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30 in 30 ~ Philadelphia Phillies
by Ej March 20th 2013, 3:48 pm
2013 PREVIEW: PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
What They Did: 81-81, 3rd Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 684 runs, Allowed 680.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 81.4 (0.4 above actual)
Restated: Scored 679 runs, Allowed 662.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 82.9 (1.9 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Phillies, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 83 games.)
“The Phillies are a collection of broken-down, overpaid players who all got old at the same time last year – just like the Yankees this year. They won’t be a factor again for years.” As I said, on the surface that’s understandable because after winning the NL East five straight times, Philadelphia did crash and burn last year struggling to play .500 baseball, never factoring in the NL East race, and finishing 17 games out of first place. Let’s look beneath the surface, however.
All the damage to the Phillies’ season occurred in the first half of the year. They entered the All-Star break 13 games under .500 and in last place in the NL East by five games. Yes, comfortably behind the Mets and Marlins. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard had barely played (44 total plate appearances), Cliff Lee had 1 win in 14 starts, and the bullpen had an ERA barely under 5.00. The Phillies lost their first game after the break and then . . . few noticed what happened. For the rest of the year, Philadelphia played .600 baseball and only lost 30 games – exactly the same as the 98-win Nationals and just one loss more than the Atlanta Braves. In other words, once reasonably healthy, Philadelphia played the second half of the season on a par with the best teams in the league. (San Francisco and Cincinnati were each a game or two better, respectively, in the loss column than the Braves.)
The question is do the Phillies, and their aging core, have one last season in them to chase a post-season berth? The Phils path to 90 wins is as easy to define as any team in the league. They have to win 60% of the 90+ games started by Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Cliff Lee and then split the other roughly 70 started by Kyle Kendrick, newly acquired John Lannan and whoever else fills out the rotation. Stated in those terms, it’s an achievable goal.
Even with the mid-season trades of Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence, and even getting just half-seasons from Utley and a clearly still-hobbled Howard, the Phillies managed to have a league-average offense. 8th in the NL in runs scored, 7th in batting average, 9th in on-base percentage, and 7th in slugging. Unless injuries ravage the offense in 2013, the offense will almost certainly be better and therefore above league-average. Why? Look at the ballast the Phillies were carrying all while achieving a league-average offense. Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco amassed nearly 800 appearances in 2012 and hit a grand total of three home runs. Let’s put that into perspective. 3 home runs in 767 ABs for Pierre and Polanco. NL pitchers hit 24 home runs in 5,594 ABs. You see where this is leading? That’s right – you could randomly watch the at-bat of any pitcher in the NL in 2012 and you had a better chance of seeing a home run hit than if you watched Pierre or Polanco hit, two players manning the premium hitting positions of corner outfielder and corner infielder for the Phillies.
John Mayberry, Jr. and Ty Wigginton made more than 800 plate appearances combined and barely got on base at a .300 clip and both slugged beneath .400. That wouldn’t be bad -- if they were shortstops. But all their playing time came at corner outfield positions and first base. Michael Young (age) and Delmon Young (defense) come to the Phillies in 2013 with flaws, Dominic Brown has struggled with injuries himself but just two years ago he was Mike Trout and Wil Myers (the number 1 ranked minor league prospect in baseball) but even with flaws and question marks, they should help the offense produce materially more runs than the players they’re replacing. Finally, Ryan Howard hit .219/.295/.423 in the 71 games he appeared in after rupturing his Achilles tendon in the last game of the 2011 season. Including last season, his career figures are .271/.364/.551. He’s a strong candidate for an Adam Dunn-like bounce back year in 2013.
Much maligned, and frankly with good reason, the Phillies front office actually did a terrific job of quietly remaking the bullpen as the season went on. First-half disasters Chad Qualls, Joe Savery, and Jose Contreras were released, replaced by a combination of low-cost, high-strikeout, low-walk arms that allowed Charlie Manuel to match-up against hitters on both sides of the plate. Owing to Papelbon’s massive salary, the money may not have been allocated correctly, but the Phillies enter the season with one of the top bullpens in the NL.
With a mildly above average offense, and a top-tier bullpen they can get to 90 wins if they can keep their above-30-year old talent on the field. Reports out of Spring Training do not sound good for Roy Halladay which is the only thing that tempers this preview versus expectations. If he is finished, if his drop in fastball velocity in 2012 was the product of permanent wear and tear and not due to a healable injury, the Phillies will need to replace his 30+ starts with a replacement level pitcher and that likely makes them a .500 team.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Phillies had a miserable first-half of the season last year creating the impression that their time as a contender has passed. It’s not an entirely misplaced opinion, as the team’s core is old and the Nationals are clearly a younger, better team. But there is so much room for improvement when you look at the departed batters and relievers that contributed significantly to last year’s problems. If Howard is only going to slug .400 and if Halladay is a shell of his former self, the Phillies need to look to 2015 and beyond, and a mid-season purge of tradable assets will be appropriate. I tend to think a lot of that is priced into the Phillies total wins market of 82 ½. Look back at the top of this piece – the Phillies were an 83-win team last year. When you look at their season from the standpoint of who got plate appearances and who pitched innings, the marginal changes to the lineup and pitching staff this year flat-out make them better. I’ll take the over. Due to the questionable health of Halladay however, I can’t recommend this over to anywhere near the degree of say, Cleveland and Tampa.
2013 Outlook:
86-76 – Second in NL East
702 Runs Scored 652 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 81-81, 3rd Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 684 runs, Allowed 680.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 81.4 (0.4 above actual)
Restated: Scored 679 runs, Allowed 662.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 82.9 (1.9 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Phillies, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 83 games.)
“The Phillies are a collection of broken-down, overpaid players who all got old at the same time last year – just like the Yankees this year. They won’t be a factor again for years.” As I said, on the surface that’s understandable because after winning the NL East five straight times, Philadelphia did crash and burn last year struggling to play .500 baseball, never factoring in the NL East race, and finishing 17 games out of first place. Let’s look beneath the surface, however.
All the damage to the Phillies’ season occurred in the first half of the year. They entered the All-Star break 13 games under .500 and in last place in the NL East by five games. Yes, comfortably behind the Mets and Marlins. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard had barely played (44 total plate appearances), Cliff Lee had 1 win in 14 starts, and the bullpen had an ERA barely under 5.00. The Phillies lost their first game after the break and then . . . few noticed what happened. For the rest of the year, Philadelphia played .600 baseball and only lost 30 games – exactly the same as the 98-win Nationals and just one loss more than the Atlanta Braves. In other words, once reasonably healthy, Philadelphia played the second half of the season on a par with the best teams in the league. (San Francisco and Cincinnati were each a game or two better, respectively, in the loss column than the Braves.)
The question is do the Phillies, and their aging core, have one last season in them to chase a post-season berth? The Phils path to 90 wins is as easy to define as any team in the league. They have to win 60% of the 90+ games started by Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Cliff Lee and then split the other roughly 70 started by Kyle Kendrick, newly acquired John Lannan and whoever else fills out the rotation. Stated in those terms, it’s an achievable goal.
Even with the mid-season trades of Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence, and even getting just half-seasons from Utley and a clearly still-hobbled Howard, the Phillies managed to have a league-average offense. 8th in the NL in runs scored, 7th in batting average, 9th in on-base percentage, and 7th in slugging. Unless injuries ravage the offense in 2013, the offense will almost certainly be better and therefore above league-average. Why? Look at the ballast the Phillies were carrying all while achieving a league-average offense. Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco amassed nearly 800 appearances in 2012 and hit a grand total of three home runs. Let’s put that into perspective. 3 home runs in 767 ABs for Pierre and Polanco. NL pitchers hit 24 home runs in 5,594 ABs. You see where this is leading? That’s right – you could randomly watch the at-bat of any pitcher in the NL in 2012 and you had a better chance of seeing a home run hit than if you watched Pierre or Polanco hit, two players manning the premium hitting positions of corner outfielder and corner infielder for the Phillies.
