Saturday, January 16, 2010
CAIRO Projected 2010 AL East Standings as of January 16
Obviously it's way too early to make much of these, but here's how I have the AL East projected with CAIRO given current rosters and my estimated playing times.| Team | W | L | RS | RA | Div% | WC% | PL% |
| Yankees | 100.3 | 61.7 | 864 | 664 | 66.4% | 24.5% | 90.9% |
| Red Sox | 94.9 | 67.1 | 861 | 700 | 26.1% | 44.8% | 70.9% |
| Rays | 89.3 | 72.7 | 804 | 706 | 7.4% | 21.9% | 29.3% |
| Blue Jays | 70.1 | 91.9 | 696 | 761 | - | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Orioles | 70.4 | 91.6 | 778 | 854 | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.3% |
W: Average projected win total
L: Average projected loss total
RS: Projected runs scored
RA: Projected runs allowed
Div%: Percentage of times team won division
WC%: Percentage of times team won wild card
PL%: Percentage of times team made the playoffs (Div% + WC%)
Although it looks like Boston's offense is on par with the Yankees superficially, it's not once you consider the park factors. The Yankees are probably about forty runs better than Boston offensively in a neutral park right now, although the converse applies to the pitching staffs.
Interestingly enough, for all the talk about Boston's great defense, they're not even the best defense in the division, with Tampa Bay projecting close to 20 runs better than Boston.
Anyway, expect lots to change before we can really have useful projected standings, so please don't take these too seriously.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Is the AL East Rolling Over for the Red Sox?
With the way Baltimore didn't seem to even put up a fight against Boston at home after taking two of three from the Yankees on the road, this question has been coming up a fair bit. Here's a look at some numbers to see if there's anything to it.I'm just going to look at the plate appearances(hitters) or batters faced(pitchers) and wOBA for each of Baltimore, Tampa and Toronto versus Boston or versus the Yankees. Then I'll calculate the difference in runs given the wOBA splits.
| Team | Split | PA | wOBA | Diff |
| Baltimore | Boston Red Sox | 689 | .298 | 10 |
| New York Yankees | 673 | .314 | ||
| Tampa | Boston Red Sox | 696 | .328 | -22 |
| New York Yankees | 556 | .292 | ||
| Toronto | Boston Red Sox | 557 | .287 | 14 |
| New York Yankees | 729 | .317 | ||
| Total | 3 |
PA/BF: Plate appearances/Batters faced
wOBA: Weighted on base average
Diff: Run difference based on wOBA difference for the team versus Boston or New York
Offensively, both Toronto and Baltimore have been better against the Yankees, although Tampa Bay's been much worse, which essentially evens it out. Of course, the fact is that Tampa Bay is a better team than either Toronto or Baltimore so it's pretty freaking annoying that the Yankees can't handle them as well as Boston has.
And on the pitching side:
| Team | Split | BF | wOBA | Diff |
| Baltimore | Boston Red Sox | 758 | .392 | -17 |
| New York Yankees | 715 | .366 | ||
| Tampa | Boston Red Sox | 693 | .323 | 11 |
| New York Yankees | 577 | .340 | ||
| Toronto | Boston Red Sox | 567 | .337 | 6 |
| New York Yankees | 726 | .350 | ||
| Total | 0 |
| Team | Split | ERA | FIP |
| Baltimore | Boston Red Sox | 6.87 | 5.96 |
| New York Yankees | 6.72 | 6.23 | |
| Tampa | Boston Red Sox | 4.41 | 4.81 |
| New York Yankees | 5.25 | 5.76 | |
| Toronto | Boston Red Sox | 4.67 | 5.15 |
| New York Yankees | 5.28 | 5.22 |
These numbers are in terms of how the opponent has done against the pitching, so a higher wOBA means the pitching has been worse. Baltimore's again been awful against Boston pitching-wise, 17 runs worse than against the Yankees. Toronto and Tampa Bay both have higher wOBAs against the Yankees, but the difference in PAs means the run values are so far tilted towards the Yankees. That could change based on how the rest of the season plays out.
