Yankees around 91-71 and Tampa Bay around 88-74. If that’s how things still look by the end of this road trip I’d happily take it.
Friday, May 13, 2011
The Implications of this Weekend’s Series with Boston
The Red Sox have been playing better since their rough start but are still trying to fight their way to .500. The Yankees have stumbled a bit over their last ten games, losing 6 and are now in second place in the AL East behind the Tampa Bay Rays, although even in the loss column.
So with a three game set beginning tonight in the Bronx between the Yankees and Boston, here’s a look at how the different ways this series may affect the AL East going forward.
First of all, here’s how my Monte Carlo simulator says the AL East would play out as of today.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 85.8 | 76.2 | 14.6% | 17.6% | 32.1% |
| Yankees | 92.1 | 69.9 | 50.8% | 23.7% | 74.5% |
| Rays | 89.8 | 72.2 | 34.3% | 27.6% | 61.9% |
| Blue Jays | 74.1 | 87.9 | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.6% |
| Orioles | 74.5 | 87.5 | 0.2% | 1.2% | 1.4% |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
When Boston sweeps this series, here’s how things will look.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 87.5 | 74.5 | 23.2% | 22.1% | 45.3% |
| Yankees | 90.3 | 71.7 | 38.2% | 25.3% | 63.4% |
| Rays | 90.0 | 72.0 | 38.0% | 23.5% | 61.5% |
| Blue Jays | 73.6 | 88.4 | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
| Orioles | 74.5 | 87.5 | 0.5% | 1.4% | 1.9% |
There’s a miniscule chance the Yankees take one of the three games, and if that were to happen here’s how things would shake out.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 86.4 | 75.6 | 15.8% | 20.9% | 36.6% |
| Yankees | 91.5 | 70.5 | 46.9% | 24.5% | 71.5% |
| Rays | 90.0 | 72.0 | 37.1% | 23.8% | 60.9% |
| Blue Jays | 73.8 | 88.2 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 1.0% |
| Orioles | 74.1 | 87.9 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 0.9% |
I suppose there’s an infinitesimal chance the Yankees take two of three games in which case here’s how things would project going forward.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 85.7 | 76.3 | 13.8% | 18.6% | 32.4% |
| Yankees | 91.9 | 70.1 | 50.4% | 23.6% | 73.9% |
| Rays | 90.2 | 71.8 | 35.4% | 27.5% | 62.9% |
| Blue Jays | 74.3 | 87.7 | 0.3% | 0.7% | 1.0% |
| Orioles | 74.0 | 88.0 | 0.2% | 0.6% | 0.7% |
In the completely theoretical and impossible scenario where the Yankees sweep, this would be the net result.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 84.6 | 77.4 | 10.6% | 15.6% | 26.1% |
| Yankees | 93.5 | 68.5 | 58.3% | 24.5% | 82.8% |
| Rays | 89.9 | 72.1 | 30.5% | 28.8% | 59.3% |
| Blue Jays | 73.6 | 88.4 | 0.2% | 1.1% | 1.2% |
| Orioles | 74.3 | 87.7 | 0.5% | 1.3% | 1.8% |
One of my foibles is superstition. Because of that, I see no way a series against Boston that kicks off on a Friday the 13th is going to go well. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Monday, April 18, 2011
April 2011 Log5 Update
Since Andrew asked about the Yankees’ schedule through the end of March in the previous entry, I figured I’d do a post about it.
When I last looked at the Yankees’ schedule for April using Bill James’s log5 methodology, the Yankees were 2-1 and on target to meet an expected record of something in the neighborhood of 16-11. Here’s an updated look at their log5 vs. actuals through yesterday.
| Date | Game | xW | xL | aW | aL | aW-xW | cxW | cxL | caW | caL | caW-cxW |
| 3/31/2011 | vs Tigers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/2/2011 | vs Tigers | .59 | .41 | 1 | 0 | .41 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 |
| 4/3/2011 | vs Tigers | .59 | .41 | 0 | 1 | -.59 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.2 |
| 4/4/2011 | vs Twins | .60 | .40 | 1 | 0 | .40 | 2.4 | 1.6 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 0.6 |
| 4/5/2011 | vs Twins | .60 | .40 | 0 | 1 | -.60 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
| 4/6/2011 | vs Twins | .00 | .00 | 0 | 0 | .00 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
| 4/7/2011 | vs Twins | .60 | .40 | 1 | 1 | .40 | 3.6 | 2.4 | 4.0 | 3.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/8/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 0 | 1 | -.46 | 4.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 0.0 |
| 4/9/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 1 | 0 | .54 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 0.5 |
| 4/10/2011 | @ Red Sox | .46 | .54 | 0 | 0 | -.46 | 4.9 | 4.1 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/12/2011 | vs Orioles | .00 | .00 | 0 | 0 | .00 | 4.9 | 4.1 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 0.1 |
| 4/13/2011 | vs Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 5.6 | 4.4 | 6.0 | 4.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/14/2011 | vs Orioles | .63 | .37 | 1 | 0 | .37 | 6.2 | 4.8 | 7.0 | 4.0 | 0.8 |
| 4/15/2011 | vs Rangers | .55 | .45 | 0 | 1 | -.55 | 6.7 | 5.3 | 7.0 | 5.0 | 0.3 |
| 4/16/2011 | vs Rangers | .55 | .45 | 1 | 0 | .45 | 7.3 | 5.7 | 8.0 | 5.0 | 0.7 |
| 4/17/2011 | vs Rangers | .55 | .45 | 1 | 0 | .45 | 7.8 | 6.2 | 9.0 | 5.0 | 1.2 |
| 4/19/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .56 | .44 | 8.4 | 6.6 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/20/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .56 | .44 | 9.0 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/22/2011 | @ Orioles | .55 | .45 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/23/2011 | @ Orioles | .55 | .45 | 10.1 | 7.9 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/24/2011 | @ Orioles | .55 | .45 | 10.6 | 8.4 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/25/2011 | vs White Sox | .60 | .40 | 11.2 | 8.8 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/26/2011 | vs White Sox | .60 | .40 | 11.8 | 9.2 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/27/2011 | vs White Sox | .60 | .40 | 12.4 | 9.6 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/28/2011 | vs White Sox | .60 | .40 | 13.0 | 10.0 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/29/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .64 | .36 | 13.7 | 10.3 | 9.0 | 5.0 | ||||
| 4/30/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .64 | .36 | 14.3 | 10.7 | 9.0 | 5.0 |
xW: Expected win probability
xL: Expected loss probability
aW: Actual win
aL: Actual loss
aW-xW: Actual win minus expected win. Positive is good, negative is bad
cxW: Cumulative xW
cxL: Cumulative expected losses
caW: Cumulative actual wins
caL: Cumulative actual losses
caW-cxW: Cumulative actual wins minus cumulative expected wins
They’ve lost two games to rainouts (4/6 vs. the Twins and 4/12 vs. the Orioles). Accounting for that, they should be about 8-6 right now. At 9-5 they’re a win ahead of expectations. Log5 says they probably should go something like 6.5 - 4.5 over the rest of the month. That’d have them at around 16-9 or 15-10 heading into May, and would have them on about a 93 win pace.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
How Have Teams’ Projections Changed Since Opening Day?
Even though it’s still early, there have been enough games played that some teams’ fortunes have changed by a non-negligible amount. Here’s a quick comparison of all the teams in MLB and their revised projected win total compared to their average projected win total before the season started.
| Team | preW | proW | diffW |
| Rangers | 88.0 | 94.0 | 6.0 |
| Indians | 74.3 | 79.3 | 5.0 |
| Rockies | 83.1 | 86.6 | 3.5 |
| Pirates | 70.2 | 73.4 | 3.2 |
| Phillies | 90.6 | 93.6 | 3.0 |
| Reds | 85.5 | 88.5 | 3.0 |
| Orioles | 78.6 | 81.0 | 2.4 |
| Royals | 68.4 | 70.1 | 1.7 |
| White Sox | 82.8 | 84.1 | 1.2 |
| Diamondbacks | 73.0 | 74.0 | 1.0 |
| Marlins | 81.9 | 82.5 | 0.6 |
| Cubs | 79.8 | 80.3 | 0.5 |
| Cardinals | 83.1 | 83.5 | 0.4 |
| Dodgers | 83.6 | 84.0 | 0.4 |
| Nationals | 72.3 | 72.0 | -0.3 |
| Angels | 77.9 | 77.5 | -0.4 |
| Braves | 87.3 | 86.8 | -0.5 |
| Blue Jays | 73.9 | 73.4 | -0.5 |
| Brewers | 83.3 | 82.7 | -0.6 |
| Yankees | 92.4 | 91.6 | -0.8 |
| Giants | 88.0 | 87.0 | -1.0 |
| Padres | 79.0 | 78.0 | -1.0 |
| Athletics | 84.6 | 83.6 | -1.0 |
| Twins | 84.4 | 82.4 | -2.0 |
| Mets | 79.5 | 76.6 | -2.9 |
| Tigers | 84.6 | 81.5 | -3.1 |
| Astros | 65.9 | 62.7 | -3.2 |
| Rays | 86.1 | 82.0 | -4.1 |
| Mariners | 73.6 | 69.3 | -4.3 |
| Red Sox | 94.4 | 88.1 | -6.3 |
preW: Pre-season projected win total
proW: Revised projected win total (Actual YTD record plus going forward projected wins)
diffW: Difference between proW and preW (proW - preW). A positive value means a team now projects better, a negative value means they project worse.
I’m just amazed that the Astros may be worse than projected, and would love to hear from the ESPN guy who picked them to win their division.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Implications of This Weekend’s Series with Boston
You may or may not have heard, but the best team in baseball history has gotten off to a rough start at 0-6. It’s important to understand what that means in the big picture. It’s too small of a sample size to meaningfully change our estimate of how good they are. However, those games do count, and they do need to be factored into whatever we forecast Boston to do going forward.
If Boston was a 94-95 win team over 162 games at the start of the year, they’re probably still a 94-95 win team. However, they only have 156 games left to play. At the same winning percentage, they’re more like a 91 win team now. Here’s a quick look at the average projections for the AL East at the start of the season according to the aggregate from the Diamond Mind Projection Blowout.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 94.4 | 67.6 | 817 | 687 | 42.1% | 17.8% | 59.8% |
| Yankees | 92.4 | 69.6 | 812 | 707 | 32.8% | 18.2% | 51.0% |
| Rays | 86.1 | 75.9 | 762 | 704 | 16.0% | 13.4% | 29.4% |
| Orioles | 78.6 | 83.4 | 748 | 777 | 6.0% | 6.5% | 12.5% |
| Blue Jays | 73.9 | 88.1 | 686 | 751 | 3.1% | 3.2% | 6.3% |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
It’s certainly possible that some of these projections were wrong from the start, but we don’t have enough information to know that yet.
Re-running that exercise taking into account what’s actually happened to this point gives us these revised results.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 92.1 | 69.9 | 812 | 707 | 40.2% | 16.4% | 56.6% |
| Red Sox | 91.1 | 70.9 | 817 | 687 | 36.5% | 19.3% | 55.8% |
| Rays | 81.8 | 80.2 | 762 | 704 | 12.9% | 9.5% | 22.4% |
| Orioles | 77.8 | 84.2 | 748 | 777 | 6.3% | 6.9% | 13.2% |
| Blue Jays | 73.5 | 88.5 | 686 | 751 | 4.2% | 3.5% | 7.6% |
So if everything played out as projected going forward (it won’t), the Yankees are now slight favorites in the AL East. That was easy enough.
Using that as our new baseline, here are how those would look depending on the various potential results of the Yankees’ three game series in Fenway this weekend.
Boston Sweeps
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 92.4 | 69.6 | 817 | 687 | 41.3% | 18.2% | 59.5% |
| Yankees | 90.1 | 71.9 | 812 | 707 | 34.1% | 16.9% | 51.1% |
| Rays | 83.0 | 79.0 | 762 | 704 | 14.0% | 10.8% | 24.8% |
| Orioles | 78.3 | 83.7 | 748 | 777 | 7.8% | 6.9% | 14.7% |
| Blue Jays | 73.0 | 89.1 | 686 | 751 | 2.8% | 3.5% | 6.3% |
This is basically how things looked in the preseason, with Boston about two games better than the Yankees.
Boston wins 2 of 3
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 91.4 | 70.6 | 817 | 687 | 37.3% | 17.3% | 54.6% |
| Yankees | 91.3 | 70.7 | 812 | 707 | 35.9% | 18.0% | 53.9% |
| Rays | 82.4 | 79.6 | 762 | 704 | 15.7% | 11.5% | 27.1% |
| Orioles | 78.3 | 83.7 | 748 | 777 | 7.8% | 7.8% | 15.6% |
| Blue Jays | 73.4 | 88.6 | 686 | 751 | 3.4% | 3.3% | 6.7% |
For all intents and purposes that makes things a dead heat.
Yankees win 2 of 3
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 92.0 | 70.0 | 812 | 707 | 40.6% | 18.6% | 59.1% |
| Red Sox | 90.6 | 71.4 | 817 | 687 | 35.9% | 18.1% | 53.9% |
| Rays | 81.9 | 80.1 | 762 | 704 | 13.0% | 9.4% | 22.4% |
| Orioles | 78.6 | 83.4 | 748 | 777 | 8.0% | 7.7% | 15.7% |
| Blue Jays | 72.8 | 89.2 | 686 | 751 | 2.6% | 3.7% | 6.3% |
While not my ideal scenario, I would approve of this outcome.
Yankees Sweep
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Yankees | 93.9 | 68.1 | 812 | 707 | 47.2% | 17.0% | 64.2% |
| Red Sox | 89.3 | 72.7 | 817 | 687 | 29.6% | 16.8% | 46.4% |
| Rays | 82.3 | 79.7 | 762 | 704 | 13.4% | 10.7% | 24.1% |
| Orioles | 77.7 | 84.3 | 748 | 777 | 6.5% | 6.5% | 13.0% |
| Blue Jays | 73.1 | 88.9 | 686 | 751 | 3.3% | 3.6% | 6.9% |
This is my preferred result.
These odds can swing pretty wildly after just a few games, so don’t take them too seriously. This is particularly true in baseball where divisional rivals play each other so frequently.