John Mayberry, Jr. and Ty Wigginton made more than 800 plate appearances combined and barely got on base at a .300 clip and both slugged beneath .400. That wouldn’t be bad -- if they were shortstops. But all their playing time came at corner outfield positions and first base. Michael Young (age) and Delmon Young (defense) come to the Phillies in 2013 with flaws, Dominic Brown has struggled with injuries himself but just two years ago he was Mike Trout and Wil Myers (the number 1 ranked minor league prospect in baseball) but even with flaws and question marks, they should help the offense produce materially more runs than the players they’re replacing. Finally, Ryan Howard hit .219/.295/.423 in the 71 games he appeared in after rupturing his Achilles tendon in the last game of the 2011 season. Including last season, his career figures are .271/.364/.551. He’s a strong candidate for an Adam Dunn-like bounce back year in 2013.
Much maligned, and frankly with good reason, the Phillies front office actually did a terrific job of quietly remaking the bullpen as the season went on. First-half disasters Chad Qualls, Joe Savery, and Jose Contreras were released, replaced by a combination of low-cost, high-strikeout, low-walk arms that allowed Charlie Manuel to match-up against hitters on both sides of the plate. Owing to Papelbon’s massive salary, the money may not have been allocated correctly, but the Phillies enter the season with one of the top bullpens in the NL.
With a mildly above average offense, and a top-tier bullpen they can get to 90 wins if they can keep their above-30-year old talent on the field. Reports out of Spring Training do not sound good for Roy Halladay which is the only thing that tempers this preview versus expectations. If he is finished, if his drop in fastball velocity in 2012 was the product of permanent wear and tear and not due to a healable injury, the Phillies will need to replace his 30+ starts with a replacement level pitcher and that likely makes them a .500 team.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Phillies had a miserable first-half of the season last year creating the impression that their time as a contender has passed. It’s not an entirely misplaced opinion, as the team’s core is old and the Nationals are clearly a younger, better team. But there is so much room for improvement when you look at the departed batters and relievers that contributed significantly to last year’s problems. If Howard is only going to slug .400 and if Halladay is a shell of his former self, the Phillies need to look to 2015 and beyond, and a mid-season purge of tradable assets will be appropriate. I tend to think a lot of that is priced into the Phillies total wins market of 82 ½. Look back at the top of this piece – the Phillies were an 83-win team last year. When you look at their season from the standpoint of who got plate appearances and who pitched innings, the marginal changes to the lineup and pitching staff this year flat-out make them better. I’ll take the over. Due to the questionable health of Halladay however, I can’t recommend this over to anywhere near the degree of say, Cleveland and Tampa.
2013 Outlook:
86-76 – Second in NL East
702 Runs Scored 652 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
30 in 30 ~ Atlanta Braves
by Ej March 21st 2013, 5:58 pm
2013 PREVIEW: ATLANTA BRAVES
What They Did: 94-68, 2nd Place NL East. Lost in Wild Card Round.
Actual Runs: Scored 700 runs, Allowed 600.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 92.3 (1.7 below actual)
Restated: Scored 675 runs, Allowed 610.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 88.5 (5.5 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Braves, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 89 games.)
The figures above give the first clue as to why we don’t have the Braves repeating as post season participants in 2013 and even, shockingly, finishing behind the Phillies. They may have won 94 games last year but the Braves benefited from cluster luck a little bit on offense, a little bit while pitching, and then had some further luck in how the sequencing of their actual runs scored and allowed, all adding up to the tune of about 5 games. My numbers viewed the Braves as a 94-win team in 89-win clothing.
Now an 89-win team is still a top tier team and always deserving of a playoff berth especially in the expanded Wild Card format that began last year. An 89-win team is collection of players who combined to perform at a level 46 wins above replacement level. (For this example, I’m using FanGraphs 43-win replacement level baseline as all the individual WARs I’m going to cite come from FanGraphs.)
Collectively, the Braves everyday players amassed about 29 WAR and the pitchers about 18. (Please excuse rounding differences, in this case 47 total WAR versus my theoretical 46 from above.) Here’s a list of the top five everyday player contributors:
Jason Heyward 6.6
Michael Bourn 6.4
Martin Prado 5.9
Dan Uggla 3.5
Chipper Jones 3.0
That’s more than 25 of the total 29 WAR everyday players produced and Braves fans will surely note, 15.3 of that WAR, in the form of Bourn, Prado, and Jones, will not be with the team in 2013. Sure, B.J. Upton and Justin Upton are exciting additions to the team’s outfield for years to come but on a year-over-year basis are they going to improve on the 12+ WAR performances of Bourn and Prado in 2012?
B.J. Upton played centerfield for the Tampa Bay Rays for six full seasons and only once was his performance even low enough to be called league-average (2009). In every other year he’s consistently been an above average player, flirting with All-Star level performance in 2008. He’s pretty established, at age 28, as a very consistent, 4 WAR player. Justin Upton, his younger brother by three years, has a little more volatility and therefore a little more upside as well. In 2011, Justin garnered well deserved MVP support and finished fourth in the balloting. He returned to a roughly league-average level last year and apparently a conflict with Arizona management led to his trade. It was a great pick-up for the Braves as he is signed to a very reasonable contract through 2015. If the Upton brothers each match the best season of their entire career, they will produce 11.4 wins in 2013 – a one game drop compared to the men they are replacing. And, of course, a projection system does not call for them both to have career years in the same season.
I think it goes without saying that a third base platoon of Cincinnati Reds cast-off Juan Francisco and Houston Astros cast-off Chris Johnson aren’t expected to equal Chipper Jones’ production. (Let’s put it this way, if Johnson and/or Francisco retired after last year, I doubt Brian Cashman would be putting out feelers to see if they wanted to play one more year in pinstripes.)
A trio of 23-year olds may prevent the offense from falling off too much though. Heyward has the right mix of skills and age to suggest his tremendous year last year could be the start of multiple All-Star campaigns and Freddie Freeman impressed by increasing his walks and cutting down on his strikeouts in 2012, suggesting he is the Braves first baseman of the future. Finally, mid-season call-up Andrelton Simmons solved the shortstop problem created by the early season performances of Paul Janish and Tyler Pastornicky. Brian McCann had the worst year of his career at the age-draining position of catcher and he no longer has super-sub Brian Ross to spell him, backed up this year instead by the pedestrian Gerald Laird. Since McCann typically misses 40 games a year that’s an important factor. Put it all together and while there is upside to the Uptons – especially Justin who has the explosive power to carry a team for a month – there is plenty of volatility to the downside as well. The Braves will do well to match last year’s run production.
The case for a regression on the run suppression side of the ledger isn’t quite as easy to understand but it’s there nonetheless. Kris Medlen was incredible in the second half of 2012 going 9-0 as a starter of 12 games and posting an ERA of 0.97 in 83 innings of work. He’s good – he’s really good as evidenced by his high strikeout, extremely low-walk skill set – but no starter is 1.00 ERA good. He could still be great in 2013 and give up as many runs in April as he gave up as a starter all last year (11). To a lesser degree that could happen to the rest of the returning rotation as well. Finally, newly installed fifth starter Julio Teheran may have a lot of potential, but he also had a lot of trouble striking out batters in a full season of AAA pitching last year – a data point that usually bodes poorly for MLB success. In the bullpen, there really aren’t enough superlatives to describe closer Craig Kimbrel’s 2012 season. The entire bullpen is really good, but even a superior bullpen can be expected to have an ERA of say, 3.25. That’s a half-run higher than Atlanta’s allowed last year. Over nearly 500 innings or work, that’s an increase of about 25 runs.