The fact that all three AL East teams have higher wOBAs against the Yankees could point to Boston having a better pitching staff, but the Yankees have held opposing teams to a wOBA of .311 compared to Boston's .314. Once you adjust for park, they are essentially even, so that's not it.
In total, the AL East isn't really rolling over for Boston, but you can make a case that Baltimore is. Jerks.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
MLB Monte Carlo Playoff Odds As Of August 30, 2009
It's been about two weeks since I last posted these, so here's an update through today's games (sans Atlanta vs. Philadelphia).| Last Upate | 8/30/2009 | ||||||||||
| Iterations | 10,000 | ||||||||||
| Team | W | 1 Std | RS | RA | TmStr | Div | WC | PL | Max | Min | G/L |
| Yankees | 101.0 | 95-107 | 887 | 737 | .604 | 94.3% | 5.5% | 99.8% | 111 | 90 | 0.5% |
| Cardinals | 94.2 | 89-100 | 745 | 685 | .564 | 99.4% | 0.2% | 99.6% | 104 | 86 | 14.8% |
| Dodgers | 97.2 | 92-103 | 793 | 678 | .585 | 94.8% | 4.3% | 99.1% | 105 | 87 | 4.0% |
| Phillies | 95.5 | 90-101 | 830 | 744 | .594 | 98.0% | 1.1% | 99.1% | 104 | 86 | 8.9% |
| Angels | 95.1 | 89-101 | 851 | 776 | .561 | 91.2% | 1.4% | 92.6% | 104 | 86 | -1.2% |
| Red Sox | 94.8 | 89-101 | 849 | 716 | .592 | 5.7% | 85.1% | 90.8% | 104 | 86 | 21.0% |
| Tigers | 87.5 | 82-93 | 762 | 748 | .537 | 89.5% | 0.0% | 89.5% | 99 | 79 | 15.4% |
| Rockies | 89.2 | 84-95 | 803 | 769 | .531 | 2.9% | 44.3% | 47.2% | 98 | 80 | 0.2% |
| Giants | 88.4 | 83-94 | 684 | 669 | .538 | 2.4% | 33.2% | 35.6% | 97 | 80 | 13.3% |
| Rangers | 88.9 | 83-95 | 779 | 791 | .518 | 8.7% | 4.3% | 13.0% | 99 | 80 | -11.5% |
| Braves | 86.2 | 81-92 | 762 | 692 | .539 | 1.7% | 10.4% | 12.1% | 96 | 78 | -4.6% |
| Twins | 81.6 | 76-87 | 776 | 781 | .509 | 8.5% | 0.0% | 8.5% | 92 | 73 | 0.1% |
| Marlins | 84.6 | 79-90 | 750 | 794 | .523 | 0.4% | 4.0% | 4.3% | 93 | 76 | -14.8% |
| Rays | 87.3 | 82-93 | 814 | 714 | .553 | 0.0% | 3.9% | 3.9% | 95 | 79 | -7.6% |
| Cubs | 83.6 | 78-89 | 768 | 703 | .530 | 0.7% | 2.4% | 3.0% | 92 | 74 | -19.8% |
| White Sox | 79.0 | 73-85 | 746 | 788 | .490 | 1.8% | 0.0% | 1.8% | 89 | 69 | -15.9% |
| Indians | 73.1 | 67-79 | 808 | 802 | .469 | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 84 | 66 | 0.1% |
| Mariners | 82.9 | 77-89 | 680 | 722 | .502 | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 90 | 73 | -0.9% |
| Astros | 76.0 | 70-82 | 700 | 793 | .452 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 85 | 66 | 0.0% |
| Athletics | 72.0 | 66-78 | 742 | 766 | .467 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 81 | 62 | 0.0% |
| Blue Jays | 73.8 | 68-79 | 800 | 800 | .500 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 83 | 65 | -0.1% |
| Brewers | 78.4 | 73-84 | 783 | 794 | .493 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 88 | 69 | -2.0% |
| Diamondbacks | 73.2 | 68-79 | 737 | 743 | .482 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 83 | 65 | 0.0% |
| Mets | 73.1 | 67-79 | 757 | 761 | .462 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 82 | 63 | 0.0% |
| Nationals | 57.5 | 52-63 | 751 | 862 | .395 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 68 | 49 | 0.0% |
| Orioles | 66.2 | 61-72 | 768 | 849 | .438 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 75 | 57 | 0.0% |
| Padres | 68.3 | 63-74 | 672 | 794 | .412 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 76 | 59 | 0.0% |
| Pirates | 67.5 | 62-73 | 696 | 794 | .430 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 78 | 59 | 0.0% |
| Reds | 71.5 | 66-77 | 690 | 769 | .449 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 79 | 62 | 0.0% |
| Royals | 62.1 | 56-68 | 694 | 817 | .412 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 71 | 53 | 0.0% |