Now obviously it’s really early in the season and we have no idea what will actually happen, but can you imagine the hysteria if the Yankees take all three games?
Looking at the pitching matchups, the Yankees are probably underdogs in the first two games.
Friday, April 8
Phil “88 mph” Hughes vs. John “World Series Hero” Lackey
Saturday, April 9
Ivan Nova vs. Clay Buchholz
The good news is they should probably be slight favorites in the finale
Sunday, April 10
CC “Future Red Sock” Sabathia vs. Josh “Guardian of playing the game right” Beckett
So the most likely scenario is that the Red Sox take two of three, and really that’s fine with me. I just don’t want to see the Yankees get swept.
You Know, Suzyn…
Monday, April 4, 2011
2011 March/April Expectations
I was looking at the Yankees’ early season schedule and wanted to see what a reasonable expectation is for their performance over the next month. So using the 2011 CAIRO projected team W/L records and Bill James’s log 5 expected win method, here’s how things look.
| Date | Game | xW | xL | aW | aL | aW-xW | cxW | cxL | caW | caL | caW-cxW |
| 3/31/2011 | vs Tigers | .61 | .39 | 1 | 0 | .39 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| 4/2/2011 | vs Tigers | .61 | .39 | 1 | 0 | .39 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.8 |
| 4/3/2011 | vs Tigers | .61 | .39 | 0 | 1 | -.61 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.2 |
| 4/4/2011 | vs Twins | .61 | .39 | 2.4 | 1.6 | ||||||
| 4/5/2011 | vs Twins | .61 | .39 | 3.0 | 2.0 | ||||||
| 4/6/2011 | vs Twins | .61 | .39 | 3.6 | 2.4 | ||||||
| 4/7/2011 | vs Twins | .61 | .39 | 4.2 | 2.8 | ||||||
| 4/8/2011 | @ Red Sox | .45 | .55 | 4.7 | 3.3 | ||||||
| 4/9/2011 | @ Red Sox | .45 | .55 | 5.1 | 3.9 | ||||||
| 4/10/2011 | @ Red Sox | .45 | .55 | 5.6 | 4.4 | ||||||
| 4/12/2011 | vs Orioles | .64 | .36 | 6.2 | 4.8 | ||||||
| 4/13/2011 | vs Orioles | .64 | .36 | 6.9 | 5.1 | ||||||
| 4/14/2011 | vs Orioles | .64 | .36 | 7.5 | 5.5 | ||||||
| 4/15/2011 | vs Rangers | .56 | .44 | 8.1 | 5.9 | ||||||
| 4/16/2011 | vs Rangers | .56 | .44 | 8.6 | 6.4 | ||||||
| 4/17/2011 | vs Rangers | .56 | .44 | 9.2 | 6.8 | ||||||
| 4/19/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .57 | .43 | 9.8 | 7.2 | ||||||
| 4/20/2011 | @ Blue Jays | .57 | .43 | 10.3 | 7.7 | ||||||
| 4/22/2011 | @ Orioles | .56 | .44 | 10.9 | 8.1 | ||||||
| 4/23/2011 | @ Orioles | .56 | .44 | 11.5 | 8.5 | ||||||
| 4/24/2011 | @ Orioles | .56 | .44 | 12.0 | 9.0 | ||||||
| 4/25/2011 | vs White Sox | .61 | .39 | 12.6 | 9.4 | ||||||
| 4/26/2011 | vs White Sox | .61 | .39 | 13.2 | 9.8 | ||||||
| 4/27/2011 | vs White Sox | .61 | .39 | 13.8 | 10.2 | ||||||
| 4/28/2011 | vs White Sox | .61 | .39 | 14.4 | 10.6 | ||||||
| 4/29/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .65 | .35 | 15.1 | 10.9 | ||||||
| 4/30/2011 | vs Blue Jays | .65 | .35 | 15.7 | 11.3 |
xW: Expected win probability
xL: Expected loss probability
aW: Actual win
aL: Actual loss
aW-xW: Actual win minus expected win. Positive is good, negative is bad
cxW: Cumulative xW
cxL: Cumulative expected losses
caW: Cumulative actual wins
caL: Cumulative actual losses
caW-cxW: Cumulative actual wins minus cumulative expected wins
The key thing here is the home/road split. The Yankees play 19 of their first 27 games at home, which is a big advantage. Of course, that then means that at some point in the year they’re going to play a whole bunch of games on the road, which is a disadvantage. The Yankees play 47 of their first 81 games at home(58%), which means the second half of the season has the potential to be rough. So, if they want to leave April on a pace that would match their season-long expectations, they really need to go 16-11 or so. Well, actually 14-10 since they took two of three from Detroit which puts them about 0.2 wins ahead of these expectations.
Since I know someone will ask, Boston has to play 15 of their first 27 games on the road. In an eerie coincidence they have the exact same log5 expected record. That’s because their games are against a somewhat weaker group of opponents. If you sum the projected winning percentages of each team’s opponents on a game by game basis, the Yankees collective opponents have a winning percentage of about .508 and the Red Sox have an opponent winning percentage of .502. It’s a difference of about a game over a month. Since the Red Sox got swept in Texas, they’re currently about 1.5 games off their expectations and need to go something like 16-8 through the end of April to catch up.
If the aggregate results of the 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout were accurate, the Red Sox were projected as being about two games better than the Yankees. Since the Yankees are now 0.2 wins ahead of where they projected to be and Boston’s 1.5 games behind where they’re projected to be, the two teams are essentially on equal footing now. So it’ll be a dogfight for the wild card behind the surging Baltimore Orioles.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout - American League Edition
Opening Day is just days away, so it’s time to present my annual Diamond Mind Projection blowout. The idea behind this is to take several projection systems and run the 2011 season multiple times through Diamond Mind Baseball, which I consider to be the most statistically accurate baseball simulator available.
I’ve done a version of this since 2005. If you want to see how previous runs have gone, here are the links:
2005
2006
2007
2008 Pt 1
2008 Pt 2
2009 AL
2009 NL
2010 AL
2010 NL
As you can see if you look at the prior runs, the results can be hit and miss, but that’s certainly understandable.
Before I present the projected standings, it’s disclaimer time.
1) Projection systems are inherently limited in their accuracy, particularly for pitchers. We can get a rough idea of how most players will perform by looking at their past histories and how similar players have performed, and factoring in aging and regression, but abilities/talent can change in ways that can’t be forecasted.
2) Playing time distribution in these simulations will not match actual 2011 playing time. I used the rosters and depth charts available at the absolutely awesome MLB Depth Charts as my guide to set these up as realistically as possible, but it’s a possible source of error. Rosters were set up to have 35-40 or so active players per team, and to get a reasonable amount of playing time from the bench and extra pitchers, to more closely model reality. Basically, no players are set to play more than 90% of the time, starting catchers are restricted to at most about 75% of the games, and I’ve made sure teams get a non-trivial amount of starts from their 6-8 starters. The healthier a team is in 2011, the more likely they will be to exceed these projections.
3) We cannot predict injuries and/or roster changes. These simulations do try to adjust projected playing time based on past health issues, so someone like Brandon Webb or Erik Bedard is not expected to make 30 starts. I’ve also included random injuries which may lead to some of the outlying results you see, but there’s no way to account for all the fluctuations that will happen with rosters this season.
4) These are NOT my predictions. These are projections based on running a computer simulation hundreds of thousands of times with projection data that is inherently limited. If your favorite team doesn’t project well, don’t blame me, blame the computers and spreadsheets that projected them. I guess you can blame me for the CAIRO results if you want, otherwise you can take heart in the 2005 White Sox projecting to win 79 games, the 2006 Tigers projecting to win 80, or the 2010 Giants projecting to go 81-81. These are not meant to tell you how the season is going to play out. I prefer to think of them more as a starting point for discussion, with a range of something like 10 wins in either direction based on how things actually end up playing out. You can look at them and argue about why you think some teams will be better or worse.
5) Since this is all automated, I don’t break ties. I simply award all ties a share of either the division title or wild card when it happens which is why you may see some funny decimal places in the standings that follow.
6) While the Diamond Mind engine is pretty good at giving us some variance in player and team performances over multiple simulations, it’s not quite good enough to model reality. Diamond Mind’s standard deviation for team wins is generally in the six to seven win range, but given the possible variations in playing time and in player performance, a better standard deviation is probably closer to the 10 to 13 win range. So I’ve taken the results from each set of projections (which I ran 1,000 times) and then run them through a Monte Carlo simulator 100,000 times. It won’t change the average win totals much, but it will give us a slightly higher standard deviation on team wins which will give us slightly different division and wild card percentages which should be more realistic.
7) These are the averages of hundreds of thousands of simulated seasons, so the results will tend to regress towards the mean. The final standings will not look like this, because they only play the season once. The idea behind is not necessarily to tell us how the final standings will look. Think of it more as a starting point for discussion. You can look at these and think about why you think teams will be better or worse.
OK, so now that the disclaimers are out of the way, onto the projected standings. I am showing W-L to one decimal place to deal with displayed rounding issues and so I don’t get people asking me why the wins and losses don’t add up to exactly 2430, not to imply that these results are that precise.
There’s too much crap to fit it all into one post, so I’ve created a separate post for each projection system I will use this post to show the results of the aggregate for the American League. You can follow the links below to look at the National League’s aggregate results and the individual projection systems’ results.
This year, I’m using five different projection systems. You can click on each of the links below to get some more information about each system and to see how their projected standings look.
The 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout - National League Edition
Bill James
CAIRO
Marcel
Oliver
PECOTA
In the past I included CHONE and ZiPS. Unfortunately, CHONE is not available this season and the ZiPS disk came out too late for me to use it.
| American League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 94.4 | 67.6 | 817 | 687 | 42.1% | 17.8% | 59.8% | 84-104 | 788-846 | 661-714 | 5.4 | -1 | -57 |
| Yankees | 92.4 | 69.6 | 812 | 707 | 32.8% | 18.2% | 51.0% | 82-102 | 783-840 | 680-734 | -2.6 | -47 | 14 |
| Rays | 86.1 | 75.9 | 762 | 704 | 16.0% | 13.4% | 29.4% | 76-96 | 734-789 | 678-731 | -9.9 | -40 | 55 |
| Orioles | 78.6 | 83.4 | 748 | 777 | 6.0% | 6.5% | 12.5% | 69-89 | 720-775 | 749-805 | 12.6 | 135 | -8 |
| Blue Jays | 73.9 | 88.1 | 686 | 751 | 3.1% | 3.2% | 6.3% | 64-84 | 659-712 | 724-779 | -11.1 | -69 | 23 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Tigers | 84.6 | 77.4 | 723 | 693 | 31.2% | 6.4% | 37.7% | 75-95 | 696-750 | 667-719 | 3.6 | -28 | -50 |
| Twins | 84.4 | 77.6 | 767 | 733 | 30.7% | 6.6% | 37.3% | 74-94 | 739-794 | 706-760 | -9.6 | -14 | 62 |
| White Sox | 82.8 | 79.2 | 723 | 721 | 25.6% | 6.3% | 31.9% | 73-93 | 696-750 | 694-748 | -5.2 | -20 | -24 |
| Indians | 74.3 | 87.7 | 720 | 779 | 8.8% | 2.6% | 11.4% | 64-84 | 693-747 | 751-807 | 5.3 | 74 | 27 |
| Royals | 68.4 | 93.6 | 680 | 806 | 3.7% | 1.2% | 4.9% | 58-78 | 654-706 | 777-834 | 1.4 | 4 | -39 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 88.0 | 74.0 | 746 | 680 | 45.7% | 5.9% | 51.6% | 78-98 | 719-774 | 654-707 | -2.0 | -41 | -7 |
| Athletics | 84.6 | 77.4 | 681 | 646 | 31.3% | 6.1% | 37.4% | 75-95 | 655-707 | 620-671 | 3.6 | 18 | 20 |
| Angels | 77.9 | 84.1 | 666 | 687 | 14.9% | 3.6% | 18.5% | 68-88 | 640-691 | 661-713 | -2.1 | -15 | -15 |
| Mariners | 73.6 | 88.4 | 639 | 711 | 8.1% | 2.2% | 10.3% | 64-84 | 614-665 | 685-738 | 12.6 | 126 | 13 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W Std: Wins range within one standard deviation
RS Std: Runs scored within one standard deviation
RA Std: Runs allowed within one standard deviation
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
One thing I need to note, since it may not be obvious. Those standings are NOT saying the Tigers are going to win the AL Central with 84.6 wins. They are saying the Tigers projected to win the AL Central most frequently(31.2% of the time) and that they averaged 84.6 wins. Those are two separate things. In order to actually win the division, the AL Central winner had to win 90 games on average.
Here are the average wins for each place in the AL, plus the wild card.
| Division | AL East |
| Place | # W |
| 1 | 98 |
| 2 | 91 |
| 3 | 86 |
| 4 | 79 |
| 5 | 72 |
| Division | AL Central |
| Place | # W |
| 1 | 90 |
| 2 | 84 |
| 3 | 80 |
| 4 | 74 |
| 5 | 67 |
| Division | AL West |
| Place | # W |
| 1 | 91 |
| 2 | 84 |
| 3 | 78 |
| 4 | 71 |
| AL Wild Card | 92 |
Regular readers know that this whole exercise is an excuse to make fancy pie charts, so here’s how the AL division title percentages look for the aggregate in pie chart form.
I’ll run through the divisions and teams briefly:
AL East
Boston Red Sox
Average Projected Wins: 94
Division Title Percentage: 42.1%
Wild Card Percentage: 17.8%
Playoff Percentage: 59.8%
Boston projects as the best team in baseball, but they don’t project to be some 110 win juggernaut. They obviously added a couple of nice pieces in Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, but they lost two very important players from last year’s team in Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez. The bulk of Boston’s projected improvement is based on the assumptions of better health from some of their key players who missed significant time last year, and on some bounce back years from some of their pitchers who struggled.
Why they might be better than projected: There’s little doubt that Adrian Gonzalez has moved from a park that suppresses offense significantly to one that boosts offense. You never know exactly how an individual player’s performance will be affected by moving to a new park, so there’s a chance that his projections may not fully capture how much he’ll benefit. So if Gonzalez is able to take more advantage of Fenway than expected, he may exceed his projections
In addition to that, while most of the projections expect some bounce back from Josh Beckett, John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka, any one of them or all of them might be able to outperform their projections.