Finally, Atlanta had the best defense in the National League last year. According to the game charters, a lot of that was due to the play of Michael Bourn and Marin Prado (as well as Jason Heyward). Replacing Bourn and Prado, along with the natural volatility that results from leading the league in defense, projects to cost the Braves about 20 additional runs this year.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Atlanta certainly earned its place in the post-season last year, even if it ended after just one controversial, infield fly-marred game. But a lot went right for them in 2012, and even more importantly some key contributors to that success are gone this year. Atlanta had some splashy off-season acquisitions which may have masked the reality of this year’s task. Vegas opened the Braves at 87 ½ wins. Frankly, I’m thinking the books down there are on to me as I thought it would open even closer to 90. Still, just like the other team to make name-recognized changes in the off-season, the Toronto Blue Jays, I like the under here a lot.
2013 Outlook:
82-80 – Third in NL East
677 Runs Scored 670 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 94-68, 2nd Place NL East. Lost in Wild Card Round.
Actual Runs: Scored 700 runs, Allowed 600.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 92.3 (1.7 below actual)
Restated: Scored 675 runs, Allowed 610.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 88.5 (5.5 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Braves, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 89 games.)
The figures above give the first clue as to why we don’t have the Braves repeating as post season participants in 2013 and even, shockingly, finishing behind the Phillies. They may have won 94 games last year but the Braves benefited from cluster luck a little bit on offense, a little bit while pitching, and then had some further luck in how the sequencing of their actual runs scored and allowed, all adding up to the tune of about 5 games. My numbers viewed the Braves as a 94-win team in 89-win clothing.
Now an 89-win team is still a top tier team and always deserving of a playoff berth especially in the expanded Wild Card format that began last year. An 89-win team is collection of players who combined to perform at a level 46 wins above replacement level. (For this example, I’m using FanGraphs 43-win replacement level baseline as all the individual WARs I’m going to cite come from FanGraphs.)
Collectively, the Braves everyday players amassed about 29 WAR and the pitchers about 18. (Please excuse rounding differences, in this case 47 total WAR versus my theoretical 46 from above.) Here’s a list of the top five everyday player contributors:
Jason Heyward 6.6
Michael Bourn 6.4
Martin Prado 5.9
Dan Uggla 3.5
Chipper Jones 3.0
That’s more than 25 of the total 29 WAR everyday players produced and Braves fans will surely note, 15.3 of that WAR, in the form of Bourn, Prado, and Jones, will not be with the team in 2013. Sure, B.J. Upton and Justin Upton are exciting additions to the team’s outfield for years to come but on a year-over-year basis are they going to improve on the 12+ WAR performances of Bourn and Prado in 2012?
B.J. Upton played centerfield for the Tampa Bay Rays for six full seasons and only once was his performance even low enough to be called league-average (2009). In every other year he’s consistently been an above average player, flirting with All-Star level performance in 2008. He’s pretty established, at age 28, as a very consistent, 4 WAR player. Justin Upton, his younger brother by three years, has a little more volatility and therefore a little more upside as well. In 2011, Justin garnered well deserved MVP support and finished fourth in the balloting. He returned to a roughly league-average level last year and apparently a conflict with Arizona management led to his trade. It was a great pick-up for the Braves as he is signed to a very reasonable contract through 2015. If the Upton brothers each match the best season of their entire career, they will produce 11.4 wins in 2013 – a one game drop compared to the men they are replacing. And, of course, a projection system does not call for them both to have career years in the same season.
I think it goes without saying that a third base platoon of Cincinnati Reds cast-off Juan Francisco and Houston Astros cast-off Chris Johnson aren’t expected to equal Chipper Jones’ production. (Let’s put it this way, if Johnson and/or Francisco retired after last year, I doubt Brian Cashman would be putting out feelers to see if they wanted to play one more year in pinstripes.)
A trio of 23-year olds may prevent the offense from falling off too much though. Heyward has the right mix of skills and age to suggest his tremendous year last year could be the start of multiple All-Star campaigns and Freddie Freeman impressed by increasing his walks and cutting down on his strikeouts in 2012, suggesting he is the Braves first baseman of the future. Finally, mid-season call-up Andrelton Simmons solved the shortstop problem created by the early season performances of Paul Janish and Tyler Pastornicky. Brian McCann had the worst year of his career at the age-draining position of catcher and he no longer has super-sub Brian Ross to spell him, backed up this year instead by the pedestrian Gerald Laird. Since McCann typically misses 40 games a year that’s an important factor. Put it all together and while there is upside to the Uptons – especially Justin who has the explosive power to carry a team for a month – there is plenty of volatility to the downside as well. The Braves will do well to match last year’s run production.
The case for a regression on the run suppression side of the ledger isn’t quite as easy to understand but it’s there nonetheless. Kris Medlen was incredible in the second half of 2012 going 9-0 as a starter of 12 games and posting an ERA of 0.97 in 83 innings of work. He’s good – he’s really good as evidenced by his high strikeout, extremely low-walk skill set – but no starter is 1.00 ERA good. He could still be great in 2013 and give up as many runs in April as he gave up as a starter all last year (11). To a lesser degree that could happen to the rest of the returning rotation as well. Finally, newly installed fifth starter Julio Teheran may have a lot of potential, but he also had a lot of trouble striking out batters in a full season of AAA pitching last year – a data point that usually bodes poorly for MLB success. In the bullpen, there really aren’t enough superlatives to describe closer Craig Kimbrel’s 2012 season. The entire bullpen is really good, but even a superior bullpen can be expected to have an ERA of say, 3.25. That’s a half-run higher than Atlanta’s allowed last year. Over nearly 500 innings or work, that’s an increase of about 25 runs.
Finally, Atlanta had the best defense in the National League last year. According to the game charters, a lot of that was due to the play of Michael Bourn and Marin Prado (as well as Jason Heyward). Replacing Bourn and Prado, along with the natural volatility that results from leading the league in defense, projects to cost the Braves about 20 additional runs this year.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Atlanta certainly earned its place in the post-season last year, even if it ended after just one controversial, infield fly-marred game. But a lot went right for them in 2012, and even more importantly some key contributors to that success are gone this year. Atlanta had some splashy off-season acquisitions which may have masked the reality of this year’s task. Vegas opened the Braves at 87 ½ wins. Frankly, I’m thinking the books down there are on to me as I thought it would open even closer to 90. Still, just like the other team to make name-recognized changes in the off-season, the Toronto Blue Jays, I like the under here a lot.
2013 Outlook:
82-80 – Third in NL East
677 Runs Scored 670 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
30 in 30 ~ New York Mets
by Ej March 24th 2013, 12:15 am
2013 PREVIEW: NEW YORK METS
What They Did: 74-88, 4th Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 650 runs, Allowed 709.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 74.6 (0.6 above actual)
Restated: Scored 655 runs, Allowed 670.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 79.4 (5.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Mets, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 79 games.)
As a baseball fan/analyst, the NY Mets are frustrating. Die-hard fans of the Mets feel so habitually tortured and humiliated that a written, comprehensive study of the fan base should be titled Fifty Shades of Shea.
After 81 games, or half the season, the Mets were on a pace to win 88 games in 2012 and were 3 ½ games out of first place and just ½ game out in the Wild Card race (ahead of both eventual Wild Card winners, Atlanta, and St. Louis.) They imploded in the second half and an autopsy of the results reveals one key reason. The Mets had an average defense. They had just a mildly below-average offense, once you factor in park effects. They had above-average starting pitching. So why did they finish 14 games under .500? Because they had the second worst bullpen in all of baseball.