W: Projected wins
1 Std: Win range within one standard deviation
RS: Projected runs scored
RA: Projected runs allowed
TmStr: Team strength (estimated using 1/3 YTD WPCT, 1/3 YTD Pythagenpat, 1/3 2009 Projection)
Div: Division title percentage
WC: Wild card percentage
PL: Div + WC
G/L: Gain/loss. Current playoff percentage minus playoff percentage on August 15. Greater than zero means improved playoff odds, less than zero means playoff odds have dropped.
The Yankees were already in very good shape for making the playoffs, but their odds moved up by a touch. The Monte Carlo simulations see the Yankees floor as 90 wins now, with a high of 111. That'd be sweet.
The biggest gainer over the last two weeks has been the Red Sox actually, who are playing well aside from when they play the Yankees. Since August 16, Boston is 9-2 and has scored 69 runs while allowing 44 against everyone but the Yankees. Against the Yankees, they went 1-2 and scored 29 runs while allowing 29. Overall, they're 10-4 since August 15. Their chances also have gone up thanks to the Rays going 8-5 and the Rangers going 7-7 (despite taking 2 of 3 from Boston).
Other big gainers are the Tigers who've moved from an 86.5 win pace to an 87.5 win pace while the White Sox went from an 81.7 win pace to a 79.0 win pace and saw their playoff chances drop by around 16%.. The Twins have now moved past the White Sox as the second most likely team to take the AL Central, although the odds are against them.
Not much really changed in the AL West, with the Angels continuing to run away with the division.
Over in the JV league, the Cardinals and Giants were the biggest gainers of the last two weeks. The Cardinals now have the best odds of any team to take their division. The NL wild card race is shaping up as an interesting one with less than one game separating the Giants and Rockies according to these simulations after the Giants swept Colorado this weekend. They have three more games against each other in mid-September. Meanwhile, the Marlins and Cubs have essentially dropped out of playoff contention at this point,
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Yankees.com: Amazing Joba mows down Rays
ST. PETERSBURG—Joba Chamberlain took his new attitude on the road and kept the results coming, hurling eight strong innings, as the Yankees defeated the Rays, 6-2, on Wednesday at Tropicana Field.
Chamberlain returned for the second half refreshed, vowing to bid farewell to his earlier starting troubles. For a third consecutive start, he kept his word, continuing to mow down opposing lineups and turning in his best effort so far.
The 23-year-old right-hander limited Tampa Bay to just three hits in the contest, facing the minimum through the first four frames. Chamberlain walked two and struck out five, improving to 3-0 with an 0.83 ERA since he spent four days relaxing in his Nebraska backyard during the All-Star break.
Joba’s obviously the big story out of tonight’s game. Since the All Star Break, he’s put up an 0.83 ERA over three starts and 21.2 innings. He’s allowed 8 hits and has held opposing batters to a line of .114/.222/.200. He’s got a component ERA of 1.38. His FIP is 3.43, which is still very respectable, even if it it’s a bit higher than his ERA and CERA.
I sometimes overstate the importance of games, but this series was very important. The Yankees have now put the Rays in a position where they have to be eight games better than the Yanks over 60 odd games to catch them. Even if you believe the Rays are better than the Yankees (and most current evidence indicates that’s NOT the case), it’s pretty hard to make a case that they would be 21 games better over a full season, which is what they’d have to be over the rest of the season to catch the Yankees.