They may also get better than expected performance out of shortstop if Jed Lowrie can stay healthy and take away some of Marco Scutaro’s time.
Why they might be worse than projected: You shouldn’t read too much into spring training performance, but Beckett has looked pretty shaky. If he’s not healthy or he’s lost some zip even a modest bounce back may be asking too much. Kevin Youkilis hasn’t played a lot of 3B over the past two years, and there’s a chance his defense there might be lacking, although he’s got good numbers at 3B in his career. They may also have trouble with lefties in the late innings with their bullpen if Dennys Reyes and/or Hideki Okajima are ineffective, although Daniel Bard, Bobby Jenks and Jonathan Papelbon have generally been pretty effective against them. Their lineup may be a bit more susceptible to LHP.
New York Yankees
Average Projected Wins: 92
Division Title Percentage: 32.8%
Wild Card Percentage: 18.2%
Playoff Percentage: 51.0%
The Yankees are probably not as good as Boston, although with the error bars in any projection a gap of two wins is effectively not much of a gap. At least one NL team’s scouts seem to think the Yankees are better.
Why they might be better than projected: I’ve assumed that Jesus Montero will only get about 200 PA, but if he’s able to exceed that and play passable defense the Yankees can probably get a few more runs out of him than they would out of Russell Martin and/or Francisco Cervelli.
It’s not likely, but I don’t think anyone would be shocked to see Alex Rodriguez put up an MVP-caliber season, which is not something he’s projected to do. He’s tearing the cover off the ball in spring training, although that’s not necessarily predictive.
The Yankees’ rotation has a lot of uncertainty in it, but but if A.J. Burnett can pitch closer to how he did in 2009 and they get serviceable pitching out of Ivan Nova and Freddy Garcia they’ll be in in pretty good shape. They’ve also got some intriguing arms that are long on potential in AA and AAA that may end up helping them out as the season proceeds.
Why they might be worse than projected: Derek Jeter may set the all-time record for grounding into double plays. The lineup looks strong, but they’re not particularly young and there’s a chance they’ll get worse than expected performances/missed time from some of their key players and they don’t have a ton of depth behind the starters. Jorge Posada’s bat would probably still play well at catcher, but it’s uncertain how well it’ll play as a DH. The uncertainty that may help the Yankee rotation out-perform their projections could also cause it to crash and burn.
Tampa Bay Rays
Average Projected Wins: 86
Division Title Percentage: 16.0%
Wild Card Percentage: 13.4%
Playoff Percentage: 29.4%
The Rays have won the AL East in two of the past three seasons. Despite that, the “experts” aren’t expecting a lot out of Tampa Bay since they lost their entire bullpen and Carl Crawford. Of course, those experts should probably take a look at how they built that bullpen in the first place. Most were traded for at a minimal cost or signed relatively cheaply and there’s no reason to think they can’t cobble a similarly good pen together in 2011.
Why they might be better than projected: They’ve got youth on their side with a lot of their key players. They also have a lot of flexibility with players who can play several positions and hit well, which should help mitigate any injuries or poor performances. It’s looking less likely that B.J. Upton’s going to turn into a superstar, but you never know.
Why they might be worse than projected: Some of their younger players like Desmond Jennings and Jeremy Hellickson may have some growing pains, and some of their hopes for contending are contingent on Ben Zobrist hitting a bit better than he did in 2010 coming off a back injury.
Baltimore Orioles
Average Projected Wins: 79
Division Title Percentage: 6.0%
Wild Card Percentage: 6.5%
Playoff Percentage: 12.5%
The Orioles may have improved more than any other team in baseball, at least if you compare their projections to their 2010 performance. Their lineup looks pretty good, and Brian Matusz looks like he’s on his way to becoming one of the best young pitchers in baseball. The Orioles played very well after Buck Showalter took over, although that in and of itself is not necessarily predictive.
Why they might be better than projected: They could see better than expected performances out of Matt Wieters, Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, all of who have been somewhat disappointing relative to expectations so far. If they can get good performances out of some of their non-Matusz young starters like Jake Arrieta, Brad Bergesen and Chris Tilman and can get a reasonable number of starts out of Justin Duchscherer their pitching could surprise.
Why they might be worse than projected: Vladimir Guerrero and Derrek Lee have seen their best days, but still project decently, so if they underperform a bit that could hurt. There’s a non-zero chance they get nothing out of Duchscherer and some of their young starters struggle.
Toronto Blue Jays
Average Projected Wins: 74
Division Title Percentage: 3.1%
Wild Card Percentage: 3.2%
Playoff Percentage: 6.3%
The Jays projections seem low to me, although I guess that’s largely a function of playing in a tough division.
Why they might be better than projected: Jose Bautista is probably a completely different player than he was in 2008 and the first five months of 2009, but the projections don’t know that. If he’s closer to 2010 Bautista than he’s projected to be that will make the offense better. The subpar performances of Adam Lind, Travis Snyder and Aaron Hill in 2010 may be hurting their projections as well. They’ve got some interesting young arms in the rotation who could also be better than expected.
Why they might be worse than projected: The offense doesn’t look great, particularly if Edwin Encarnacion is the primary DH and Juan Rivera is the primary LF. The defense may be a bit less than great with Jose Bautista at 3B and Adam Lind at 1B.
AL Central
Detroit Tigers
Average Projected Wins: 85
Division Title Percentage: 31.2%
Wild Card Percentage: 6.4%
Playoff Percentage: 37.7%
A busy offseason has vaulted Detroit to the top of the projected AL Central. They’ve probably got the best pitcher in their division in Justin Verlander and one of the top hitters in baseball with Miguel Cabrera.
Why they might be better than projected: The Tigers are heavily right-handed which is a benefit in Comerica park. Rick Porcello’s raw numbers looked worse in 2010 than they were in 2009, but his FIP was actually about 0.40 runs better, so he may pitch better than a projection that doesn’t account for that would think.
Why they might be worse than projected: There’s not a lot of depth here. An injury to one of their front-line players like Cabrera or Verlander or Victor Martinez would be tough to overcome. They have some good defenders but their overall defense doesn’t look all that great. They’re counting on Phil Coke making the transition to the rotation and that’s a risk in terms of both performance and innings.
Minnesota Twins
Average Projected Wins: 84
Division Title Percentage: 30.7%
Wild Card Percentage: 6.6%
Playoff Percentage: 37.3%
The Twins return essentially the same team that won the AL Central in 2010, minus J.J. Hardy but plus Joe Nathan.
Why they might be better than projected: Francisco Liriano had a very good year in 2010 and if you look at his peripherals it looks even better. However, his projections include a less than great 2009. If the reason for that 2009 was due to limitations as he worked his way back from Tommy John surgery then his projections probably underrate him. Getting a full season out of Justin Morneau may also help, as I’ve assumed he’ll only play about 75% of the games due to his concussion issues.
Why they might be worse than projected: Their outfield defense isn’t very good, particularly Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer. While most projections try to account for defense when projecting pitching, they may not be penalzing the Twins enough. Morneau may miss a non-trivial amount of time, which would also obviously hurt. They’ve got Alexi Casilla penciled in as the starting SS, but he’s only played 233 innings there in his career so he may not be up for the task. They’re also counting on Tsuyohsi Nishioka at 2B, and it’s tough to know exactly how his game will translate from Japan.
Chicago White Sox
Average Projected Wins: 83
Division Title Percentage: 25.6%
Wild Card Percentage: 6.3%
Playoff Percentage: 31.9%
The White Sox added Adam Dunn, who should be a huge upgrade over what they got out of DH last year. They’ll also have a full season of Edwin Jackson.
Why they might be better than projected: The biggest reason I can think of is Edwin Jackson. He was a completely different pitcher for the White Sox that he’s been at any point in his career, although it was only 11 starts. His BB/9 was 2.16 compared to 3.86 career, and his K/9 rate jumped to 9.24 compared to 6.68. If that was due to Don Cooper’s coaching and not just a nice little run that was due more to luck than skill he could be a lot more valuable than expected. It’ll be interesting to see how Gordon Beckham does this year, as he fell off significantly from his 2009.
Why they might be worse than projected: The White Sox have generally been one of the healthiest teams in baseball, but Jake Peavy is a major injury risk based on his past history and the drop-off after him is pretty steep. They’ve got Brent Morel slated as the starting 3B. His defensive reputation is quite good, but his bat’s still an uncertain proposition.
Cleveland Indians
Average Projected Wins: 74
Division Title Percentage: 8.8%
Wild Card Percentage: 2.6%
Playoff Percentage: 11.4%
The Indians are probably the youngest team in baseball. They return most of a team that was pretty bad in 2010.
Why they might be better than projected: Grady Sizemore’s trying to make his way back from injury. Prior to that he was one of the best players in baseball and if he’s able to recapture most of that and play regularly it’ll help. Their rotation is young and that may help them pitch better than projected.
Why they might be worse than projected: Aside from Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Santana (and a healthy Sizemore), their position players aren’t particularly great. It’s tough to see them scoring a lot of runs as presently constituted, and their defense last year was pretty lousy. A repeat of that could make their run prevention worse than projected.
Kansas City Royals
Average Projected Wins: 68
Division Title Percentage: 3.7%
Wild Card Percentage: 1.2%
Playoff Percentage: 4.9%
With Zach Greinke now in Milwaukee, it’s looking like another painful year for the Royals in 2011, but their future looks a lot brighter.
Why they might be better than projected: The Royals might have the best farm system in baseball and some of those prospects may start contributing this year.
Why they might be worse than projected: The Royals are probably not even going to sniff contention, so it may make sense to make moves with the future in mind that could hurt them in the short-term. The package they got back for Greinke doesn’t look all that great, and right now it looks like they are going to have Jeff Francoeur hitting in the middle of the lineup, something that Braves and Mets fans probably get hives about.
AL West
Texas Rangers
Average Projected Wins: 88
Division Title Percentage: 45.7%
Wild Card Percentage: 31.3%
Playoff Percentage: 51.6%
2010’s AL Champions look like the class of the AL West.
Why they might be better than projected: I’ve seen it expressed in more than one place that the Rangers need to replace Cliff Lee and that losing him is going to hurt, but is losing 109 innings of 3.98 ERA that big of a deal?
The defensive upgrade from Michael Young to Adrian Beltre at 3B is huge on paper, but projections may understate it. Derek Holland has the stuff to be better than projected and that would slot in nicely behind C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis. I’ve restricted Brandon Webb to about 10 starts, so if he can make more than that and pitch as projected they’ll benefit.
Why they might be worse than projected: 2010 was Wilson’s first full season as a starter in the majors, so I suppose there’s some risk that he breaks down at some point. Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler have both shown problems with staying healthy at times and losing either of them for a significant amount of time (particularly Hamilton) would be a big blow. They may get nothing out of Webb.
Oakland Athletics
Average Projected Wins: 85
Division Title Percentage: 31.3%
Wild Card Percentage: 6.1%
Playoff Percentage: 37.4%
Despite scoring 37 runs more than they allowed, the A’s finshed 2010 at 81-81. The projections expect them to be less unlucky in 2011 and pick up those 3-4 missing wins.
Why they might be better than projected: They should be a pretty good defensive team, which may not be fully captured in their pitching projections.
Why they might be worse than projected: They’ve got some health concerns in their pitching staff, and their offense isn’t great. A lot of their pitchers had ERAs well below their FIPs/xFIPs and may regress more than projected, although some of that difference is probably due to park.
LA Angels
Average Projected Wins: 78
Division Title Percentage: 14.9%
Wild Card Percentage: 3.6%
Playoff Percentage: 18.5%
A bad offseason following their first losing season since 2003 has the Angels projected behind Texas and Oakland. However, they’ll have a full season of Dan Haren and the return of Kendrys Morales as upgrades.
Why they might be better than projected: An outfield of Vernon Wells in LF, Peter Bourjos in CF and Torii Hunter in RF could be the best defensive OF in baseball. That could be particularly beneficial to Jered Weaver who is a fly ball pitcher. At this point it looks like Scott Kazmir the budding ace has morphed into Scott Kazmir the replacement level pitcher, but he’s still young and might be able to recapture some of his former glory.
Why they might be worse than projected: Their catching situation stinks, and they don’t have much depth behind their starters. Fernando Rodney as closer seems like a good way to lose some close games late.
Seattle Mariners
Average Projected Wins: 74
Division Title Percentage: 8.1%
Wild Card Percentage: 2.2%
Playoff Percentage: 10.3%
Picked by many to be in contention in the AL West in 2010, the Mariners instead lost 101 games. They scored an abysmal 513 runs and actually over-performed their pythagorean W-L by four games. Of course, they weren’t really that bad, they just had a lot of things go wrong which means they should be better in 2011 just by dumb luck, although they still don’t look like a contender.
Why they might be better than projected: Erik Bedard looks healthy, but I’ve assumed he’ll only pitch about 15 games. If they can get a full season out of him they’ll be a bit better.
Why they might be worse than projected: Their offense still looks pretty lousy, and if they’ve decided they can’t contend they may try and flip some of their players for prospects.
For the NL edition, click here.
And there you have it, the 2011 Diamond Mind projection blowout. Results are not guaranteed.
The 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout - PECOTA Edition
Originally developed by Nate Silver, who’s moved on to bigger things, PECOTA from Baseball Prospectus has in the past been considered one the best projection systems. Since Silver left they have had a few issues, but it’s now in the hands of Colin Wyers who is one of the best baseball analysts around, so I’d expect it to be pretty good again. Baseball Prospectus runs their own projected standings, so these should NOT be considered what PECOTA is projecting. It’s more what PECOTA is projecting using my depth charts for all the other projections. The difference shouldn’t be more than 1-2 games in either direction for the most part.