Bullpens are the easiest and cheapest parts of a team to fix. Worst-to-first stories invariably feature remade bullpens. Take a look at these last 3 surprising teams:
Season Team Prior Year Bullpen Rank Surprise Season Rank
2011 Arizona 30th 14th
2012 Oakland 18th 4th
2012 Baltimore 27th 5th
The lesson here is that if your bullpen had an outsized influence on a disappointing season, you might be closer to competing next year than you think. Here’s how it applies to the Mets: As shown above, the Mets played to 79-win talent last year. Their bullpen, in 459 innings pitched, had an ERA of 4.65, 29th in the majors. A league-average bullpen had an ERA of 3.67. If they could improve to merely league average, the Mets would chop their runs allowed by a whopping 50 in 2013. 50 runs equates to just over 5 wins. Those wins added to the 79.4 from 2012 means the Mets – had they done some bullpen revamping – could have looked at their starting pitchers and everyday players and very realistically had 85-win expectations.
If you were management and knew your team had 85-win talent before looking at making offseason roster moves would you look to improve your team or blow it up? The answer is strikingly obvious to me and, to the surprise of no one who know how the Mets operate, management took an alternate route and blew up the team.
Gone is Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey who not only had a 2.67 ERA, he amassed that figure over 233 innings pitched – most in the National League. That is an incredibly valuable combination to a team (nearly exactly as valuable as Justin Verlander last year). Losing that staff anchor means everyone else moves up a slot in the rotation and in the end, Dickey’s innings will be replaced by some combination of a #5 and #6 starter plus additional bullpen work (expected ERA of at least 4.50). You can chop 5 wins off the Mets season right there and discard all the realistic dreams of playing meaningful September baseball.
The Mets didn’t totally sit still in the offseason which makes the jettisoning of Dickey all the more questionable. They should get upgraded production at the catcher position with John Buck replacing Josh Thole who had a miserable year at the plate as evidenced by a slugging percentage (.290) below his on-base percentage (.294). Jason Bay is gone taking his .165 batting average and sub-.300 slugging percentage with him, although his replacement Marlon Byrd, was, amazingly, even worse last year.
The sad reality is the Mets are set to waste yet another borderline-MVP season from David Wright, who finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting for the fourth time last year. He’s 30 this year and he’s going to start on the downside of his career soon. This was the year to see if he and Dickey, a revamped bullpen, and an improved offense could have reached the postseason. Given the path Mets management decided to take, there is no chance that will happen now.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: As you may recall from last year, the Mets were my favorite over selection last year with a closing market at 72 ½ wins. Seeing their ultimate 74-win total it may have looked hairy, but it really wasn’t. At no time during the season were the Mets playing at a pace to win less than 73 games and despite the second half collapse, they only needed to win one of their last six games to get there. This year the market opened at 75 ½ wins and it’s attracting some over interest from analysts I read. In fact, the largest over recommendation from Baseball Prospectus (based on the difference between their projected finish and Vegas’ opening lines) is the Mets who they see winning 81 games. I cannot back into that prediction at all. Last year was the year to be bullish on the Mets.
2013 Outlook:
74-88 – Fourth in NL East
644 Runs Scored 705 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 74-88, 4th Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 650 runs, Allowed 709.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 74.6 (0.6 above actual)
Restated: Scored 655 runs, Allowed 670.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 79.4 (5.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Mets, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 79 games.)
As a baseball fan/analyst, the NY Mets are frustrating. Die-hard fans of the Mets feel so habitually tortured and humiliated that a written, comprehensive study of the fan base should be titled Fifty Shades of Shea.
After 81 games, or half the season, the Mets were on a pace to win 88 games in 2012 and were 3 ½ games out of first place and just ½ game out in the Wild Card race (ahead of both eventual Wild Card winners, Atlanta, and St. Louis.) They imploded in the second half and an autopsy of the results reveals one key reason. The Mets had an average defense. They had just a mildly below-average offense, once you factor in park effects. They had above-average starting pitching. So why did they finish 14 games under .500? Because they had the second worst bullpen in all of baseball.
Bullpens are the easiest and cheapest parts of a team to fix. Worst-to-first stories invariably feature remade bullpens. Take a look at these last 3 surprising teams:
Season Team Prior Year Bullpen Rank Surprise Season Rank
2011 Arizona 30th 14th
2012 Oakland 18th 4th
2012 Baltimore 27th 5th
The lesson here is that if your bullpen had an outsized influence on a disappointing season, you might be closer to competing next year than you think. Here’s how it applies to the Mets: As shown above, the Mets played to 79-win talent last year. Their bullpen, in 459 innings pitched, had an ERA of 4.65, 29th in the majors. A league-average bullpen had an ERA of 3.67. If they could improve to merely league average, the Mets would chop their runs allowed by a whopping 50 in 2013. 50 runs equates to just over 5 wins. Those wins added to the 79.4 from 2012 means the Mets – had they done some bullpen revamping – could have looked at their starting pitchers and everyday players and very realistically had 85-win expectations.
If you were management and knew your team had 85-win talent before looking at making offseason roster moves would you look to improve your team or blow it up? The answer is strikingly obvious to me and, to the surprise of no one who know how the Mets operate, management took an alternate route and blew up the team.
Gone is Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey who not only had a 2.67 ERA, he amassed that figure over 233 innings pitched – most in the National League. That is an incredibly valuable combination to a team (nearly exactly as valuable as Justin Verlander last year). Losing that staff anchor means everyone else moves up a slot in the rotation and in the end, Dickey’s innings will be replaced by some combination of a #5 and #6 starter plus additional bullpen work (expected ERA of at least 4.50). You can chop 5 wins off the Mets season right there and discard all the realistic dreams of playing meaningful September baseball.
The Mets didn’t totally sit still in the offseason which makes the jettisoning of Dickey all the more questionable. They should get upgraded production at the catcher position with John Buck replacing Josh Thole who had a miserable year at the plate as evidenced by a slugging percentage (.290) below his on-base percentage (.294). Jason Bay is gone taking his .165 batting average and sub-.300 slugging percentage with him, although his replacement Marlon Byrd, was, amazingly, even worse last year.
The sad reality is the Mets are set to waste yet another borderline-MVP season from David Wright, who finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting for the fourth time last year. He’s 30 this year and he’s going to start on the downside of his career soon. This was the year to see if he and Dickey, a revamped bullpen, and an improved offense could have reached the postseason. Given the path Mets management decided to take, there is no chance that will happen now.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: As you may recall from last year, the Mets were my favorite over selection last year with a closing market at 72 ½ wins. Seeing their ultimate 74-win total it may have looked hairy, but it really wasn’t. At no time during the season were the Mets playing at a pace to win less than 73 games and despite the second half collapse, they only needed to win one of their last six games to get there. This year the market opened at 75 ½ wins and it’s attracting some over interest from analysts I read. In fact, the largest over recommendation from Baseball Prospectus (based on the difference between their projected finish and Vegas’ opening lines) is the Mets who they see winning 81 games. I cannot back into that prediction at all. Last year was the year to be bullish on the Mets.
2013 Outlook:
74-88 – Fourth in NL East
644 Runs Scored 705 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
30 in 30 ~ Miami Marlins
by Ej March 24th 2013, 12:17 am
2013 PREVIEW: MIAMI MARLINS
What They Did: 69-93, 5th Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 609 runs, Allowed 724.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 68.3 (0.7 below actual)
Restated: Scored 632 runs, Allowed 695.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 73.9 (4.9 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Marlins, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 74 games.)
Well in the Cleveland essay it was mentioned that Nick Swisher was replacing 2012’s worst-performing everyday player in the Major Leagues, Casey Kotchman. Just this week, in the Phillies piece we marveled at the fact that Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco collectively hit home runs less frequently that the average National League pitcher.
The importance of pitchers who can strike batters out and someone who doesn’t have that skill, we have to caveat that with “but he was better than Henderson Alvarez” – who struck out less than 10% of the batters he face in 188 innings pitched in 2012! That’s about the rate that strikeouts occur when a position player takes the mound in the 9th inning of a 15-run blowout.
Guess what? Kotchman, Pierre, Polanco, and Alvarez have all headed to Miami this year. Ladies and gentlemen your 2012 Miami Marlins!