With Oakland taking two of three from Boston while the Yankees were taking two of three from Tampa Bay, the Yankees gained another game in the AL East lead. That they did it on the road against one of the better teams in baseball while Boston was playing one of the worst teams in baseball at home makes it even more critical. While the division race is far from over, the statistical outcome that should have been expected over the last three days would be Boston gaining a game. Further proof that you just can’t predict baseball.
So yeah, even though Chien-Ming Wang is done for the year, and even though Brian Bruney continues to disappoint, and even though Alfredo Aceves is fatigued, things are going pretty well.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Importance of This Tampa Bay Series
I was fiddling around with the standings to see how important this next series against Tampa Bay was. Coming off their 9-1 home stand, the Yankees are 60-38 and lead Tampa Bay (54-45) by 6.5 games. Here are the four scenarios:
Tampa Bay sweep
Yankees: 60-41
Rays: 57-45, 3.5 GB
Tampa Bay takes two of three
Yankees: 61-40
Rays: 56-46, 5.5 GB
Yankees take two of three
Yankees: 62-39
Rays: 55-47, 7.5 GB
Yankees sweep
Yankees: 63-38
Rays: 54-48, 9.5 GB
If the Yankees can take two of three then go 31-30 over their final 60 games of the season, the Rays would have to go 38-22 (.633 WPCT) over their final 60 games to catch them. That’s the equivalent to a 103 win pace. If the Yankees sweep, the Rays would have to go 40-20 (.666 WPCT / 108 win pace) to catch a 31-30 Yankee team.
Log5 would tell us the Rays should take two out of three, but if the Yankees can improve on that, they’ll be setting themselves up really nicely for the rest of the season.
Matchups for the series are:
Monday July 27
NYY: A.J. Burnett, RHP (9-4, 3.74) vs. TB: James Shields, RHP (6-6, 3.70)
Tuesday July 28
NYY: CC Sabathia, LHP (10-6, 3.67) vs. TB: Scott Kazmir, LHP (4-6, 6.69)
Wednesday, July 29
NYY: Joba Chamberlain, RHP (6-2, 3.86) vs. TB: Matt Garza, RHP (7-7, 3.68)
Since a wise man once said ‘You can’t predict baseball’, I won’t try. In fact, I may throw all my stats into the East River. But I will say that the first and third matchups look like they’re basically tossups, and the middle matchup seems like the key one for the Yankees, although we know Kazmir is better than he’s pitched so far this year.
Update: Part 2 of Chris Jaffe’s look at the best teams to never win a World Series is posted at the Hardball Times for anyone who may be interested.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Remaining Strength of Schedule for Boston, Tampa Bay and the Yankees
I was curious about the remaining strength of schedule for the big three in the AL East to see if it would impact what looks to be a tight race for the division and wild card, so I played around with Bill James's log5 to see if I could estimate it. Regular readers are probably familiear with log5, but if you're not there's a good synopsis of it here.Although the original formula is a little more involved, it can essentially be reduced to winning percentage = .500 + A - B (where A is the estimated WPCT of one team, and B is the estimated WPCT of the other team). This assumes the teams are in the .400 to .600 area, which is generally true in 2009 MLB aside from Cleveland and Washington.
So, I looked at the strength of schedule using a few different ways of estimating team true talent. I'm looking at games from July 20th forward. Team winning percentages are adjusted for home field advantage (add .02 to WPCT for the home team, subtract .02 from WPCT for the road team). 2009 projection data is adjusted for roster changes, but projections themselves were not revised.