Here’s how this version of the projected standings shape up.
| American League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 94.1 | 67.9 | 809 | 681 | 41.1% | 17.7% | 58.8% | 84-104 | 781-837 | 655-707 | 5.1 | -9 | -63 |
| Yankees | 92.1 | 69.9 | 835 | 730 | 31.0% | 18.1% | 49.0% | 82-102 | 806-864 | 703-757 | -2.9 | -24 | 37 |
| Rays | 87.0 | 75.0 | 765 | 700 | 17.5% | 15.0% | 32.5% | 77-97 | 737-792 | 674-727 | -9.0 | -37 | 51 |
| Orioles | 80.0 | 82.0 | 752 | 767 | 7.2% | 7.7% | 14.9% | 70-90 | 725-780 | 740-795 | 14.0 | 139 | -18 |
| Blue Jays | 75.4 | 86.6 | 690 | 742 | 3.2% | 4.2% | 7.4% | 65-85 | 664-716 | 715-769 | -9.6 | -65 | 14 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Tigers | 83.4 | 78.6 | 720 | 700 | 29.0% | 6.0% | 34.9% | 73-93 | 693-747 | 673-726 | 2.4 | -31 | -43 |
| Twins | 83.2 | 78.8 | 764 | 748 | 26.3% | 5.7% | 32.0% | 73-93 | 736-791 | 721-776 | -10.8 | -17 | 77 |
| White Sox | 83.1 | 78.9 | 746 | 745 | 27.9% | 6.2% | 34.1% | 73-93 | 719-773 | 718-772 | -4.9 | 3 | 0 |
| Indians | 76.4 | 85.6 | 734 | 769 | 12.3% | 3.7% | 15.9% | 66-86 | 707-761 | 741-797 | 7.4 | 88 | 17 |
| Royals | 69.7 | 92.3 | 705 | 816 | 4.5% | 1.3% | 5.8% | 60-80 | 678-732 | 787-844 | 2.7 | 29 | -29 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 85.8 | 76.2 | 740 | 693 | 41.7% | 4.8% | 46.5% | 76-96 | 713-767 | 666-719 | -4.2 | -47 | 6 |
| Athletics | 83.0 | 79.0 | 664 | 646 | 31.1% | 4.9% | 35.9% | 73-93 | 638-689 | 620-671 | 2.0 | 1 | 20 |
| Angels | 78.5 | 83.5 | 636 | 651 | 18.4% | 3.3% | 21.7% | 69-89 | 611-662 | 625-676 | -1.5 | -45 | -51 |
| Mariners | 72.7 | 89.3 | 622 | 704 | 8.8% | 1.6% | 10.4% | 63-83 | 597-647 | 677-730 | 11.7 | 109 | 6 |
| National League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Phillies | 91.0 | 71.0 | 731 | 638 | 42.4% | 10.6% | 53.0% | 81-101 | 704-758 | 612-663 | -6.0 | -41 | -2 |
| Braves | 87.0 | 75.0 | 716 | 658 | 29.5% | 11.1% | 40.6% | 77-97 | 690-743 | 633-684 | -4.0 | -22 | 29 |
| Marlins | 81.2 | 80.8 | 692 | 684 | 14.8% | 7.0% | 21.8% | 71-91 | 665-718 | 658-710 | 1.2 | -27 | -33 |
| Mets | 78.8 | 83.2 | 717 | 744 | 10.1% | 5.3% | 15.4% | 69-89 | 690-744 | 717-771 | -0.2 | 61 | 92 |
| Nationals | 70.0 | 92.0 | 661 | 760 | 3.1% | 1.6% | 4.7% | 60-80 | 635-687 | 732-787 | 1.0 | 6 | 18 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Cardinals | 84.2 | 77.8 | 738 | 707 | 30.0% | 7.1% | 37.1% | 74-94 | 711-765 | 680-734 | -1.8 | 2 | 66 |
| Brewers | 82.6 | 79.4 | 723 | 707 | 22.0% | 6.5% | 28.5% | 73-93 | 696-750 | 680-734 | 5.6 | -27 | -97 |
| Cubs | 81.3 | 80.7 | 729 | 723 | 20.5% | 5.6% | 26.2% | 71-91 | 702-756 | 696-750 | 6.3 | 44 | -44 |
| Reds | 81.3 | 80.7 | 718 | 715 | 20.2% | 6.2% | 26.4% | 71-91 | 692-745 | 688-742 | -9.7 | -72 | 30 |
| Pirates | 70.2 | 91.8 | 677 | 780 | 4.4% | 1.7% | 6.1% | 60-80 | 651-703 | 752-807 | 13.2 | 90 | -86 |
| Astros | 67.0 | 95.0 | 569 | 692 | 2.9% | 1.0% | 3.9% | 57-77 | 545-593 | 666-719 | -9.0 | -42 | -37 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Giants | 89.5 | 72.5 | 692 | 620 | 38.4% | 10.3% | 48.8% | 80-100 | 666-719 | 595-645 | -2.5 | -5 | 37 |
| Dodgers | 84.9 | 77.1 | 670 | 642 | 25.0% | 8.8% | 33.8% | 75-95 | 644-696 | 617-667 | 4.9 | 3 | -50 |
| Rockies | 82.4 | 79.6 | 792 | 774 | 17.5% | 7.9% | 25.5% | 72-92 | 764-820 | 746-801 | -0.6 | 22 | 57 |
| Padres | 79.9 | 82.1 | 649 | 671 | 12.6% | 6.1% | 18.7% | 70-90 | 624-675 | 645-697 | -10.1 | -16 | 90 |
| Diamondbacks | 74.5 | 87.5 | 665 | 717 | 6.4% | 3.2% | 9.6% | 65-85 | 639-691 | 690-744 | 9.5 | -48 | -119 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W Std: Wins range within one standard deviation
RS Std: Runs scored within one standard deviation
RA Std: Runs allowed within one standard deviation
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
Here are the division title percentages in pie chart form.
The 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout - Marcel Edition
Marcel was developed by Tangotiger of The Book fame.
As an aside, Tango is running a community playing time forecast if you want to help him out.
Back to Marcel, although it’s considered the most basic projection system, it is generally as good as any other system since added complexity really hasn’t shown to add all that much accuracy over Marcel, and the principles behind it are solid and should be the basis for any good forecasting system. Here’s how it sees things looking in 2011.
| American League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 91.6 | 70.4 | 841 | 734 | 40.0% | 14.4% | 54.4% | 82-102 | 812-870 | 707-762 | 2.6 | 23 | -10 |
| Yankees | 89.0 | 73.0 | 785 | 711 | 28.5% | 14.1% | 42.5% | 79-99 | 757-813 | 685-738 | -6.0 | -74 | 18 |
| Rays | 85.3 | 76.7 | 747 | 699 | 19.2% | 11.5% | 30.7% | 75-95 | 720-775 | 673-726 | -10.7 | -55 | 50 |
| Orioles | 78.8 | 83.2 | 754 | 780 | 8.7% | 6.2% | 14.9% | 69-89 | 726-781 | 752-808 | 12.8 | 141 | -5 |
| Blue Jays | 72.4 | 89.6 | 691 | 768 | 3.7% | 2.6% | 6.3% | 62-82 | 665-717 | 740-796 | -12.6 | -64 | 40 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Twins | 85.7 | 76.3 | 757 | 709 | 34.3% | 7.2% | 41.5% | 76-96 | 729-784 | 682-736 | -8.3 | -24 | 38 |
| White Sox | 83.5 | 78.5 | 714 | 701 | 26.3% | 7.2% | 33.5% | 73-93 | 687-740 | 674-727 | -4.5 | -29 | -44 |
| Tigers | 83.3 | 78.7 | 717 | 696 | 26.3% | 7.6% | 33.9% | 73-93 | 690-744 | 669-722 | 2.3 | -34 | -47 |
| Indians | 75.1 | 86.9 | 693 | 747 | 9.8% | 3.0% | 12.9% | 65-85 | 667-720 | 720-775 | 6.1 | 47 | -5 |
| Royals | 68.4 | 93.6 | 659 | 783 | 3.3% | 1.2% | 4.5% | 58-78 | 633-685 | 755-811 | 1.4 | -17 | -62 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 88.7 | 73.3 | 781 | 710 | 42.9% | 8.2% | 51.2% | 79-99 | 753-809 | 684-737 | -1.3 | -6 | 23 |
| Athletics | 85.6 | 76.4 | 679 | 644 | 30.2% | 7.8% | 38.0% | 76-96 | 653-705 | 618-669 | 4.6 | 16 | 18 |
| Angels | 79.9 | 82.1 | 697 | 703 | 16.0% | 5.6% | 21.6% | 70-90 | 670-723 | 676-729 | -0.1 | 16 | 1 |
| Mariners | 76.7 | 85.3 | 634 | 673 | 10.8% | 3.5% | 14.3% | 67-87 | 609-659 | 647-699 | 15.7 | 121 | -25 |
| National League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Phillies | 87.7 | 74.3 | 715 | 654 | 34.9% | 9.4% | 44.3% | 78-98 | 689-742 | 628-679 | -9.3 | -57 | 14 |
| Braves | 85.2 | 76.9 | 695 | 654 | 27.3% | 9.0% | 36.3% | 75-95 | 668-721 | 628-679 | -5.8 | -43 | 25 |
| Marlins | 81.6 | 80.4 | 694 | 685 | 17.2% | 7.0% | 24.2% | 72-92 | 667-720 | 659-711 | 1.6 | -25 | -32 |
| Mets | 79.9 | 82.1 | 670 | 679 | 13.9% | 5.6% | 19.5% | 70-90 | 644-696 | 653-705 | 0.9 | 14 | 27 |
| Nationals | 73.8 | 88.2 | 655 | 719 | 6.7% | 3.1% | 9.8% | 64-84 | 629-680 | 692-746 | 4.8 | 0 | -23 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Reds | 83.7 | 78.3 | 740 | 712 | 27.6% | 8.0% | 35.6% | 74-94 | 713-767 | 686-739 | -7.3 | -50 | 27 |
| Cardinals | 82.3 | 79.7 | 732 | 724 | 24.5% | 7.5% | 32.0% | 72-92 | 705-759 | 698-751 | -3.7 | -4 | 83 |
| Cubs | 80.5 | 81.5 | 718 | 721 | 18.7% | 6.3% | 25.0% | 71-91 | 691-744 | 694-747 | 5.5 | 33 | -46 |
| Brewers | 79.3 | 82.7 | 710 | 728 | 15.1% | 5.3% | 20.4% | 69-89 | 683-736 | 701-755 | 2.3 | -40 | -76 |
| Pirates | 74.5 | 87.5 | 679 | 736 | 10.0% | 3.3% | 13.4% | 64-84 | 653-705 | 709-763 | 17.5 | 92 | -130 |
| Astros | 69.6 | 92.4 | 609 | 715 | 4.1% | 1.6% | 5.8% | 60-80 | 585-634 | 688-742 | -6.4 | -2 | -14 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Dodgers | 85.3 | 76.7 | 657 | 624 | 28.4% | 8.8% | 37.2% | 75-95 | 631-682 | 599-649 | 5.3 | -10 | -68 |
| Giants | 84.3 | 77.7 | 647 | 620 | 24.8% | 7.9% | 32.7% | 74-94 | 622-673 | 595-645 | -7.7 | -50 | 37 |
| Rockies | 83.3 | 78.7 | 764 | 741 | 23.5% | 7.3% | 30.7% | 73-93 | 736-792 | 713-768 | 0.3 | -6 | 24 |
| Padres | 79.8 | 82.2 | 616 | 633 | 14.6% | 6.4% | 21.0% | 70-90 | 592-641 | 608-658 | -10.2 | -49 | 52 |
| Diamondbacks | 75.4 | 86.6 | 686 | 732 | 8.8% | 3.5% | 12.3% | 65-85 | 660-712 | 705-759 | 10.4 | -27 | -104 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W Std: Wins range within one standard deviation
RS Std: Runs scored within one standard deviation
RA Std: Runs allowed within one standard deviation
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
Here are the division title percentages in pie chart form.
The 2011 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout - CAIRO Edition
CAIRO is my own in-house projection system, which is based on Marcel with the following changes.
1) I use the prior four years of data, whereas Marcel uses only the prior three years.
2) I make adjustments for park, which Marcel does not do.
3) I use major league equivalencies for players who’ve played in the minors, which Marcel does not do.
4) I account for the defense behind a pitcher in their prior seasons as well as in projecting them for the next season, which Marcel does not do.
5) Marcel regresses everyone towards league average, I also regress towards different additional means based on player age and primary position.
You can download the latest version of the 2011 CAIRO projections at this link.
Here’s how CAIRO projects the 2011 MLB standings.