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Marlins are going to be terrible this year and as good as Giancarlo Stanton is, he’s a wasted fantasy pick. Miami will be the lowest scoring team in the majors by maybe a 50-run margin. This isn’t saying anything that isn’t well known. The Marlins total wins market is set at 64 wins and while that’s exactly what my projection comes out to, there’s more room to the downside than upside. If Miami gets mid-season offers for Stanton and decide to trade him and/or their best starter Ricky Nolasco, this is a team on par with the 100-loss Astros last year.
2013 Outlook:
64-98 – Fifth in NL East
599 Runs Scored 751 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 69-93, 5th Place NL East.
Actual Runs: Scored 609 runs, Allowed 724.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 68.3 (0.7 below actual)
Restated: Scored 632 runs, Allowed 695.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 73.9 (4.9 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Marlins, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 74 games.)
Well in the Cleveland essay it was mentioned that Nick Swisher was replacing 2012’s worst-performing everyday player in the Major Leagues, Casey Kotchman. Just this week, in the Phillies piece we marveled at the fact that Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco collectively hit home runs less frequently that the average National League pitcher.
The importance of pitchers who can strike batters out and someone who doesn’t have that skill, we have to caveat that with “but he was better than Henderson Alvarez” – who struck out less than 10% of the batters he face in 188 innings pitched in 2012! That’s about the rate that strikeouts occur when a position player takes the mound in the 9th inning of a 15-run blowout.
Guess what? Kotchman, Pierre, Polanco, and Alvarez have all headed to Miami this year. Ladies and gentlemen your 2012 Miami Marlins!
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Marlins are going to be terrible this year and as good as Giancarlo Stanton is, he’s a wasted fantasy pick. Miami will be the lowest scoring team in the majors by maybe a 50-run margin. This isn’t saying anything that isn’t well known. The Marlins total wins market is set at 64 wins and while that’s exactly what my projection comes out to, there’s more room to the downside than upside. If Miami gets mid-season offers for Stanton and decide to trade him and/or their best starter Ricky Nolasco, this is a team on par with the 100-loss Astros last year.
2013 Outlook:
64-98 – Fifth in NL East
599 Runs Scored 751 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Los Angeles Dodgers
by Ej March 24th 2013, 3:24 pm
2013 PREVIEW: LOS ANGELES DODGERS
What They Did: 86-76, 2nd Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 637 runs, Allowed 597.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.8 (0.2 below actual)
Restated: Scored 633 runs, Allowed 603.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 84.6 (1.4 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Dodgers, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 85 games.)
he Dodgers have a great expectation to represent the National League in the World Series this year if Greinke, he of the coveted high-strikeout, low-walk, high-groundball pitcher has a season he has been expected to have for years. Those traits have been sustainable year-after-year as they’re supported by a consistent 92+ mph fastball. Over the last two years, Greinke has gone 31-11 but that’s a little misleading because if you consistently back him every game, you need to include his team’s record in his no-decisions as well. Including those no-decisions, Greinke’s team has gone 42-20, for a 67.8% winning percentage in the games he’s started.
Here are the team records the last two years, for a trio of other elite pitchers whose teams have also won roughly 2/3 of the games they started:
Justin Verlander: 46-21 68.7%
Clayton Kershaw: 44-22 66.7%
C.C. Sabathia: 40-21 65.6%
From a baseball odds perspective, that means roughly anytime Greinke, Verlander, Kershaw, or Sabathia took the mound at a price of less than -200, in retrospect, there was value because -200 implies a 66.7% chance of winning. Here’s how many times over the last two years each of these four pitchers were priced at greater than -200:
Verlander: 13
Sabathia: 14
Kershaw: 11
Greinke: 7
This is why it is easy to contend that Zack Greinke is one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball, despite owning a Cy Young Award of his own. (2009 AL, with Kansas City.) For the majority of the last two years, he’s had to pitch in Milwaukee, toiling in a hitter’s ballpark, with a well-below average defense behind him and a horrendous bullpen. Despite that (Greinke took a no-decision in a game his team ultimately lost five times last year in games in which he gave up zero or no runs in at least seven innings of work) his team’s still been good for a win better than two-thirds of the time he took the mound.
This year Greinke will get to pitch in the same ballpark, with the same fielders, and the same bullpen as Clayton Kershaw. For two years he’s struck out batters at a rate just a hair less than Kershaw, but also walked them a bit less, and induced significantly more ground balls. Yet he’s had an ERA more than a run higher due to factors outside of his control. This year those factors will be held constant and he and Kershaw will team up to form the best 1-2 combination in the majors and Greinke, not Kershaw, will be the one with the lower ERA and the NL Cy Young award at the end of the year.
Elsewhere in the rotation, Josh Beckett quietly threw quite effectively in the seven starts he made for the Dodgers after the blockbuster trade with the Red Sox. He compiled a 2.93 ERA in his return to the National League and should also benefit from a more friendly pitching environment than he’s had in Boston since 2006.
Speaking of the Red Sox trade, it may not make sense from a utilization of resources standpoint, and the Dodgers 17-18 record after the trade may have made their front office talk-radio laughingstocks, but make no mistake about it, as a result of that trade the Dodgers are fielding a far more potent lineup in 2013. Gone from last year’s team that only scored 637 runs (26th in MLB) are James Loney (359 plate appearances/0.0 WAR) Juan Rivera (339 PA/-0.8 WAR), Dee Gordon (330 PA/-1.1 WAR), Tony Gwynn (277 PA/-0.1 WAR) and Matt Treanor (122 PA/-0.1). That’s more than 1,400 plate appearances of sub-replacement level performance. Even with early season injuries to Hanley Ramirez and Carl Crawford, the two of them, along with Adrian Gonzalez, will replace at least 1,000 of those AB’s and by my calculation that amounts to roughly 70 more runs scored. Plus, don’t forget, Matt Kemp only played in 106 games last year.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: There were three teams in the NL which gave up less than 600 runs last year – Dodgers, Nationals, and Reds – and I think the Dodgers, the only one of the trio not to make the playoffs, has the best chance to repeat the feat. Their rotation is actually better this year but the big improvement will come on offense. If Hanley Ramirez hadn’t gotten injured in the WBC and if I thought Carl Crawford was going to give the Dodgers 150 games worth of plate appearances, I’d have this as an over bet and Los Angeles a 95- or 96-win team. With an opening total wins market of 91 ½ the injuries and uncertainty have removed the over recommendation, but I’ve still got the Dodgers finishing the year with the most wins in the NL.
2013 Outlook:
92-70 – First in NL West
730 Runs Scored 631 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 86-76, 2nd Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 637 runs, Allowed 597.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.8 (0.2 below actual)
Restated: Scored 633 runs, Allowed 603.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 84.6 (1.4 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Dodgers, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 85 games.)
he Dodgers have a great expectation to represent the National League in the World Series this year if Greinke, he of the coveted high-strikeout, low-walk, high-groundball pitcher has a season he has been expected to have for years. Those traits have been sustainable year-after-year as they’re supported by a consistent 92+ mph fastball. Over the last two years, Greinke has gone 31-11 but that’s a little misleading because if you consistently back him every game, you need to include his team’s record in his no-decisions as well. Including those no-decisions, Greinke’s team has gone 42-20, for a 67.8% winning percentage in the games he’s started.
Here are the team records the last two years, for a trio of other elite pitchers whose teams have also won roughly 2/3 of the games they started:
Justin Verlander: 46-21 68.7%
Clayton Kershaw: 44-22 66.7%
C.C. Sabathia: 40-21 65.6%
From a baseball odds perspective, that means roughly anytime Greinke, Verlander, Kershaw, or Sabathia took the mound at a price of less than -200, in retrospect, there was value because -200 implies a 66.7% chance of winning. Here’s how many times over the last two years each of these four pitchers were priced at greater than -200:
Verlander: 13
Sabathia: 14
Kershaw: 11
Greinke: 7
This is why it is easy to contend that Zack Greinke is one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball, despite owning a Cy Young Award of his own. (2009 AL, with Kansas City.) For the majority of the last two years, he’s had to pitch in Milwaukee, toiling in a hitter’s ballpark, with a well-below average defense behind him and a horrendous bullpen. Despite that (Greinke took a no-decision in a game his team ultimately lost five times last year in games in which he gave up zero or no runs in at least seven innings of work) his team’s still been good for a win better than two-thirds of the time he took the mound.