2009 WPCT(33.3%), 2009 PythagenPat WPCT(33.3%), 2009 Project WPCT(33.3%)
| Team | GR | HGR | Opp W% | log5 W | Final W |
| Yankees | 71 | 36 | .512 | 40.8 | 94.8 |
| Red Sox | 71 | 36 | .512 | 41.7 | 96.7 |
| Rays | 70 | 36 | .521 | 38.6 | 89.6 |
GR: Games remaining
HGR: Home games remaining
Opp W%: Estimated winning percentage of remaining opponents, adjusted for home field advantage
log 5 W: Estimated log 5 wins over remainder of season
Final W: Final estimated wins (YTD wins + log5 W)
2009 WPCT(25.0%), 2009 PythagenPat WPCT(25.0%), 2009 Project WPCT(50.0%)
| Team | GR | HGR | Opp W% | log5 W | Final W |
| Yankees | 71 | 36 | .511 | 41.1 | 95.1 |
| Red Sox | 71 | 36 | .511 | 41.6 | 96.6 |
| Rays | 70 | 36 | .518 | 38.7 | 89.7 |
2009 PythagenPat WPCT(100.0%)
| Team | GR | HGR | Opp W% | log5 W | Final W |
| Yankees | 71 | 36 | .516 | 39.1 | 93.1 |
| Red Sox | 71 | 36 | .516 | 41.3 | 96.3 |
| Rays | 70 | 36 | .525 | 39.7 | 90.7 |
2009 WPCT(50.0%), 2009 PythagenPat WPCT(50.0%)
| Team | GR | HGR | Opp W% | log5 W | Final W |
| Yankees | 71 | 36 | .514 | 40.1 | 94.1 |
| Red Sox | 71 | 36 | .514 | 41.9 | 96.9 |
| Rays | 70 | 36 | .528 | 38.5 | 89.5 |
No matter which methodology you look at, the numbers say the Yankees and Red Sox essentially have the same schedule going forward, with Tampa's schedule about one game harder. Realistically, what this tells me is that head-to-head matchups are probably going to be the determining factor going forward.
On an unrelated note, Chris Jaffe from The Hardball Times asked me to help out with an article he wanted to write about the best teams to never win a World Series. Part 1 is up for anyone who may want to check it out.
Monday, June 8, 2009
MLB.com: Yankees power up, pound Rays
NEW YORK—Shipping up to Boston to renew their most intense rivalry, the Yankees left town in style, hitting four home runs to power a 5-3 victory over the Rays on Monday at Yankee Stadium.
Tampa Bay starter Andy Sonnanstine served up all four of the round-trippers. Johnny Damon’s solo blast put the Yankees ahead in the sixth inning after Mark Teixeira hit a solo shot in the first inning and Nick Swisher clubbed a two-run shot in the second.
Now they will only be two games back of first going into the weekend.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
MLB.com: Yankees rally past Rays in eighth
Trailing by two runs to begin the inning, the Yankees rallied to score three off a beleaguered Rays bullpen to come away with a 4-3 victory in front of 46,465. Hideki Matsui drove in the eventual winning run with a fielder’s-choice groundout off reliever J.P. Howell.
I guess it makes up for yesterday’s bad loss.
Friday, December 26, 2008
An Early Look at the 2009 AL East
I used Sean Smith’s CHONE projections and built depth charts for offense, pitching and defense to get a rough idea of how the AL East would look right now on paper.
Offense
BR Batting runs using linear weights.
RS Runs saved compared to average on defense using CHONE’s projections, which are a combination of the standard zone rating that I use and John DeWan’s revised zone rating that is used on the Hardball Times site.
I did not use a replacement level for the bench here, I filled in the actual bench players for each team based on MLB.com’s depth charts. Playing time for the starters was primarily based on their projected playing time in CHONE, with the gaps filled in by the bench, ensuring that it all added up to 4100 outs which is the average of the outs made during batting by all teams last season.
Defense is already factored into the pitching projections that follow, so I did not double-count it. I’m just displaying it for informational purposes.
Pitching
According to CHONE, the Yankee pitching will lead the division in Ks and fewest HRs allowed. You can see by FIP they project to be the best staff in the AL East, although defense looks like it will narrow the gap between them and Tampa pretty significantly. BTW, the Yankee pitching projection no longer includes Andy Pettitte, as the inevitable may have not been inevitable after all. Ya snooze, ya lose Pettitte.
So what do all these dorky numbers really mean?