| American League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 95.8 | 66.2 | 826 | 684 | 42.8% | 18.7% | 61.5% | 86-106 | 798-855 | 658-710 | 6.8 | 8 | -60 |
| Yankees | 93.1 | 68.9 | 821 | 713 | 31.7% | 19.4% | 51.1% | 83-103 | 792-849 | 686-739 | -1.9 | -38 | 20 |
| Rays | 87.6 | 74.4 | 734 | 660 | 17.8% | 14.9% | 32.7% | 78-98 | 707-761 | 634-686 | -8.4 | -68 | 11 |
| Orioles | 77.2 | 84.8 | 746 | 790 | 4.3% | 5.3% | 9.5% | 67-87 | 718-773 | 762-818 | 11.2 | 133 | 5 |
| Blue Jays | 75.8 | 86.2 | 689 | 737 | 3.5% | 3.9% | 7.4% | 66-86 | 663-716 | 710-764 | -9.2 | -66 | 9 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Tigers | 84.3 | 77.7 | 713 | 696 | 34.4% | 5.7% | 40.1% | 74-94 | 686-739 | 670-723 | 3.3 | -38 | -47 |
| White Sox | 83.1 | 78.9 | 718 | 712 | 30.7% | 5.5% | 36.3% | 73-93 | 691-745 | 686-739 | -4.9 | -25 | -33 |
| Twins | 81.7 | 80.3 | 747 | 732 | 25.2% | 5.3% | 30.5% | 72-92 | 720-775 | 705-759 | -12.3 | -34 | 61 |
| Indians | 71.4 | 90.6 | 707 | 788 | 6.4% | 1.7% | 8.1% | 61-81 | 681-734 | 760-817 | 2.4 | 61 | 36 |
| Royals | 66.6 | 95.4 | 661 | 803 | 3.3% | 0.7% | 4.0% | 57-77 | 636-687 | 774-831 | -0.4 | -15 | -42 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 89.3 | 72.7 | 730 | 652 | 48.1% | 6.7% | 54.9% | 79-99 | 703-757 | 626-677 | -0.7 | -57 | -35 |
| Athletics | 85.5 | 76.5 | 669 | 626 | 32.1% | 6.3% | 38.4% | 76-96 | 643-695 | 601-651 | 4.5 | 6 | 0 |
| Angels | 77.7 | 84.3 | 659 | 686 | 14.1% | 3.9% | 18.0% | 68-88 | 633-685 | 659-712 | -2.3 | -22 | -16 |
| Mariners | 72.1 | 89.9 | 619 | 703 | 5.6% | 1.9% | 7.6% | 62-82 | 594-644 | 676-729 | 11.1 | 106 | 5 |
| National League | |||||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Phillies | 92.8 | 69.2 | 742 | 630 | 45.0% | 10.6% | 55.6% | 83-103 | 714-769 | 605-655 | -4.2 | -30 | -10 |
| Braves | 86.6 | 75.4 | 736 | 674 | 25.6% | 10.7% | 36.3% | 77-97 | 709-763 | 648-700 | -4.4 | -2 | 45 |
| Marlins | 82.8 | 79.2 | 677 | 655 | 15.3% | 7.7% | 22.9% | 73-93 | 651-703 | 630-681 | 2.8 | -42 | -62 |
| Mets | 79.0 | 83.0 | 662 | 681 | 8.9% | 5.1% | 14.0% | 69-89 | 637-688 | 655-707 | 0.0 | 6 | 29 |
| Nationals | 74.1 | 87.9 | 653 | 714 | 5.2% | 2.8% | 8.0% | 64-84 | 627-679 | 687-740 | 5.1 | -2 | -28 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Reds | 86.9 | 75.1 | 749 | 697 | 31.1% | 10.2% | 41.3% | 77-97 | 721-776 | 670-723 | -4.1 | -41 | 12 |
| Brewers | 86.0 | 76.0 | 754 | 702 | 26.3% | 9.0% | 35.3% | 76-96 | 727-782 | 675-728 | 9.0 | 4 | -102 |
| Cardinals | 85.3 | 76.7 | 748 | 712 | 28.4% | 9.1% | 37.5% | 75-95 | 721-775 | 685-738 | -0.7 | 12 | 71 |
| Cubs | 78.4 | 83.6 | 733 | 755 | 10.7% | 5.2% | 15.9% | 68-88 | 706-760 | 728-783 | 3.4 | 48 | -12 |
| Pirates | 66.7 | 95.3 | 673 | 805 | 2.1% | 1.1% | 3.2% | 57-77 | 647-699 | 777-834 | 9.7 | 86 | -61 |
| Astros | 65.3 | 96.7 | 598 | 749 | 1.4% | 0.9% | 2.3% | 55-75 | 573-622 | 721-776 | -10.7 | -13 | 20 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W Std | RS Std | RA Std | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Giants | 87.2 | 74.9 | 704 | 652 | 35.7% | 7.2% | 42.9% | 77-97 | 678-731 | 627-678 | -4.8 | 7 | 69 |
| Rockies | 83.1 | 78.9 | 769 | 749 | 22.3% | 6.6% | 29.0% | 73-93 | 742-797 | 721-776 | 0.1 | -1 | 32 |
| Padres | 81.1 | 80.9 | 651 | 652 | 18.4% | 5.8% | 24.2% | 71-91 | 626-677 | 626-677 | -8.9 | -14 | 71 |
| Dodgers | 80.9 | 81.1 | 676 | 679 | 17.8% | 6.0% | 23.8% | 71-91 | 650-702 | 653-705 | 0.9 | 9 | -13 |
| Diamondbacks | 72.4 | 89.6 | 695 | 773 | 5.8% | 2.0% | 7.8% | 62-82 | 669-721 | 745-801 | 7.4 | -18 | -63 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W Std: Wins range within one standard deviation
RS Std: Runs scored within one standard deviation
RA Std: Runs allowed within one standard deviation
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
Here are the division title percentages in pie chart form.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
CAIRO v0.6 and Still Too Early 2011 MLB Projected Standings
I’ve updated the 2011 CAIRO projections to version 0.6 and have uploaded them to the site. They can be downloaded at the link below:
I’ve basically just updated rosters again and fixed a few issues. I’ve also added a projected standings page.
I probably will not do another update until about a week before the season starts, unless there’s some reason to.
Speaking of projected standings, it’s been about six weeks since I posted my extremely early projected standings for 2011 so here’s an update.
I suppose this is where I should tell you that it’s still too early to treat these as gospel and we still have position battles and rosters to finalize, as well as playing time allocation and injuries to deal with, but that doesn’t seem to prevent some people from taking them seriously and insulting my mother anyway, so I won’t.
I used the depth charts from MLB Depth Charts.com as of February 8, but I also included some playing time from the benches as well as some of the pitchers who aren’t necessarily expected to make their teams out of spring training but who will likely be needed at some point.
| Date | 2/8/2011 | |||||||||
| Iterations | 10,000 | |||||||||
| American League | ||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 96.2 | 65.8 | 831 | 687 | 45.6% | 17.6% | 63.2% | 7.2 | 13 | -57 |
| Yankees | 92.1 | 69.9 | 821 | 726 | 28.8% | 19.4% | 48.2% | -2.9 | -38 | 33 |
| Rays | 87.9 | 74.1 | 737 | 663 | 17.3% | 14.6% | 31.9% | -8.1 | -65 | 14 |
| Blue Jays | 77.2 | 84.8 | 709 | 738 | 4.2% | 5.0% | 9.2% | -7.8 | -46 | 10 |
| Orioles | 76.9 | 85.1 | 739 | 788 | 4.2% | 4.8% | 9.0% | 10.9 | 126 | 3 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| White Sox | 84.3 | 77.7 | 718 | 704 | 36.1% | 5.7% | 41.8% | -3.7 | -25 | -41 |
| Twins | 82.3 | 79.7 | 744 | 727 | 26.9% | 5.0% | 31.9% | -11.7 | -37 | 56 |
| Tigers | 81.9 | 80.1 | 714 | 697 | 27.7% | 5.5% | 33.2% | 0.9 | -37 | -46 |
| Indians | 70.6 | 91.4 | 711 | 804 | 6.2% | 1.4% | 7.6% | 1.6 | 65 | 52 |
| Royals | 66.2 | 95.8 | 658 | 806 | 3.1% | 0.7% | 3.8% | -0.8 | -18 | -39 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 92.7 | 69.3 | 728 | 626 | 57.6% | 6.6% | 64.2% | 2.7 | -59 | -61 |
| Athletics | 85.8 | 76.2 | 667 | 620 | 28.9% | 8.8% | 37.7% | 4.8 | 4 | -6 |
| Angels | 77.1 | 84.9 | 647 | 678 | 10.1% | 3.6% | 13.7% | -2.9 | -34 | -24 |
| Mariners | 70.4 | 91.6 | 606 | 705 | 3.4% | 1.3% | 4.7% | 9.4 | 93 | 7 |
| National League | ||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Phillies | 93.7 | 68.3 | 735 | 617 | 48.4% | 10.4% | 58.8% | -3.3 | -37 | -23 |
| Braves | 87.2 | 74.8 | 735 | 665 | 26.1% | 10.3% | 36.4% | -3.8 | -3 | 36 |
| Mets | 80.1 | 81.9 | 667 | 678 | 10.3% | 6.0% | 16.3% | 1.1 | 11 | 26 |
| Marlins | 79.3 | 82.7 | 668 | 679 | 9.5% | 5.3% | 14.8% | -0.7 | -51 | -38 |
| Nationals | 74.9 | 87.1 | 643 | 698 | 5.7% | 3.3% | 9.0% | 5.9 | -12 | -44 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Reds | 87.2 | 74.8 | 746 | 689 | 31.8% | 10.0% | 41.8% | -3.8 | -44 | 4 |
| Cardinals | 86.6 | 75.4 | 744 | 689 | 31.0% | 9.9% | 40.9% | 0.6 | 8 | 48 |
| Brewers | 86.6 | 75.4 | 746 | 688 | 26.5% | 9.4% | 35.9% | 9.6 | -4 | -116 |
| Cubs | 75.8 | 86.2 | 722 | 768 | 7.3% | 3.8% | 11.1% | 0.8 | 37 | 1 |
| Astros | 66.9 | 95.1 | 604 | 740 | 1.5% | 1.0% | 2.5% | -9.1 | -7 | 11 |
| Pirates | 66.6 | 95.4 | 663 | 796 | 1.9% | 1.1% | 3.0% | 9.6 | 76 | -70 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Giants | 86.9 | 75.1 | 698 | 649 | 32.1% | 8.2% | 40.2% | -5.1 | 1 | 66 |
| Rockies | 83.4 | 78.6 | 758 | 736 | 23.3% | 7.0% | 30.2% | 0.4 | -12 | 19 |
| Padres | 83.1 | 78.9 | 648 | 638 | 21.6% | 6.5% | 28.1% | -6.9 | -17 | 57 |
| Dodgers | 82.2 | 79.8 | 673 | 665 | 19.7% | 6.7% | 26.4% | 2.2 | 6 | -27 |
| Diamondbacks | 69.5 | 92.5 | 672 | 775 | 3.3% | 1.2% | 4.5% | 4.5 | -41 | -61 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
Here’s a comparison of this set of projections compared to the last ones:
| TM | 28-Dec | 28-Dec | 28-Dec | 28-Dec | 9-Feb | 9-Feb | 9-Feb | 9-Feb | Diff | Diff | Diff | Diff |
| W | Div | WC | PL | W | Div | WC | PL | W | Div | WC | PL | |
| Angels | 78 | 15.5% | 3.2% | 18.7% | 77 | 10.1% | 3.6% | 13.7% | -1 | -5.4% | 0.4% | -5.0% |
| Astros | 66 | 1.1% | 1.0% | 2.1% | 67 | 1.5% | 1.0% | 2.5% | 1 | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.4% |
| Athletics | 82 | 26.1% | 4.3% | 30.4% | 86 | 28.9% | 8.8% | 37.7% | 4 | 2.8% | 4.5% | 7.3% |
| Blue Jays | 74 | 2.6% | 5.8% | 8.4% | 77 | 4.2% | 5.0% | 9.2% | 3 | 1.6% | -0.8% | 0.8% |
| Braves | 89 | 26.6% | 13.3% | 39.9% | 87 | 26.1% | 10.3% | 36.4% | -1 | -0.5% | -3.0% | -3.5% |
| Brewers | 87 | 27.9% | 8.9% | 36.7% | 87 | 26.5% | 9.4% | 35.9% | -1 | -1.4% | 0.5% | -0.8% |
| Cardinals | 90 | 35.0% | 12.0% | 47.0% | 87 | 31.0% | 9.9% | 40.9% | -4 | -4.0% | -2.1% | -6.1% |
| Cubs | 79 | 10.5% | 6.3% | 16.8% | 76 | 7.3% | 3.8% | 11.1% | -4 | -3.2% | -2.5% | -5.7% |
| Diamondbacks | 74 | 6.4% | 1.9% | 8.3% | 70 | 3.3% | 1.2% | 4.5% | -4 | -3.1% | -0.7% | -3.8% |
| Dodgers | 83 | 20.3% | 7.2% | 27.5% | 82 | 19.7% | 6.7% | 26.4% | -1 | -0.6% | -0.5% | -1.1% |
| Giants | 84 | 24.1% | 6.6% | 30.6% | 87 | 32.1% | 8.2% | 40.2% | 3 | 8.0% | 1.6% | 9.6% |
| Indians | 74 | 8.2% | 2.7% | 10.8% | 71 | 6.2% | 1.4% | 7.6% | -3 | -2.0% | -1.3% | -3.2% |
| Mariners | 72 | 8.4% | 2.5% | 10.9% | 70 | 3.4% | 1.3% | 4.7% | -2 | -5.0% | -1.2% | -6.2% |
| Marlins | 77 | 8.7% | 5.0% | 13.7% | 79 | 9.5% | 5.3% | 14.8% | 2 | 0.8% | 0.3% | 1.1% |
| Mets | 77 | 7.1% | 4.5% | 11.6% | 80 | 10.3% | 6.0% | 16.3% | 4 | 3.2% | 1.5% | 4.7% |
| Nationals | 72 | 3.2% | 2.0% | 5.2% | 75 | 5.7% | 3.3% | 9.0% | 3 | 2.5% | 1.3% | 3.8% |
| Orioles | 70 | 1.8% | 2.9% | 4.7% | 77 | 4.2% | 4.8% | 9.0% | 7 | 2.4% | 1.9% | 4.3% |
| Padres | 81 | 17.7% | 5.0% | 22.6% | 83 | 21.6% | 6.5% | 28.1% | 2 | 3.9% | 1.5% | 5.5% |
| Phillies | 96 | 54.5% | 11.0% | 65.5% | 94 | 48.4% | 10.4% | 58.8% | -2 | -6.1% | -0.6% | -6.7% |
| Pirates | 68 | 2.1% | 1.2% | 3.3% | 67 | 1.9% | 1.1% | 3.0% | -1 | -0.2% | -0.1% | -0.3% |
| Rangers | 89 | 50.1% | 4.5% | 54.6% | 93 | 57.6% | 6.6% | 64.2% | 4 | 7.5% | 2.1% | 9.6% |
| Rays | 87 | 17.9% | 18.7% | 36.6% | 88 | 17.3% | 14.6% | 31.9% | 1 | -0.6% | -4.1% | -4.7% |
| Red Sox | 98 | 54.6% | 15.6% | 70.2% | 96 | 45.6% | 17.6% | 63.2% | -2 | -9.0% | 2.0% | -7.0% |
| Reds | 86 | 23.5% | 8.2% | 31.7% | 87 | 31.8% | 10.0% | 41.8% | 2 | 8.3% | 1.8% | 10.1% |
| Rockies | 86 | 31.7% | 5.9% | 37.6% | 83 | 23.3% | 7.0% | 30.2% | -3 | -8.4% | 1.1% | -7.4% |
| Royals | 67 | 2.8% | 1.1% | 3.9% | 66 | 3.1% | 0.7% | 3.8% | -1 | 0.3% | -0.4% | -0.1% |
| Tigers | 84 | 27.5% | 4.6% | 32.0% | 82 | 27.7% | 5.5% | 33.2% | -2 | 0.2% | 0.9% | 1.2% |
| Twins | 86 | 33.3% | 6.2% | 39.5% | 82 | 26.9% | 5.0% | 31.9% | -3 | -6.4% | -1.2% | -7.6% |
| White Sox | 85 | 28.4% | 6.2% | 34.5% | 84 | 36.1% | 5.7% | 41.8% | 0 | 7.7% | -0.5% | 7.3% |
| Yankees | 89 | 23.2% | 21.7% | 44.9% | 92 | 28.8% | 19.4% | 48.2% | 3 | 5.6% | -2.3% | 3.3% |
The Diff columns are just the December 28 results subtraced from the February 9 results. Positive means a team’s odds have improved, negative means they’ve decreased.
