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.
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