Overall
RS: Runs scored
RA: Runs allowed
Pyth W: PythagenPat Wins
Pyth L: PythagenPat losses
Opp W%: Projected winning percentage for the other four teams in the division
This table lists the projected runs scored, runs allowed and Pythagenpat wins and losses for each AL East team. The Opp W% column is the Pythagenpat record for each of the four AL East teams besides the listed team. I use this to calculate an AL East penalty for each team’s record. Which is 38 - Opp W% times 76. That works out to:
NYA (-2.6)
BOS (-2.8)
TBA (-3.3)
TOR (-4.8)
BAL (-5.3)
I add that to the PythagenPat wins to get a revised win/loss record.
And there you have it. The Yankees do look like the favorite in the AL East by this particular methodology, although it’s by no means a runaway.
Monday, December 22, 2008
So Who’s Got the Best Rotation in the AL East Now (CHONE edition)?
One of the things I will freely acknowledge is that my CAIRO projection system is somewhat limited (as are all projection systems). That’s why I like to look at lots of different projections to get a feel for what other formulas and algorithms predict. Because of this, I’m going to look at the same question as I did yesterday regarding the best rotation in the AL East, but this time I’ll use Sean Smith’s recently posted CHONE projections instead of CAIRO.
One difference here is that Sean’s projections are not neutral, but are adjusted for park and defense. RSAR are still comparable since they’re park-adjusted, but keep the park and defense impact in mind when looking at the raw numbers like ERA.
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement-level
IP/S: Innings pitched per start
CHONE is more conservative than CAIRO on projected innings pitched both per game started and over a full season, so I had to adjust some pitchers innings up and there are more innings from the sixth starters to get each team to 162 starts. Also, CHONE’s replacement level is lower (worse) than CAIRO’s, so the RSAR totals are bigger here, although it’s all relative so it’s not a problem.
CHONE likes Boston’s rotation a little more than CAIRO, primarily Beckett and Matsuzaka. Overall, CHONE says the Red Sox rotation should save 163 runs above replacement level using my estimated playing time.
Tampa is basically even with Boston at 162 RSAR, although David Price’s projection is a lot more pessimistic here. That’s mitigated by better projections for Shields, Kazmir, Sonnanstine and Garza though.
Lower innings across the board here for everyone, but the Yankee rotation still looks like the class of the AL East with these numbers, although the gap narrows from the 6 wins I had with CAIRO to 4 wins.
And here’s a final comparison of the CHONE totals.
Looks like further encouraging data to me, at least on the starting pitching front.
Reader zellyanks91 emailed me an interesting blog entry he wrote about his interaction with Phil Hughes on a baseball card forum. Hughes seems like a really good guy from reading this.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
So Who’s Got the Best Rotation in the AL East Now?
With the Yankees’ signings of C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, many pundits are saying they now have the best starting rotation in the AL East. Let’s use CAIRO to see if that’s actually true or not. With all due respect to Baltimore and Toronto, I’m leaving them out of this analysis.
Here’s a look at Boston, New York and Tampa’s neutral CAIRO projections. These are not adjusted for the AL, for park, or for defense in order to have a level playing field for comparison. The neutral league I use is 2% worse than the AL. For now I’m assuming good health for every team, so I’m using only the top six starters on each team’s depth chart and pro-rating the teams to 162 starts.
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement-level
IP/S: Innings pitched per start
Jon Lester’s projection in particular is probably too pessismistic since it includes his 2006 and 2007 which were severly impacted by his illness. Still, until we have more data we shouldn’t expect him to continue to pitch as well as he did in 2008, although I’d probably bet on him to be around his 65% projection (neutral: 3.81 ERA, 30 RSAR). Matsuzaka’s 2008 ERA was way out of line with his peripherals, and CAIRO expects him to regress back towards those peripherals quite a bit in ‘09, as do I. The ERA projections go up once you move the pitchers to the AL and Fenway, but this is a pretty good rotation.