In the AL East, the Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays and Yankees all improved, with Baltimore making the biggest gains. The Red Sox still project as the best team in baseball, but the gap has shrunk a bit.
Aside from the Rafael Soriano signing, the Yankees haven’t made any major moves, but by adding Andruw Jones, Freddy Garcia and Ronnie Belliard they’ve improved their depth. Of course, it’s possible Belliard’s 2010 shows he’s at the end of the line and will not be very good, so if they are instead back to using Ramiro Pena and Eduardo Nunez more frequently that may hurt them some.
CAIRO still likes the White Sox in the Central, with the Twins and Tigers nipping on their heels.
The Rangers look like a strong favorite in the AL West, although if they trade Michael Young that may hurt their depth a bit. I only gave Brandon Webb about 10 starts, so how he does could have an impact on them.
Oakland hasn’t made any major moves, but they have improved by about four wins in this set of projections, mostly by shoring up their bullpen a bit. The Angels and Mariners don’t really look like contenders at this point.
In the National League, the Phillies still look like the best team. The Braves look like a solid second place team in the East, with the Mets, Marlins and Nationals a bit worse and separated by maybe five games in total. For the Mets I’ve assumed that Chris Young and Johan Santana will split the #1 spot in the rotation at 50% each, but I have no idea how likely that is.
The top of the NL Central has bunched up a bit, with the Reds now slight favorites, primarily due to adding Edgar Renteria and Fred Lewis. Really though, there’s a three-way tie at the top, with only 0.6 wins separating Cincinnati, Milwaukee and St. Louis. The Cubs appear to have a stranglehold on fourth place. I think there are two other teams in the Central as well.
The Giants still look to be on top of the NL West, with the Rockies, Padres and Dodgers a few games behind them but very close to each other. I don’t really have anything to say about the Diamondbacks, so insert your own commentary here if you wish.
Even though rosters are a bit more settled than they were six weeks ago, it’s still too early to read too much into these. So take them with the appropriate amount of skepticism.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Updated Still Too Early 2011 AL East Standings Projection
With the Rays signing Johnny Damon/Manny Ramirez and the Jays trading Vernon Wells for Mike Napoli/Juan Rivera I was curious to see how it may AL East projected standings from this post may have changed, and here it is.
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 94.9 | 67.1 | 834 | 693 | 45.5% | 16.3% | 61.8% |
| Yankees | 90.3 | 71.7 | 819 | 739 | 25.4% | 17.4% | 42.8% |
| Rays | 88.1 | 73.9 | 736 | 663 | 19.8% | 15.1% | 34.9% |
| Blue Jays | 77.9 | 84.1 | 721 | 738 | 5.6% | 5.6% | 11.2% |
| Orioles | 75.5 | 86.5 | 732 | 796 | 3.8% | 4.0% | 7.8% |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
Things appear to be getting pretty tight. This is going to make Boston beating out the 1927 Yankees as “best team of evah” particularly noteworthy.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Extremely Early CAIRO 2011 MLB Projected Standings
Around this time every year I like to run projected standings for the upcoming MLB season. It’s very limited in telling us much about how 2011 will play out since there are still a lot of roster changes coming, but it may give us some sense of how the offseason has impacted teams to this point and it also shows us how things would look if nothing changed from now until April. Which won’t happen.
Since this point is not readily comprehensible for people of limited intelligence I’ll reiterate it. It’s too early to construct meaningful rosters for a lot of teams, so these projections will favor the teams that have essentially completed their 2011 rosters.
In addition to that, projection systems are inherently limited. They are designed to estimate a player’s true talent based on what they’ve done so far and also by factoring in things like age and how similar players have performed in the past. They will generally be in the ballpark for the general population of MLB players, but they can miss significantly on individual players which can obviously affect certain teams more heavily than others.
So, anyway, using the depth charts from the wonderful MLB Depth Charts and includng playing time from players on the 40 man roster who don’t necessarily figure to be part of the the opening day 25 man rosters to account for organizational depth and playing out next season 10,000 times, here’s how CAIRO v0.3 sees things as of December 27, 2010.
| Date | 12/28/2010 | |||||||||
| Iterations | 10000 | |||||||||
| American League | ||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Red Sox | 98.1 | 63.9 | 856 | 690 | 54.6% | 15.6% | 70.2% | 9.1 | 38 | -54 |
| Yankees | 89.1 | 72.9 | 835 | 740 | 23.2% | 21.7% | 44.9% | -5.9 | -24 | 47 |
| Rays | 87.1 | 74.9 | 707 | 640 | 17.9% | 18.7% | 36.6% | -8.9 | -95 | -9 |
| Blue Jays | 74.1 | 87.9 | 693 | 737 | 2.6% | 5.8% | 8.4% | -10.9 | -62 | 9 |
| Orioles | 70.1 | 91.9 | 723 | 813 | 1.8% | 2.9% | 4.7% | 4.1 | 110 | 28 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Twins | 85.7 | 76.3 | 752 | 715 | 33.3% | 6.2% | 39.5% | -8.3 | -29 | 44 |
| White Sox | 84.5 | 77.5 | 735 | 711 | 28.4% | 6.2% | 34.5% | -3.5 | -17 | 7 |
| Tigers | 84.0 | 78.0 | 727 | 712 | 27.5% | 4.6% | 32.0% | 3.0 | -24 | -31 |
| Indians | 73.9 | 88.1 | 728 | 802 | 8.2% | 2.7% | 10.8% | 4.9 | 82 | 50 |
| Royals | 66.9 | 95.1 | 678 | 815 | 2.8% | 1.1% | 3.9% | -0.1 | 2 | -30 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rangers | 89.2 | 72.8 | 746 | 673 | 50.1% | 4.5% | 54.6% | -0.8 | -41 | -14 |
| Athletics | 82.1 | 79.9 | 678 | 667 | 26.1% | 4.3% | 30.4% | 1.1 | 15 | 41 |
| Angels | 77.9 | 84.1 | 665 | 690 | 15.5% | 3.2% | 18.7% | -2.1 | -16 | -12 |
| Mariners | 72.2 | 89.8 | 635 | 703 | 8.4% | 2.5% | 10.9% | 11.2 | 122 | 5 |
| National League | ||||||||||
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Phillies | 96.1 | 65.9 | 754 | 618 | 54.5% | 11.0% | 65.5% | -0.9 | -18 | -22 |
| Braves | 88.5 | 73.5 | 754 | 690 | 26.6% | 13.3% | 39.9% | -2.5 | 16 | 61 |
| Mets | 76.6 | 85.4 | 675 | 702 | 7.1% | 4.5% | 11.6% | -2.4 | 19 | 50 |
| Marlins | 77.3 | 84.7 | 679 | 708 | 8.7% | 5.0% | 13.7% | -2.7 | -40 | -9 |
| Nationals | 72.4 | 89.6 | 659 | 733 | 3.2% | 2.0% | 5.2% | 13.4 | -51 | -141 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Cardinals | 90.2 | 71.8 | 746 | 676 | 35.0% | 12.0% | 47.0% | 4.2 | 10 | 35 |
| Brewers | 87.2 | 74.8 | 698 | 650 | 27.9% | 8.9% | 36.7% | 10.2 | -52 | -154 |
| Reds | 85.5 | 76.5 | 723 | 689 | 23.5% | 8.2% | 31.7% | -5.5 | -67 | 4 |
| Cubs | 79.3 | 82.7 | 742 | 761 | 10.5% | 6.3% | 16.8% | 4.3 | 57 | -6 |
| Pirates | 67.7 | 94.3 | 671 | 808 | 2.1% | 1.2% | 3.3% | -6.3 | 28 | 38 |
| Astros | 65.8 | 96.2 | 604 | 732 | 1.1% | 1.0% | 2.1% | 3.8 | -32 | -36 |
| TM | W | L | RS | RA | Div | WC | PL | W+/- | RS+/- | RA+/- |
| Rockies | 85.9 | 76.1 | 768 | 732 | 31.7% | 5.9% | 37.6% | 2.9 | -2 | 15 |
| Giants | 84.2 | 77.8 | 699 | 667 | 24.1% | 6.6% | 30.6% | -7.8 | 2 | 84 |
| Dodgers | 83.3 | 78.7 | 677 | 659 | 20.3% | 7.2% | 27.5% | 3.3 | 10 | -33 |
| Padres | 81.2 | 80.8 | 647 | 652 | 17.7% | 5.0% | 22.6% | -8.8 | -18 | 71 |
| Diamondbacks | 73.8 | 88.2 | 690 | 757 | 6.4% | 1.9% | 8.3% | 3.8 | -30 | -25 |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
RS: Projected 2011 runs scored
RA: Projected 2011 runs allowed
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
W+/-: 2011 projected wins minus 2010 actual wins
RS+/-: 2011 projected runs scored minus 2010 actual runs scored (positive means they are projected to score more)
RA+/-: 2011 projected runs allowed minus 2010 actual runs allowed (negative means they are projected to allow fewer)
The only reason I am showing wins and losses to one decimal place is so I don’t have to answer questions about why the wins and losses don’t add up to exactly 2430. There is no way to imply that something like this can be precise to that level.
Did I mention that it’s still too early to do this, and that it shouldn’t be taken seriously?
I guess it’s not exactly news that Boston and Philadelphia look to be the two best teams in baseball right now. Although it’s easy for lazy analysts to make the claim that Tampa Bay is going to be bad because they lost Carl Crawford and their whole bullpen, it’s just not true. They’ve won the AL East in two of the past three seasons, and they have a ton of pitching talent in the minors. Jake McGee looks like a potentially dominant closer. They also won 96 games last year despite getting very little production out of first base and DH. Losing Crawford hurts, but Desmond Jennings is another good prospect who has a chance to mitigate that a bit as well.
Toronto tends to project worse than they actually end up doing every year, mainly because they’ve always seemed to get better than expected pitching. They’ve lost John Buck and Shaun Marcum from last year’s team, and CAIRO is expecting Jose Bautista will not hit 54 HRs again which explains most of their drop.
The Orioles tend to project better than they actually end up doing every year, but perhaps they’ll Buck that trend in 2011.
As for our Yankees, they’re still a good team. They’re just not as good as Boston on paper right now. That doesn’t mean they can’t win the division, it just means that they need some players to exceed their projections (A.J.?) and/or some players from Boston/Tampa Bay to underperform some of their’s. If they can add Andy Pettitte or some league average starter who can give them 180 innings or so that’s probably worth another two wins over Ivan Nova/Sergio Mitre.
Right now the AL Central looks pretty tightly bunched at the top between the White Sox, Tigers and Twins. Cleveland should be able to hold off KC for fourth place, although if Melky-mania runs wild who knows?
The West looks like Texas’s to lose, even without Cliff “The Big Train” Lee. LA of A could pick up about three wins if they sign Adrian Beltre, but that alone doesn’t seem like it’d be enough to get them up to Texas’s level.
I don’t know if the Phillies are as good as Boston, although they may be a better short series team. They are almost certainly the tallest midget in the circus known as the National League, but they’re not some 110 win juggernaut on paper. The Braves seem to be the second best team in the NL East and should at least be a strong contender for the wild card.
The Cardinals still appear to have the best front-line talent in the NL Central although Milwaukee has improved themselves significantly. The Reds are not far off from the top either.
The NL West is also tightly bunched at the top, with only about four wins separating first place through fourth.
Did I mention that it’s too early for this to be taken too seriously?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
That’s a Wrap
With all of the games in the 2010 regular season now complete, here’s how every team did compared to their aggregate projections in my pre-season projection blowout.
| Team | W | pW | w+/- |
| Blue Jays | 85 | 65.1 | 19.9 |
| Padres | 90 | 75.9 | 14.1 |
| Twins | 94 | 83.1 | 10.9 |
| Giants | 92 | 81.1 | 10.9 |
| Reds | 91 | 80.6 | 10.4 |
| White Sox | 88 | 79.8 | 8.2 |
| Phillies | 97 | 89.7 | 7.3 |
| Astros | 76 | 68.8 | 7.2 |
| Rangers | 90 | 84.4 | 5.6 |
| Rays | 96 | 91.2 | 4.8 |
| Tigers | 81 | 77.9 | 3.1 |
| Mets | 79 | 76.1 | 2.9 |
| Braves | 91 | 88.3 | 2.7 |
| Angels | 80 | 78.0 | 2.0 |
| Athletics | 81 | 79.2 | 1.8 |
| Marlins | 80 | 80.0 | 0.0 |
| Rockies | 83 | 83.8 | -0.8 |
| Yankees | 95 | 96.1 | -1.1 |
| Red Sox | 89 | 92.9 | -3.9 |
| Royals | 67 | 71.5 | -4.5 |
| Cardinals | 86 | 90.6 | -4.6 |
| Brewers | 77 | 81.6 | -4.6 |
| Nationals | 69 | 74.8 | -5.8 |
| Dodgers | 80 | 86.3 | -6.3 |
| Cubs | 75 | 83.1 | -8.1 |
| Orioles | 66 | 74.6 | -8.6 |
| Indians | 69 | 79.9 | -10.9 |
| Pirates | 57 | 72.3 | -15.3 |
| Diamondbacks | 65 | 82.2 | -17.2 |
| Mariners | 61 | 81.4 | -20.4 |
W: 2010 final win total
pW: Original projected win total
w+/-: W minus pW
Yeesh, those Jays and Mariners projections sure look lousy, huh?
Friday, October 1, 2010
NY Post: With 3 to go, Yankees, Rays tied
BOSTON—After six months of chasing each other, the Yankees and Rays are tied for the AL East lead with three games remaining.
The Rays, who lost to the Royals last night, finish in Kansas City. The Yankees are at Fenway Park for three vs. the Red Sox.
For all the angst surrounding the Yankees in the last month, they have a chance to cop the AL East and gain home-field advantage in the ALDS and ALCS.
