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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.