Obviously, Tampa’s a media darling now after their meteoric rise in 2008, although several statheads saw it coming beforehand. They also look to have a pretty solid rotation now, fronted by James Shields and Scott Kazmir. Edwin Jackson’s gone, replaced by David Price, whose projection is based on a single year’s data and is probably not very useful. He could be a lot better, or he could be worse, but he’s definitely got the talent to be a difference-maker in Tampa’s rotation.
Yeah, adding C.C. and A.J. looks pretty sweet on paper here. I’m including Andy Pettitte here based on this article that says Pettitte’s return is ‘inevitable’. Joba’s projection is probably too optimistic, but he’s a bad-ass regardless.
Assuming health out of Burnett, Chamberlain, Wang and Hughes, this rotation projects to blow away Boston and Tampa, to the tune of 6 wins above replacement. Part of that is in a better rate performance (ERA of 3.72 vs. 4.19 and 4.24), but there’s also an important factor here that could have a cascade effect. The Yankee rotation projects to have four separate pitchers who would average 6.2 to 6.9 innings per start. None of the other teams have more than one such pitcher. That means fewer bullpen innings, which helps a) rest the pen b) keep the ball away from the worse pitchers in the back of the pen.
Of course, I’ll again reiterate that this assumes good health which is a massive assumption, although the same holds in varying extents for Tampa and Boston. I’d also be interested in seeing what other projection systems besides CAIRO say.
Here’s a final comparison of the totals for each of the three teams.
This doesn’t mean the Yankees should be favored to win the AL East by any means. We have to look at the bullpens, offenses and defenses and how they all fit together. Before doing that though I’d assume Boston is still the AL East favorite, with the Yankees probably ahead of Tampa now, but a lot can change over the next three months. Now, if the Yankees can sign Teixeira, they probably jump ahead of Boston.
On a completely unrelated note, Sean Smith has opened a new website for his CHONE projections. Sean’s projections are some of the better ones out there, and are completely free. You can check it out at baseballprojection.com
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Go Rays!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
NorthJersey.com - Caldera: Yankees keep Sox from clinching AL East
BOSTON—For Joe Girardi, there was little satisfaction in denying the Red Sox an opportunity to clinch the AL East.
“I’d have liked to have knocked them out of the playoffs and put us in. That would’ve meant something,’’ Girardi said, after the Yankees completed a soggy 19-8 win Friday night over the Sox at Fenway Park - a game that saw two rain delays that totaled two hours and nine minutes.
The Rays lost their game, but clinched the division by virtue of the Yankees’ late-night triumph - thus completing one of the most unlikely titles in recent memory. Tampa Bay wasn’t supposed to compete in the Sox-Yanks world, at least not this year.
Actually, Tampa Bay had a non-trivial chance to compete this year.
This is what happens when teams pitch to Cody Ransom. Ransom for 1B in 2009!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Slimmer and Slimmer
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), real life intruded in my blogging and Yankee watching over the last few days. So I really have nothing to say about the sweep by LA of A, except that I completely expected it and am thus not really that angry about it.A couple of weeks ago, I took a look at the Yankees' upcoming schedule using log5 to give us an idea of what we should reasonably have expected. Here's how the Yankees have done relative to expectations since then.
| Date | Opponent | Exp W | Exp L | Act W | Act L |
| 28-Jul | Orioles | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
| 29-Jul | Orioles | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 2.0 |
| 30-Jul | Orioles | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 3.0 |
| 31-Jul | Angels | 2.5 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| 1-Aug | Angels | 3.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| 2-Aug | Angels | 3.5 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 5.0 |
| 3-Aug | Angels | 4.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 5.0 |
| 4-Aug | @Rangers | 4.6 | 3.4 | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| 5-Aug | @Rangers | 5.1 | 3.9 | 3.0 | 6.0 |
| 6-Aug | @Rangers | 5.6 | 4.4 | 3.0 | 7.0 |
| 7-Aug | @Rangers | 6.2 | 4.8 | 4.0 | 7.0 |
| 8-Aug | @Angels | 6.6 | 5.4 | 5.0 | 7.0 |
| 9-Aug | @Angels | 7.0 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 8.0 |
| 10-Aug | @Angels | 7.5 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 9.0 |
You probably didn't need fancy numbers to tell you the Yankees are playing like crap. They were 2.5 games worse than expected over this 14 game stretch. The Yankees entered play on July 28th 3 games behind first place Tampa Bay in the AL East and 1 game behind Boston for the wild card. Now, they are 8.5 games behind Tampa Bay and 4 games behind Boston for the wild card, and are looking up at Minnesota as well.