THE YANKEES AND RAYS ARE NOT TIED FOR F’S SAKES. BOTH TEAMS MADE THE POSTSEASON AND THE RAYS WON THE SEASON SERIES. IN ORDER FOR THE YANKEES TO WIN THE DIVISION THEY HAVE TO FINISH ONE GAME BETTER.
When will people figure this out?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Implications of Tonight’s Game with Tampa Bay
The Yankees and Rays will face off for the last time in the regular season later tonight (weather permitting). The Yankees still hold a 1.5 game lead on the Rays, but a loss tonight would tie the two in the loss column.
At this point, it’s a virtual certainty both teams are going to the postseason. So the question is which team is going to end up taking the division since it means home field advantage and a possible seeding advantage.
The Rays lead the season series 9-8, so the best the Yankees can do is tie it by winning tonight. Why does that matter? Because it’s the first tie-breaker when two teams from the same division end the year qualifying for the postseason with the same record.
So if the Yankees don’t win tonight, the Rays will win the AL East if the Yankees and Rays end the season with the same record.
How about if the Yankees do win tonight, by some miracle? In that instance, the season series is tied which means they have to move onto the second tie-breaker. Here’s how Major League Rule 33 and Major League rule 34 describe that.
The Club with the higher winning percentage in head-to-head competition between the two tied Clubs during the championship season; or
If the Clubs remain tied, then to the tied Club with the higher winning percentage in intradivision games during the championship season; or
If the Clubs remain tied, then to the tied Club with the higher winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games during the championship season; or
If the Clubs remain tied, then to the tied Club with the higher winning percentage in the last half plus one of intraleague games during the championship season, provided that such additional game was not a game between the two tied Clubs. This process will be followed game-by-game until the tie is broken.
The Rays have three intradivisional games left after tonight, at home hosting the Orioles. They currently have a record of 40-28 against the rest of the AL East.
The yankees have nine intradivisional games left after tonight, three at home vs. Boston and then six on the road against Toronto and Boston. They are currently 35-27 against the rest of the AL East.
If the Rays lose all the rest of their AL East games starting tonight, they end with an intradivision record of 40-32. So the Yankees would only have to take four of nine from Toronto/Boston to tie that. However, the more likely scenario is Tampa Bay picking up two wins against Baltimore which means the Yankees would have to go 6-3 against Toronto/Boston to match them.
My Monte Carlo simulator currently puts the AL East odds at:
Yankees: 64.8%
Rays: 35.1%
That is high for the Yankees because my simulator awards ties a share of the division, so if the Yankees and Rays finish the year with the same record they each get 0.5 of the division title. Someday I’ll fix that, but for now just mentally adjust that in your head.
If the Yankees win tonight (haha), the odds go to:
Yankees: 75.9%
Rays: 23.1%
And when the Yankees lose tonight, the odds go to:
Rays: 54.0%
Yankees: 46.0%
Again, mentally adjust those to account for the tie-breakers.
That’s a pretty big swing on one game, huh?
It almost seems to me like the Yankees have to win this game if they want the division, but at this point it’s not worth going above and beyond for it. If it happens, great. If not, take your chances on the road to start the postseason.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Did The Yankees Blow Their Chance at the AL East?
On September 4, the Yankees won their eighth consecutive game and had opened up a two game edge in the loss column for the AL East.
At this point, with 26 games left on the year they were in the driver’s seat for the AL East title
Probability of winning AL East as of September 4
Yankees: 72.0%
Tampa Bay: 28.%
Boston: 0.0%
Boston was not quite at zero, but close enough when you round to the nearest tenth.
With four more games at home to finish off the long home stand before a potentially ugly road trip coming up, the Yankees just needed to hold serve to remain in control for the division title.
Holding court with one game versus Toronto and then three games with Baltimore at home meant something like this:
Vs. Toronto: 66% win probability
Vs. Baltimore: 80% win probability times three
So the Yankees should have won three of those four games if they wanted to keep that 72.0% probability of winning the AL East.
Instead, they’ve lost the first three of those games and now need to win this afternoon to avoid losing all four as well as a humiliating sweep AT HOME AGAINST THE HORRIBLE BALTIMORE ORIOLES.
Probability of winning AL East as of September 7
Yankees: 55.5%
Tampa Bay: 44.0%
Boston: 0.5%
So what happens if the Yankees lose today?
Yankees: 48.2%
Tampa Bay: 51.3%
Boston: 0.5%
This includes the probability of Tampa Bay winning or losing today.
Now obviously that’s closer to a toss-up than a clear Tampa Bay edge, but it now requires the Yankees to meet expectations over their last 22 games of the year, 15 of which are on the road.
Think about that again. The Yankees have 22 games left this season after today, and only seven of them are at home. Oh, and those seven home games are against arguably two of the top three teams in baseball.
I realize for some people the division doesn’t matter, but I’m not one of them. I actually consider winning the division to be a major achievement worthy of respect, not a stepping stone on the way to either winning the World Series or having a failure of a season.
Because of that, these last three days have really aggravated me. Today may end up killing me.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Updated Monte Carlo Postseason Odds Through August 29, 2010
| Team | W | Div | WC | PO |
| Rays | 99.5 | 52.3% | 43.9% | 96.1% |
| Yankees | 99.3 | 47.2% | 48.3% | 95.5% |
| Rangers | 90.8 | 93.7% | 0.0% | 93.7% |
| Padres | 94.6 | 83.5% | 5.8% | 89.3% |
| Reds | 93.7 | 80.2% | 8.6% | 88.7% |
| Twins | 93.3 | 87.4% | 0.3% | 87.7% |
| Braves | 93.7 | 71.0% | 14.3% | 85.3% |
| Phillies | 90.6 | 27.9% | 28.0% | 56.0% |
| Cardinals | 89.2 | 19.7% | 20.7% | 40.4% |
| Giants | 88.6 | 13.2% | 15.4% | 28.6% |
| White Sox | 87.4 | 11.7% | 0.7% | 12.4% |
| Red Sox | 90.6 | 0.5% | 6.7% | 7.2% |
| Rockies | 84.5 | 2.7% | 3.9% | 6.6% |
| Athletics | 82.3 | 5.7% | 0.0% | 5.7% |
| Marlins | 82.6 | 0.7% | 1.6% | 2.3% |
| Dodgers | 82.5 | 0.6% | 1.3% | 1.9% |
| Tigers | 80.8 | 1.0% | 0.0% | 1.0% |
| Mets | 81.9 | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.7% |
| Angels | 77.7 | 0.7% | 0.0% | 0.7% |
| Blue Jays | 83.2 | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Brewers | 75.8 | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.2% |
| Orioles | 58.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Indians | 67.6 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Royals | 67.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Mariners | 63.7 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Nationals | 69.6 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Cubs | 68.9 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Pirates | 53.3 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Astros | 73.1 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Diamondbacks | 65.4 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
W: Final projected win total (average of 10,000 iterations)
Div: Percentage of time team won their division
WC: Percentage of time team won the wild card
PO: Percentage of time team made the playoffs (Div + WC)
The Rays’ schedule is a bit easier than the Yankees’ going forward, so they may now probably be a very slight favorite to win the East. For all intents and purposes though, it’s a tossup.
The Rays and Yankees are currently the two most likely teams to qualify for the postseason.
Boston’s not dead yet, but they probably should get a priest prepped for administering last rites shortly.
The Rangers, Reds, Padres, Twins and Braves are all pretty big favorites to take their divisions at this point (all over 70%) and the NL wild card race looks like Philly -> St. Louis -> Giants.
Shocking no one, the Orioles, Indians, Royals, Mariners, Nationals, Cubs, Pirates, Astros and Diamondbacks are either mathematically eliminated or have a less than 1 in 10,000 likelihood of making the postseason.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
MLB.com: Two-hitting Yanks, Romero paces Jays
NEW YORK—Left-hander Ricky Romero turned in a gem and the Blue Jays launched four home runs, paving the way for an 8-2 victory over the Yankees on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Romero, who entered the evening with a 6.91 ERA in his career against New York, limited the reigning World Series champions to just two hits in a complete-game gem for the Blue Jays (56-51). Romero’s performance helped Toronto take the first two contests in this three-game stop in the Bronx.
The Yankees (66-40) managed one brief outburst early on against Romero, who surrendered two runs in the first inning on Mark Teixeira’s 23rd homer of the season. Romero issued a leadoff walk to Derek Jeter and later yielded the two-run shot to Teixeira to put the Blue Jays in an early hole.
Unless the Rays blow a three-run lead, they should have sole possession of first place within the hour. I’d like to thank the Yankees for participating in the 2010 AL East divisional race.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Monte Carlo Wins and Postseason Odds Report Through Games of July 7, 2010
I just realized I haven’t run my Monte Carlo simulations for wins and postseason odds since May 25, so here’s an update through yesterday’s games.
When these were last run, the Yankees were on pace for around 97 wins and they had about a 70.2% chance at making the postseason. Their probability of taking the AL East was around 33.5%, trailing Tampa Bay who were at 51.9%. Boston was at around 36.4% for making the postseason and 14.1% to take the AL East.
For the going forward projections, I’m using 60% 2010 Pythagenpat and 40% 2010 pre-season projections. Team performance over the rest of the season then gets added to actual 2010 W/L to estimate each team’s projected final win total and postseason odds.
| Team | pW | opW | pW+/- |
| Padres | 91.6 | 75.9 | 15.7 |
| Mets | 88.4 | 76.1 | 12.3 |
| Blue Jays | 76.3 | 65.1 | 11.2 |
| Reds | 91.0 | 80.6 | 10.4 |
| Rangers | 94.3 | 84.4 | 9.9 |
| Tigers | 85.1 | 77.9 | 7.2 |
| Rays | 98.3 | 91.2 | 7.1 |
| White Sox | 85.3 | 79.8 | 5.5 |
| Braves | 93.4 | 88.3 | 5.1 |
| Twins | 88.0 | 83.1 | 4.9 |
| Yankees | 100.5 | 96.1 | 4.4 |
| Angels | 82.3 | 78.0 | 4.3 |
| Giants | 85.2 | 81.1 | 4.1 |
| Rockies | 87.5 | 83.8 | 3.7 |
| Royals | 74.3 | 71.5 | 2.8 |
| Red Sox | 92.9 | 92.9 | 0.0 |
| Marlins | 79.9 | 80.0 | -0.1 |
| Dodgers | 86.2 | 86.3 | -0.1 |
| Cardinals | 90.3 | 90.6 | -0.3 |
| Athletics | 77.3 | 79.2 | -1.9 |
| Nationals | 72.6 | 74.8 | -2.2 |
| Phillies | 86.3 | 89.7 | -3.4 |
| Astros | 64.5 | 68.8 | -4.3 |
| Brewers | 74.4 | 81.6 | -7.2 |
| Cubs | 74.5 | 83.1 | -8.6 |
| Indians | 67.0 | 79.9 | -12.9 |
| Mariners | 67.9 | 81.4 | -13.5 |
| Pirates | 57.2 | 72.3 | -15.1 |
| Diamondbacks | 65.0 | 82.2 | -17.2 |
| Orioles | 52.6 | 74.6 | -22.0 |
pW: Updated projected wins as of July 7
opW: Original pre-season projected wins
pW+/-:pW - opW
This table shows how many wins every team is now projected to end the season with, sorted in descending order of improvement compared to the preseason.
Break up the Padres!
I think I like these probabilities better than the last ones.
| Team | ppo% | opo% | po%+/- |
| Rangers | 86.3% | 38.9% | 47.4% |
| Padres | 57.6% | 13.2% | 44.4% |
| Reds | 62.5% | 21.3% | 41.2% |
| Rays | 75.4% | 46.1% | 29.3% |
| Braves | 68.3% | 42.9% | 25.4% |
| Mets | 37.5% | 13.0% | 24.5% |
| Yankees | 83.0% | 63.0% | 20.0% |
| Twins | 44.6% | 34.8% | 9.8% |
| Tigers | 25.9% | 19.9% | 6.0% |
| Cardinals | 56.3% | 50.9% | 5.4% |
| White Sox | 29.3% | 24.8% | 4.5% |
| Rockies | 31.9% | 30.3% | 1.6% |
| Blue Jays | 0.6% | 1.9% | -1.3% |
| Giants | 21.8% | 23.3% | -1.5% |
| Astros | 0.0% | 4.4% | -4.4% |
| Royals | 2.6% | 9.3% | -6.7% |
| Pirates | 0.0% | 7.6% | -7.6% |
| Orioles | 0.0% | 8.3% | -8.3% |
| Angels | 12.2% | 21.6% | -9.4% |
| Dodgers | 28.0% | 38.5% | -10.5% |
| Nationals | 0.6% | 11.1% | -10.5% |
| Marlins | 6.1% | 19.3% | -13.2% |
| Red Sox | 37.0% | 53.0% | -16.0% |
| Athletics | 2.7% | 23.8% | -21.1% |
| Phillies | 26.3% | 48.0% | -21.7% |
| Brewers | 1.4% | 23.5% | -22.1% |
| Indians | 0.2% | 25.4% | -25.2% |
| Cubs | 1.8% | 27.2% | -25.5% |
| Diamondbacks | 0.1% | 25.6% | -25.6% |
| Mariners | 0.2% | 29.4% | -29.2% |
ppo%: Re-projected probability of making playoffs
opo%: Original projected probability of making the playoffs
po%+/-:ppo% - opo% (increase or decrease in playoff probability)
This table compares every team’s current probability of making the postseason with their pre-season projections, sorted in descending order of increase in probability.
Hard to believe that a team as awful as the Yankees are now at 83.0% to make the postseason, but that’s almost certainly due to me rigging these numbers to make the Yankees look better than they are.
FWIW, revised AL East odds are now:
WOE: 51.5%
Rays: 36.4%
16 Aces + best defense evah: 12.0%
Monday, June 28, 2010
Inter-league Play’s Impact on the AL East Race
I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned my thoughts on interleague play, but I’ll just say I’m not a fan and leave it at that.
Most of the reasons I hate it are aesthetic, but one of the chief issues I have with with it is that it can create a slightly different playing field for teams that are competing for the same thing. I don’t think that impact is huge, but it doesn’t have to be huge to make a difference.