This year Greinke will get to pitch in the same ballpark, with the same fielders, and the same bullpen as Clayton Kershaw. For two years he’s struck out batters at a rate just a hair less than Kershaw, but also walked them a bit less, and induced significantly more ground balls. Yet he’s had an ERA more than a run higher due to factors outside of his control. This year those factors will be held constant and he and Kershaw will team up to form the best 1-2 combination in the majors and Greinke, not Kershaw, will be the one with the lower ERA and the NL Cy Young award at the end of the year.
Elsewhere in the rotation, Josh Beckett quietly threw quite effectively in the seven starts he made for the Dodgers after the blockbuster trade with the Red Sox. He compiled a 2.93 ERA in his return to the National League and should also benefit from a more friendly pitching environment than he’s had in Boston since 2006.
Speaking of the Red Sox trade, it may not make sense from a utilization of resources standpoint, and the Dodgers 17-18 record after the trade may have made their front office talk-radio laughingstocks, but make no mistake about it, as a result of that trade the Dodgers are fielding a far more potent lineup in 2013. Gone from last year’s team that only scored 637 runs (26th in MLB) are James Loney (359 plate appearances/0.0 WAR) Juan Rivera (339 PA/-0.8 WAR), Dee Gordon (330 PA/-1.1 WAR), Tony Gwynn (277 PA/-0.1 WAR) and Matt Treanor (122 PA/-0.1). That’s more than 1,400 plate appearances of sub-replacement level performance. Even with early season injuries to Hanley Ramirez and Carl Crawford, the two of them, along with Adrian Gonzalez, will replace at least 1,000 of those AB’s and by my calculation that amounts to roughly 70 more runs scored. Plus, don’t forget, Matt Kemp only played in 106 games last year.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: There were three teams in the NL which gave up less than 600 runs last year – Dodgers, Nationals, and Reds – and I think the Dodgers, the only one of the trio not to make the playoffs, has the best chance to repeat the feat. Their rotation is actually better this year but the big improvement will come on offense. If Hanley Ramirez hadn’t gotten injured in the WBC and if I thought Carl Crawford was going to give the Dodgers 150 games worth of plate appearances, I’d have this as an over bet and Los Angeles a 95- or 96-win team. With an opening total wins market of 91 ½ the injuries and uncertainty have removed the over recommendation, but I’ve still got the Dodgers finishing the year with the most wins in the NL.
2013 Outlook:
92-70 – First in NL West
730 Runs Scored 631 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ San Francisco Giants
by Ej March 24th 2013, 11:41 pm
2013 PREVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
What They Did: 94-68, 1st Place NL West. Won World Series 4-0.
Actual Runs: Scored 718 runs, Allowed 649.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 88.5 (6.5 below actual)
Restated: Scored 709 runs, Allowed 642.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 88.3 (6.7 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Giants, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 88 games.)
There are a couple of misperceptions that cloud just about every piece written about the Giants regarding their success in 2012 and bleeding into their outlook in 2013:
The Giants didn’t have a great offense in 2012: You heard variations of this during every playoff game last year. The Giants were dead last in the majors with 103 home runs. (No other team even had as few as 115.) They were 12th in runs scored. That would be followed by talk of the Giants needing to find a way to scrap out runs as if they were a bunch of overmatched replacement-level hitters. While that view was based in the statistical accuracy of the two stats listed above, thanks to the incredible run-suppression elements of their home field, AT&T Park, it’s also wildly misleading – and it’s why the Giants were so underrated last year entering the playoffs, and especially before the World Series where they were a +160 underdog.
Consider this: In the current run-scoring environment in the majors, a team that scores 800 runs is an elite offense. Only the Rangers and Yankees did it last year, and no National League team has accomplished the feat since the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009. Guess what happens when we eliminate the effects of playing in a team’s home environment? There were two teams in the majors last year who scored more than 400 runs in their 81 road games: The Los Angeles Angels (419) and the San Francisco Giants (410). There is no one I tell that to that isn’t shocked.
If you just look at their road games – and while 81 games isn’t quite enough to draw definitive conclusions, it’s also not fraught with small sample size issues – the Giants had the best offense in the National League. Don’t be deceived by the cumulative power numbers. The Giants had a perfect blend of line-drive hitting, low-strikeout, high on-base percentage batters, which doesn’t look as glamorous as a power-hitting club but it can be just as effective – and sustainable – at scoring runs.
Marco Scutaro(*) won’t hit .362 and slug .473 again like he did in the 61 games he played for the Giants last year. The implication of that statement is that the Giants are due for a big decline in the production of their second baseman. That statement is both correct and terribly wrong. It is true that over an entire season Scutaro has no chance of matching the .362/.385/.473 batting line he provided the Giants last year. However, he’s not tasked with replicating his 61-game production over the course of the season; he’s also trying to replace the 101-games of hitting from the Giants’ second basemen before he arrived from Colorado. And that production was downright abysmal. Ryan Theriot and Emmanual Burriss hit .256 and slugged .292 in 486 plate appearances – Burriss was so bad he didn’t have a single extra base hit meaning his slugging percentage was the same as his .218 batting average. (Only his stats while playing second base are considered for this comparison.) Put it all together and while there is no chance Scutaro will outperform himself last year, he has an excellent chance of increasing the Giants’ 2012 production at second base of .288/.327/.343 which was actually 13% below league-average in terms of creating runs.
This is a great example of why it’s important to examine the entire marginal changes in a team’s lineup from one year to the next.
That does bring up one obstacle for the Giants in duplicating their offensive output last year. They will be without the 501 plate appearances of Melky Cabrera who hit .346/.390/.516 during the first-half of the year, often carrying a Giants team which struggled elsewhere in the lineup. (It wasn’t just problems at second base; in a baffling attempt to keep Brandon Belt from developing into the All-Star hitter many see possible, the Giants gave a month’s worth of early-season at bats to Aubrey Huff and Brett Pill.) By no means is it guaranteed, but I see that production being adequately replaced by Hunter Pence and the aforementioned Belt.
The Belt part of the equation is pretty easy to understand. He’ll be 25 this year, flashed tremendous power in the minors (virtually identical to Buster Posey, by the way) and even though this will be the third straight Opening Day he starts, it will be the first where he’ll be assured 500 plate appearances in a season, if healthy. He’s a tremendous breakout candidate this year. Pence's contribution is a little more difficult to grasp if you’re a Giants fan and watched him flail at the plate during the last two months of the year. In contrast with the rest of the contact-laden lineup, Pence struck out 24.2% of his plate appearances and hit just .219. Interestingly, Pence has never been that type of hitter, having only struck out a below-league average 18.5% of the time in his 6-year career and batting .285. My guess it the 29-year old, with a lifetime slugging percentage of .475 got frustrated with the power-sapping qualities of AT&T Park and abandoned his prior approach. If that’s the case, with proper coaching, there is no reason he shouldn’t provide significantly more offense this year and at least reasonably approach the combined production of Cabrera and himself last season.
Any discussion of the Giants also has to focus on Tim Lincecum by noting the alarming increase in Lincecum’s walk rate from 2009-2011 and predicting a rough year for the overrated (especially in terms of the Vegas oddsmakers) fan-favorite.
