Monday, January 30, 2006
It’s early projection time
The last few years in late January, Dan Szymborski at Baseball Think Factory releases his ZiPS projections in the form of a Diamond Mind baseball disk. This allows nerds like me to play some simulated seasons with Diamond Mind Baseball, probably the best baseball simulator out there.
Last year when I ran these in late January, the Yankees were averaging 91 wins, 905 runs for, and 794 against. The Yankees did in fact end up winning 95 games, scoring 886 runs and allowing 789.
While rosters are far from settled yet, I thought it would be interesting to see where the teams are according to ZiPS. This is current through the Piazza signing with San Diego yesterday. For Yankee fans, it’s not so good. Below are the results for 100 trials, with the average wins, losses, runs for, and runs against. DIV = of division titles won, WC = of wild cards.
High Low
Team W L RF RA DIV WC DIV% WC% Made% Missed% Wins Wins
American League
East
Boston 92 70 879 740 76 6 76% 6% 82% 18% 105 77
New York(A) 85 77 821 786 14 16 14% 16% 30% 70% 99 70
Toronto 83 79 748 740 9 14 9% 14% 23% 77% 99 65
Baltimore 73 89 733 809 1 1 1% 1% 2% 98% 89 54
Tampa Bay 70 92 711 827 1 0 1% 0% 1% 99% 85 59
Central
Minnesota 86 76 719 674 38 9 38% 9% 47% 53% 100 70
Cleveland 84 79 775 732 23 7 23% 7% 30% 70% 102 70
Chicago(A) 82 80 746 727 20 4 20% 4% 24% 76% 103 68
Detroit 82 80 764 760 19 5 19% 5% 24% 76% 95 68
Kansas City 65 97 680 829 0 0 0% 0% 0% 100% 86 44
West
Oakland 96 66 767 617 88 6 88% 6% 94% 6% 109 79
Los Angeles(A) 85 77 722 691 7 23 7% 23% 30% 70% 100 68
Texas 80 82 800 812 3 7 3% 7% 10% 90% 94 65
Seattle 79 83 710 750 2 5 2% 5% 7% 93% 94 60
National League
East
New York(N) 90 72 782 702 53 14 53% 14% 67% 33% 105 72
Philadelphia 89 73 751 676 38 22 38% 22% 60% 40% 105 75
Atlanta 81 81 736 734 8 8 8% 8% 16% 84% 94 68
Washington 75 87 683 735 2 0 2% 0% 2% 98% 89 59
Florida 70 92 645 737 0 1 0% 1% 1% 99% 86 57
Central
St. Louis 96 66 768 628 79 10 79% 10% 89% 11% 109 82
Chicago(N) 85 77 735 696 8 15 8% 15% 23% 77% 100 72
Pittsburgh 82 80 711 707 8 9 8% 9% 17% 83% 96 65
Milwaukee 80 82 704 716 5 4 5% 4% 9% 91% 97 63
Houston 74 88 682 757 0 3 0% 3% 3% 97% 89 59
Cincinnati 69 93 760 870 0 1 0% 1% 1% 99% 85 53
West
Los Angeles(N) 87 75 748 701 59 5 59% 5% 64% 36% 106 71
San Francisco 83 79 732 716 28 6 28% 6% 34% 66% 98 68
Arizona 77 85 729 771 7 1 7% 1% 8% 92% 95 63
Colorado 76 86 787 842 2 3 2% 3% 5% 95% 90 65
San Diego 75 88 675 718 5 1 5% 1% 6% 94% 94 61
Prior to the Crisp trade, the Yankees and Red Sox were pretty close to even. However, according to ZiPS now the Red Sox are clearly better.
The good news is that this is all based on projections which are harsh to the Yankees players given their ages, and that projection systems will miss out on players and teams all the time. The bad news is that the Yankees are spending $190 million or so on a 30% chance of making the playoffs according to at least one system. With very little else in the way of roster moves likely at this point, the best hope is that players on hand exceed their projection. In the case of Jason Giambi, I think that’s reasonable, as his 2004 brings his expected performance down quite a bit. This does underscore the need to add another bat (I split DH between Bernie and Andy Phillips in these runs).
Rosters are still in a state of flux, so I wouldn’t worry too much about these. I’ll re-run a bigger set in spring training along with Diamond Mind’s own projections to see what happens.
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