So I figured with the exhibitions games over, I’d see how the interleague play schedule and results may have impacted the AL East. With all due respect to Toronto, I don’t think they’re going to be in the mix all year so I’m just looking at the big three.
So what I did was calculate the log5 win expectations for each team’s interleague schedule. I’m using 2010 Pythagenpat records with a .04 home field advantage. This is then compared to the actual wins for each team, and here’s how it looks.
| Boston | xW | aW | Yankees | xW | aW | Tampa Bay | xW | aW |
| @PHI | .48 | 0 | @NYM | .51 | 1 | @HOU | .73 | 0 |
| @PHI | .48 | 1 | @NYM | .51 | 0 | @HOU | .73 | 1 |
| @PHI | .48 | 1 | @NYM | .51 | 0 | @HOU | .73 | 1 |
| PHI | .54 | 1 | HOU | .83 | 1 | FLA | .58 | 0 |
| PHI | .54 | 1 | HOU | .83 | 1 | FLA | .58 | 1 |
| PHI | .54 | 0 | HOU | .83 | 1 | FLA | .58 | 0 |
| ARI | .70 | 1 | PHI | .58 | 1 | @ATL | .47 | 1 |
| ARI | .70 | 1 | PHI | .58 | 0 | @ATL | .47 | 0 |
| ARI | .70 | 1 | PHI | .58 | 0 | @ATL | .47 | 0 |
| LAD | .60 | 1 | NYM | .57 | 0 | @FLA | .52 | 0 |
| LAD | .60 | 1 | NYM | .57 | 1 | @FLA | .52 | 1 |
| LAD | .60 | 1 | NYM | .57 | 1 | @FLA | .52 | 0 |
| @COL | .49 | 0 | @ARI | .68 | 0 | SDP | .50 | 0 |
| @COL | .49 | 0 | @ARI | .68 | 1 | SDP | .50 | 0 |
| @COL | .49 | 1 | @ARI | .68 | 1 | SDP | .50 | 1 |
| @SFG | .47 | 0 | @LAD | .58 | 1 | ARI | .70 | 0 |
| @SFG | .47 | 1 | @LAD | .58 | 0 | ARI | .70 | 1 |
| @SFG | .47 | 1 | @LAD | .58 | 1 | ARI | .70 | 0 |
| Total | 9.5 | 13 | 8.9 | 11 | 8.9 | 7 | ||
| Diff | 3.5 | 2.1 | -1.9 |
xW: Expected wins using Bill James’s log5 methodology
aW: Actual wins
Diff: aW - xW
Now, I haven’t adjusted this for pitching matchups and I have not incorporated any projection data, so there’s probably some margin of error in here.
As you can see here, Boston’s benefitted the most from interleague play, but the Yankees also did better than expected. Tampa Bay is the team that was hurt the most.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
What A Difference Three Weeks Makes
Since May 23, the Yankees have picked up six games on Tampa Bay to move back into a tie for first place in the AL East.
| team | w | l | rs | ra | wpct | pyth |
| New York | 14 | 5 | 109 | 71 | .737 | .694 |
| Boston | 13 | 7 | 120 | 75 | .650 | .712 |
| Tampa Bay | 8 | 11 | 93 | 98 | .421 | .475 |
| Toronto | 8 | 10 | 64 | 77 | .444 | .417 |
| Baltimore | 3 | 15 | 44 | 108 | .167 | .160 |
They’ve done it by going 14-5, which a bit less than one game better than what their PythagenPat record over that stretch is. They also needed Tampa Bay to go 8-11 and underperform their PythagenPat record by about a win. Boston gained ground on Tampa but dropped a bit further behind the Yankees despite playing to a higher PythagenPat record. I didn’t think it was possible for Baltimore to play worse than they did over their first 45 games of the year, but congratulations to them for proving me wrong.
Conventional wisdom says that as long as the Yankees win series that’s good enough, but the truth of the matter is, when you get a chance to play one of the worst teams in baseball at home, you really ought to sweep. Thankfully, the Yankees were able to do that against the Astros by taking today’s game.
The Yankees are now a hair ahead of Tampa Bay for best PythagenPat record in baseball, but for all intents and purposes they’re effectively dead even(.658 for the Yankees and .656 for the Rays).
Now if only they can get better than replacement level play out of first base…
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monte Carlo Wins and Postseason Odds Report Through Games of May 24, 2010
I last run these on April 22, and here’s what they look like now. As a refresher, here’s description of the methodolgy.
| Team | pW | opW | pW+/- | gain/loss |
| Rays | 101.0 | 91.2 | 9.8 | 3.0 |
| Blue Jays | 74.5 | 65.1 | 9.4 | 7.2 |
| Padres | 82.9 | 75.9 | 7.0 | 4.8 |
| Twins | 88.3 | 83.1 | 5.2 | 0.7 |
| Reds | 85.6 | 80.6 | 5.0 | 6.9 |
| Tigers | 82.8 | 77.9 | 4.9 | 4.5 |
| Phillies | 94.1 | 89.7 | 4.4 | 0.2 |
| Mets | 79.3 | 76.1 | 3.2 | 2.1 |
| Rangers | 87.0 | 84.4 | 2.6 | 3.2 |
| Nationals | 76.9 | 74.8 | 2.1 | 1.8 |
| Cardinals | 92.1 | 90.6 | 1.5 | -1.7 |
| Athletics | 80.3 | 79.2 | 1.1 | -2.6 |
| Yankees | 97.1 | 96.1 | 1.0 | -3.1 |
| Dodgers | 87.1 | 86.3 | 0.8 | 1.6 |
| Rockies | 83.9 | 83.8 | 0.1 | -1.4 |
| Marlins | 80.1 | 80.0 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Giants | 81.1 | 81.1 | 0.0 | -1.4 |
| Braves | 87.2 | 88.3 | -1.1 | -0.3 |
| Cubs | 81.6 | 83.1 | -1.5 | 0.8 |
| Royals | 69.4 | 71.5 | -2.1 | -0.6 |
| Angels | 75.6 | 78.0 | -2.4 | -0.9 |
| Red Sox | 90.3 | 92.9 | -2.6 | 2.9 |
| Pirates | 68.4 | 72.3 | -3.9 | -0.2 |
| White Sox | 75.8 | 79.8 | -4.0 | 1.1 |
| Diamondbacks | 77.2 | 82.2 | -5.0 | -1.7 |
| Brewers | 76.2 | 81.6 | -5.4 | -8.5 |
| Astros | 62.6 | 68.8 | -6.2 | -2.6 |
| Mariners | 74.3 | 81.4 | -7.1 | -8.2 |
| Indians | 72.1 | 79.9 | -7.8 | -6.9 |
| Orioles | 65.3 | 74.6 | -9.3 | -1.3 |
pW: Re-projected wins
opW: Original projected wins
pW+/-:pW - opW
gain/loss change from prior run
This table is sorted by overall expected improvement in terms of wins over the pre-season projections entering 2010.
The Rays continue to lead the majors in terms of how much better they now look than they did at the start of the season. The Yankees’ have lost 3 games from what was around a 100 win pace on April 22.
In terms of making the postseason, here’s how the probabilities look.
| Team | ppo% | opo% | po%+/- | gain/loss |
| Rays | 80.6% | 46.1% | 34.5% | 10.7% |
| Twins | 56.9% | 34.8% | 22.1% | 7.7% |
| Phillies | 69.7% | 48.0% | 21.7% | 6.9% |
| Rangers | 57.2% | 38.9% | 18.3% | 23.9% |
| Reds | 35.2% | 21.3% | 13.9% | 20.1% |
| Cardinals | 64.4% | 50.9% | 13.5% | 0.6% |
| Padres | 25.2% | 13.2% | 12.0% | 10.8% |
| Tigers | 28.8% | 19.9% | 8.9% | 8.4% |
| Yankees | 70.2% | 63.0% | 7.2% | -6.4% |
| Dodgers | 42.8% | 38.5% | 4.3% | 8.1% |
| Blue Jays | 2.9% | 1.9% | 1.0% | 1.4% |
| Athletics | 23.8% | 23.8% | 0.0% | -8.3% |
| Mets | 12.7% | 13.0% | -0.3% | 0.6% |
| Rockies | 28.4% | 30.3% | -1.9% | -7.0% |
| Giants | 20.4% | 23.3% | -2.9% | -5.1% |
| Nationals | 8.0% | 11.1% | -3.1% | -2.2% |
| Astros | 0.6% | 4.4% | -3.8% | -1.0% |
| Marlins | 14.9% | 19.3% | -4.5% | -1.3% |
| Braves | 37.3% | 42.9% | -5.6% | -1.9% |
| Royals | 3.7% | 9.3% | -5.7% | -2.8% |
| Pirates | 1.9% | 7.6% | -5.8% | -1.3% |
| Cubs | 20.2% | 27.2% | -7.1% | 0.4% |
| Orioles | 0.2% | 8.3% | -8.1% | -1.0% |
| Angels | 13.0% | 21.6% | -8.6% | -3.9% |
| White Sox | 11.8% | 24.8% | -13.1% | 0.2% |
| Diamondbacks | 11.2% | 25.6% | -14.4% | -5.6% |
| Brewers | 7.2% | 23.5% | -16.3% | -22.3% |
| Red Sox | 36.4% | 53.0% | -16.6% | 6.3% |
| Mariners | 9.5% | 29.4% | -19.9% | -19.9% |
| Indians | 5.1% | 25.4% | -20.3% | -16.4% |
The biggest gainers from the last run are the Rangers and Reds, with the Yankees losing about 6.4%. They had about a 50% chance of winning the AL East on April 22, but that’s dropped to about 33.5% now, with Tampa Bay moving up to 51.9% and Boston moving from 8.3% to 14.1%.
One thing worth noting is the Yankees have played fewer home games than any AL team with 19, so in theory they should have a bit of an advantage going forward.
That being said, the Yankees are essentially where we should have expected them to be overall, even though the way they got there is kind of annoying.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monte Carlo Wins and Postseason Odds Report through Games of April 22, 2010
Using the same methodology as in this post, but I’ve increased the weight of 2010 actual performance to 10% for the teams going forward projections.
First up, here’s how teams’ win projections have changed from their pre-season projections.
| Team | pW | opW | pW+/- |
| Rays | 98.0 | 91.2 | 6.8 |
| Twins | 87.6 | 83.1 | 4.5 |
| Phillies | 93.9 | 89.7 | 4.2 |
| Yankees | 100.2 | 96.1 | 4.1 |
| Athletics | 82.9 | 79.2 | 3.7 |
| Cardinals | 93.8 | 90.6 | 3.2 |
| Brewers | 84.7 | 81.6 | 3.1 |
| Blue Jays | 67.3 | 65.1 | 2.2 |
| Padres | 78.1 | 75.9 | 2.2 |
| Rockies | 85.3 | 83.8 | 1.5 |
| Giants | 82.4 | 81.1 | 1.3 |
| Mariners | 82.5 | 81.4 | 1.1 |
| Mets | 77.2 | 76.1 | 1.1 |
| Tigers | 78.3 | 77.9 | 0.4 |
| Nationals | 75.1 | 74.8 | 0.3 |
| Marlins | 79.7 | 80.0 | -0.3 |
| Rangers | 83.8 | 84.4 | -0.6 |
| Braves | 87.5 | 88.3 | -0.8 |
| Dodgers | 85.5 | 86.3 | -0.8 |
| Indians | 79.0 | 79.9 | -0.9 |
| Royals | 70.0 | 71.5 | -1.5 |
| Angels | 76.5 | 78.0 | -1.5 |
| Reds | 78.7 | 80.6 | -1.9 |
| Cubs | 80.8 | 83.1 | -2.3 |
| Diamondbacks | 78.9 | 82.2 | -3.3 |
| Astros | 65.2 | 68.8 | -3.6 |
| Pirates | 68.6 | 72.3 | -3.7 |
| White Sox | 74.7 | 79.8 | -5.1 |
| Red Sox | 87.4 | 92.9 | -5.5 |
| Orioles | 66.6 | 74.6 | -8.0 |
pW: Re-projected wins
opW: Original projected wins
pW+/-:pW - opW
Break up the Rays! Seriously. They scare me.
And what those changes in win forecasts mean for the teams’ chances at making the postseason:
| Team | ppo% | opo% | po%+/- |
| Rays | 69.9% | 46.1% | 23.8% |
| Phillies | 62.8% | 48.0% | 14.8% |
| Twins | 49.2% | 34.8% | 14.4% |
| Yankees | 76.6% | 63.0% | 13.6% |
| Cardinals | 63.8% | 50.9% | 12.9% |
| Athletics | 32.1% | 23.8% | 8.3% |
| Brewers | 29.5% | 23.5% | 6.0% |
| Rockies | 35.4% | 30.3% | 5.1% |
| Giants | 25.5% | 23.3% | 2.2% |
| Padres | 14.4% | 13.2% | 1.2% |
| Tigers | 20.4% | 19.9% | 0.5% |
| Mariners | 29.4% | 29.4% | 0.0% |
| Blue Jays | 1.5% | 1.9% | -0.5% |
| Mets | 12.1% | 13.0% | -0.9% |
| Nationals | 10.2% | 11.1% | -0.9% |
| Astros | 1.6% | 4.4% | -2.8% |
| Royals | 6.4% | 9.3% | -2.9% |
| Marlins | 16.1% | 19.3% | -3.2% |
| Braves | 39.2% | 42.9% | -3.7% |
| Dodgers | 34.7% | 38.5% | -3.8% |
| Indians | 21.5% | 25.4% | -3.9% |
| Pirates | 3.1% | 7.6% | -4.5% |
| Angels | 16.9% | 21.6% | -4.7% |
| Rangers | 33.3% | 38.9% | -5.6% |
| Reds | 15.1% | 21.3% | -6.2% |
| Orioles | 1.2% | 8.3% | -7.1% |
| Cubs | 19.7% | 27.2% | -7.5% |
| Diamondbacks | 16.8% | 25.6% | -8.8% |
| White Sox | 11.5% | 24.8% | -13.4% |
| Red Sox | 30.1% | 53.0% | -22.9% |
ppo%: Re-projected probability of making playoffs
opo%: Original projected probability of making the playoffs
po%+/-:ppo% - opo% (increase or decrease in playoff probability)
As long as the Red Sox stay at the bottom of this list, I will be a happy man.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled complaint thread.
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