Here’s the good news for San Francisco, however. He has probably permanently lost the skills that made him a 2-time Cy Young Award winner, but his 5.18 ERA in 2012 is as ridiculously non-repeatable as his 2.74 ERA was in 2011. Even if his new K and BB rates are 23% and 11% (versus 29% and 8% at his peak) his ERA should be right around 4.00 and if he improves his control just a bit, a sub-4.00 ERA is expected.
That Zito/Lincecum swap neatly sums up the Giants preview as a whole. An excellent bullpen allowed them to win 94 games last year, even in the 88-win attire I clothed them in above. I see a very similar result this year as the Giants are entering the year with only one unsustainable hole to fill – Cabrera’s 100-game production. Fortunately for the Giants there are just as many poor performances to replace as well, even if they are less visible, which should allow them to post identical numbers in 2013 as in 2012.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Giants/Dodgers rivalry may not have the 2000s-era intensity of the Red Sox and Yankees but in terms of acrimonious histories, it takes a backseat to no rivalry. The Giants made the free-spending Dodgers look foolish in the second half of last year and 2013 sets up to be a great battle. I’m right in line with the oddsmakers on this one, seeing the Giants winning 88 games, just a half-game less than their opening market of 88 ½. I see just enough of a rotation and lineup edge to give the Dodgers the division but the Giants still project to play October baseball, and wouldn’t it be great to see the Giants defend their 2012 World Championship in the NLCS against the Dodgers.
2013 Outlook:
88-74 – Second in NL West, Wild Card Entrant
718 Runs Scored 650 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 94-68, 1st Place NL West. Won World Series 4-0.
Actual Runs: Scored 718 runs, Allowed 649.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 88.5 (6.5 below actual)
Restated: Scored 709 runs, Allowed 642.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 88.3 (6.7 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Giants, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 88 games.)
There are a couple of misperceptions that cloud just about every piece written about the Giants regarding their success in 2012 and bleeding into their outlook in 2013:
The Giants didn’t have a great offense in 2012: You heard variations of this during every playoff game last year. The Giants were dead last in the majors with 103 home runs. (No other team even had as few as 115.) They were 12th in runs scored. That would be followed by talk of the Giants needing to find a way to scrap out runs as if they were a bunch of overmatched replacement-level hitters. While that view was based in the statistical accuracy of the two stats listed above, thanks to the incredible run-suppression elements of their home field, AT&T Park, it’s also wildly misleading – and it’s why the Giants were so underrated last year entering the playoffs, and especially before the World Series where they were a +160 underdog.
Consider this: In the current run-scoring environment in the majors, a team that scores 800 runs is an elite offense. Only the Rangers and Yankees did it last year, and no National League team has accomplished the feat since the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009. Guess what happens when we eliminate the effects of playing in a team’s home environment? There were two teams in the majors last year who scored more than 400 runs in their 81 road games: The Los Angeles Angels (419) and the San Francisco Giants (410). There is no one I tell that to that isn’t shocked.
If you just look at their road games – and while 81 games isn’t quite enough to draw definitive conclusions, it’s also not fraught with small sample size issues – the Giants had the best offense in the National League. Don’t be deceived by the cumulative power numbers. The Giants had a perfect blend of line-drive hitting, low-strikeout, high on-base percentage batters, which doesn’t look as glamorous as a power-hitting club but it can be just as effective – and sustainable – at scoring runs.
Marco Scutaro(*) won’t hit .362 and slug .473 again like he did in the 61 games he played for the Giants last year. The implication of that statement is that the Giants are due for a big decline in the production of their second baseman. That statement is both correct and terribly wrong. It is true that over an entire season Scutaro has no chance of matching the .362/.385/.473 batting line he provided the Giants last year. However, he’s not tasked with replicating his 61-game production over the course of the season; he’s also trying to replace the 101-games of hitting from the Giants’ second basemen before he arrived from Colorado. And that production was downright abysmal. Ryan Theriot and Emmanual Burriss hit .256 and slugged .292 in 486 plate appearances – Burriss was so bad he didn’t have a single extra base hit meaning his slugging percentage was the same as his .218 batting average. (Only his stats while playing second base are considered for this comparison.) Put it all together and while there is no chance Scutaro will outperform himself last year, he has an excellent chance of increasing the Giants’ 2012 production at second base of .288/.327/.343 which was actually 13% below league-average in terms of creating runs.
This is a great example of why it’s important to examine the entire marginal changes in a team’s lineup from one year to the next.
That does bring up one obstacle for the Giants in duplicating their offensive output last year. They will be without the 501 plate appearances of Melky Cabrera who hit .346/.390/.516 during the first-half of the year, often carrying a Giants team which struggled elsewhere in the lineup. (It wasn’t just problems at second base; in a baffling attempt to keep Brandon Belt from developing into the All-Star hitter many see possible, the Giants gave a month’s worth of early-season at bats to Aubrey Huff and Brett Pill.) By no means is it guaranteed, but I see that production being adequately replaced by Hunter Pence and the aforementioned Belt.
The Belt part of the equation is pretty easy to understand. He’ll be 25 this year, flashed tremendous power in the minors (virtually identical to Buster Posey, by the way) and even though this will be the third straight Opening Day he starts, it will be the first where he’ll be assured 500 plate appearances in a season, if healthy. He’s a tremendous breakout candidate this year. Pence's contribution is a little more difficult to grasp if you’re a Giants fan and watched him flail at the plate during the last two months of the year. In contrast with the rest of the contact-laden lineup, Pence struck out 24.2% of his plate appearances and hit just .219. Interestingly, Pence has never been that type of hitter, having only struck out a below-league average 18.5% of the time in his 6-year career and batting .285. My guess it the 29-year old, with a lifetime slugging percentage of .475 got frustrated with the power-sapping qualities of AT&T Park and abandoned his prior approach. If that’s the case, with proper coaching, there is no reason he shouldn’t provide significantly more offense this year and at least reasonably approach the combined production of Cabrera and himself last season.
Any discussion of the Giants also has to focus on Tim Lincecum by noting the alarming increase in Lincecum’s walk rate from 2009-2011 and predicting a rough year for the overrated (especially in terms of the Vegas oddsmakers) fan-favorite.
Here’s the good news for San Francisco, however. He has probably permanently lost the skills that made him a 2-time Cy Young Award winner, but his 5.18 ERA in 2012 is as ridiculously non-repeatable as his 2.74 ERA was in 2011. Even if his new K and BB rates are 23% and 11% (versus 29% and 8% at his peak) his ERA should be right around 4.00 and if he improves his control just a bit, a sub-4.00 ERA is expected.
That Zito/Lincecum swap neatly sums up the Giants preview as a whole. An excellent bullpen allowed them to win 94 games last year, even in the 88-win attire I clothed them in above. I see a very similar result this year as the Giants are entering the year with only one unsustainable hole to fill – Cabrera’s 100-game production. Fortunately for the Giants there are just as many poor performances to replace as well, even if they are less visible, which should allow them to post identical numbers in 2013 as in 2012.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Giants/Dodgers rivalry may not have the 2000s-era intensity of the Red Sox and Yankees but in terms of acrimonious histories, it takes a backseat to no rivalry. The Giants made the free-spending Dodgers look foolish in the second half of last year and 2013 sets up to be a great battle. I’m right in line with the oddsmakers on this one, seeing the Giants winning 88 games, just a half-game less than their opening market of 88 ½. I see just enough of a rotation and lineup edge to give the Dodgers the division but the Giants still project to play October baseball, and wouldn’t it be great to see the Giants defend their 2012 World Championship in the NLCS against the Dodgers.
2013 Outlook:
88-74 – Second in NL West, Wild Card Entrant
718 Runs Scored 650 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ San Diego Padres
by Ej March 26th 2013, 12:49 pm
2013 PREVIEW: SAN DIEGO PADRES
What They Did: 76-86, 4th Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 651 runs, Allowed 710.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 74.6 (1.4 below actual)
Restated: Scored 654 runs, Allowed 686.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 77.5 (1.5 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Padres, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 78 games.)