As long as the Yankees are mathematically alive I'm not going to write them off, otherwise I may have to deal with Jeter is King reading me the virtual riot act again, but let's face it, it's bleak.
First, let's look at the division. The Rays are 71-46. If they go 22-23 over their remaining 45 games, the Yankees would have to 30-14 just to tie them. There's another problem. Tampa has six games left with Boston. So when those teams are playing the Yankees will not be able to pick up ground on one of the teams ahead of them.
The wild card is still in play, but there are four teams that have better records than the Yankees in Tampa Bay, Boston, the White Sox, and Minnesota. Two of those four will likely win their division, but the other two will be the Yankees' chief competition. The Rangers are 2.5 games behind the Yanks but could also end up in the mix, although their schedule is pretty rough going forward.
The cold hard facts are that statistically, the Yankees' odds of making the postseason at this point are slim, and growing slimmer. It won't be the end of the world if they fail to make the postseason, but it sure will be disappointing.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
A Tale of Two Defenses
The Tampa Bay Rays are storming through the American League right now and the media is picking up on it. There's been quite a few articles written about the surging Rays recently and with good reason. Baseball Prospectus is taking credit for picking them to win 88-90 games this year, but the first analyst who put up a bullish forecast for them was Sean Smith at his blog. Sean predicted them to win 89 games, and so far they are on pace to shatter that.Enough people have written about the Rays that I'm not going to get into it here, except for one thing. Defense.
| TM | POS | 07 ZR | 08 ZR | 07 Diff | 08 Diff | 07 RS | 08 RS | RS+/- |
| TB | 1B | .801 | .853 | -12 | -1 | -9 | -1 | 8 |
| TB | 2B | .786 | .817 | -18 | -3 | -14 | -2 | 11 |
| TB | 3B | .751 | .831 | -4 | 6 | -3 | 5 | 8 |
| TB | CF | .852 | .878 | -16 | -5 | -13 | -4 | 9 |
| TB | LF | .907 | .913 | 16 | 14 | 13 | 12 | -2 |
| TB | RF | .869 | .871 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 |
| TB | SS | .760 | .827 | -29 | -1 | -22 | 0 | 22 |
| TB | Total | .815 | .854 | -62 | 10 | -48 | 8 | 56 |
07 ZR: 2007 zone rating at this position
08 ZR: 2008 zone rating at this position
07 Diff: 2007 plays made compared to average
08 Diff: 2008 plays made compared to average
07 RS: 2007 runs saved compared to average
08 RS: 2008 runs saved compared to average
RS+/-: Runs saved at position compared between 2007 and 2008
Note that 2008 is just a bit over half over, so we are comparing a half season to a full season. Still, the difference is stark. Last year, the Rays were horrific defensively. They made 62 plays fewer than average and allowed 48 runs more than average according to zone rating.
So what's changed? The biggest improvement is at short, where Jason Bartlett has been a big improvement over the sordid cast of characters that manned short last year led by Brendan Harris's -13. 2B is also improved, although still slightly below average. A year of on the job training in CF has helped B.J. Upton improve his zone rating in CF from .859 to .889, and not only can Evan Longoria hit, he's playing a slightly above average 3B. Willy Aybar has provide plus defense at 1B, 2B and 3B off the bench as well.
What really stands out is that this year's Rays team is 56 runs better defensively than last year's squad, and we still have 70+ games to go. If they continue at their current pace, they'll save another seven runs above average by season's end. That's a 6+ win difference on defense alone. If I get some time I'll see if I can find the biggest year to year changes in defense according to zone rating since 1987, but I'd be surprised if there was ever a bigger improvement than that.
So yeah, the Rays are good.
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