Like the San Francisco Giants, playing in a home park that suppresses scoring makes it hard to see just how promising an offense the San Diego Padres possessed last year. The Padres were 23rd in the majors in total runs scored but a more respectable 17th if you just look at all teams’ away games. The good news for San Diego is that coming into 2013, league-average looks like the floor for the team’s offensive potential. When healthy, the Padres have a projected lineup comprised entirely of 30-and-under talent and every one of them has already produced at an above-average level in the major leagues. Like no other projected lineup in the majors, this is an entire team poised for a breakout season.
“When healthy.” “Projected lineup.” For the second season in a row, those caveats threaten to mask the potential of the Padres offense.
In the National League, a full season roughly consists of eight position players getting 700 plate appearances. No team gets that, of course, but the Padres had more turnover than most. Last season, San Diego only had four players on its roster with at least 450 plate appearances and only nine with more than 300. The reason that’s so damaging for San Diego is that every one of those nine players performed at an above-average level. If they could only get them all 500 plate appearances instead of 300 . . . . well, that’s unattainable in 2013 as already sensational rookie catcher Yasmani Grandal has been suspended 50 games for a PED violation. 2012 breakout performer, third baseman Chase Headley broke his thumb in Spring Training and will miss at least the first month of the season. The badly undermanned pitcher staff will be lucky to get a half season worth of starts out of Cory Luebke and is holding its breath that future-ace Andrew Cashner is ready to start the season on the active roster.
Most under .500 teams missing key contributors like that would seem destined for a dismal start to the season but, believe it or not, on offense at least, the Padres are still well stocked with young talent to take their place. Grandal’s replacement, Nick Hundley, had the worst year of his career last year, hitting an atrocious .157/.219/.245 in 225 plate appearances. That contrasts sharply with his first 1,100 plate appearances of his career when he hit .255/.314/.420 – slightly above average for a catcher. Hundley was definitely hurt all year, as evidenced by the season-ending knee surgery he underwent last August. The Padres have reason to believe that was the cause of his dismal year. No one is going to replace Chase Headley and replicate his 31 home run season pace last year (not even Chase Headley, most likely) but his injury actually gives a chance for the Padres to promote highly-regarded rookie Jedd Gyorko – a potential April fantasy sleeper, especially if you’re in an NL-only league.
While there is plenty of upside on offense even with the absence of Grendal and Hedley, with Luebke, and possibly Cashner out of the pitching mix, the Padres sport a last-place-caliber starting rotation. In getting Edinson Volquez tossed in to the trade that netted them Grandal and first baseman Yonder Alonso last season, San Diego hoped that transferring Volquez out of Cincinnati and into Petco would mitigate his fly ball and resulting home-run tendencies. That actually worked but he’s still too wild to anchor a staff. At best he’s now a low 4.00 ERA pitcher with low 4.00 ERA stuff, and his skill set appears in decline. If the Padres had Cashner and Luebke making 30 starts each, Volquez could be a serviceable #3 or #4 starter but right now he’s the ace of the staff and that’s a real problem because it means the other four arms in the starting rotation have even bigger flaws.
During San Diego’s excellent 2012 second half last year (42-33), the starting pitching was actually worse than in the first half – materially worse (4.93 ERA after the All-Star break vs. 4.03 before) – as a whopping ten different pitchers started a game over the last 70 games of the season. They still won because the bullpen was fantastic, and manager Buddy Black recognized this by limiting the number of innings the starters threw. It’s always dangerous, and usually wrong, to expect consistent bullpen excellence year-over-year, but thanks to a weak first-half performance form the relievers, the Padres have very little mean regression factored in to the 2013 projection.
The problem for San Diego fans looking for a chance at meaningful September baseball is that even though 15 different pitchers started games for the Padres last year (MLB average: 10) and eight of them, had ERA’s over 5.00 – in 51 total starts (!) – believe it or not, there’s actually very little improvement expected due to the skill sets of the projected rotation. When you see the results of those 50 starts above, for a team like the Padres, free agent starting pitchers who had trouble finding a home like Edwin Jackson and Kyle Lohse, would appear to have a huge marginal benefit. I’m not going to fault San Diego’s management yet, however; they’ve done a fabulous job of putting together an exciting core of extremely talented offensive players. If they start the first-half of this year like they ended last year, there will be plenty of time to open the checkbook and pick up some solid starting pitching as the season progresses.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Even though the Padres played .500 ball after the first two weeks of the season, including a 42-33 record after the All-Star break, San Diego is still flying far under the radar of both mainstream analysts and the Vegas oddsmakers. Their total wins market opened at 75, just a game-and-a-half higher than last year. While it’s true that four key players will miss material amounts of playing time, I believe that just removes any realistic shot of competing for the Wild Card. It still leaves plenty of room to clear their over/under hurdle. For the second year in a row, the Padres are one of the most attractive over bets available.
2013 Outlook:
82-80 – Third in NL West
681 Runs Scored 676 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 76-86, 4th Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 651 runs, Allowed 710.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 74.6 (1.4 below actual)
Restated: Scored 654 runs, Allowed 686.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 77.5 (1.5 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Padres, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 78 games.)
Like the San Francisco Giants, playing in a home park that suppresses scoring makes it hard to see just how promising an offense the San Diego Padres possessed last year. The Padres were 23rd in the majors in total runs scored but a more respectable 17th if you just look at all teams’ away games. The good news for San Diego is that coming into 2013, league-average looks like the floor for the team’s offensive potential. When healthy, the Padres have a projected lineup comprised entirely of 30-and-under talent and every one of them has already produced at an above-average level in the major leagues. Like no other projected lineup in the majors, this is an entire team poised for a breakout season.
“When healthy.” “Projected lineup.” For the second season in a row, those caveats threaten to mask the potential of the Padres offense.
In the National League, a full season roughly consists of eight position players getting 700 plate appearances. No team gets that, of course, but the Padres had more turnover than most. Last season, San Diego only had four players on its roster with at least 450 plate appearances and only nine with more than 300. The reason that’s so damaging for San Diego is that every one of those nine players performed at an above-average level. If they could only get them all 500 plate appearances instead of 300 . . . . well, that’s unattainable in 2013 as already sensational rookie catcher Yasmani Grandal has been suspended 50 games for a PED violation. 2012 breakout performer, third baseman Chase Headley broke his thumb in Spring Training and will miss at least the first month of the season. The badly undermanned pitcher staff will be lucky to get a half season worth of starts out of Cory Luebke and is holding its breath that future-ace Andrew Cashner is ready to start the season on the active roster.
Most under .500 teams missing key contributors like that would seem destined for a dismal start to the season but, believe it or not, on offense at least, the Padres are still well stocked with young talent to take their place. Grandal’s replacement, Nick Hundley, had the worst year of his career last year, hitting an atrocious .157/.219/.245 in 225 plate appearances. That contrasts sharply with his first 1,100 plate appearances of his career when he hit .255/.314/.420 – slightly above average for a catcher. Hundley was definitely hurt all year, as evidenced by the season-ending knee surgery he underwent last August. The Padres have reason to believe that was the cause of his dismal year. No one is going to replace Chase Headley and replicate his 31 home run season pace last year (not even Chase Headley, most likely) but his injury actually gives a chance for the Padres to promote highly-regarded rookie Jedd Gyorko – a potential April fantasy sleeper, especially if you’re in an NL-only league.
While there is plenty of upside on offense even with the absence of Grendal and Hedley, with Luebke, and possibly Cashner out of the pitching mix, the Padres sport a last-place-caliber starting rotation. In getting Edinson Volquez tossed in to the trade that netted them Grandal and first baseman Yonder Alonso last season, San Diego hoped that transferring Volquez out of Cincinnati and into Petco would mitigate his fly ball and resulting home-run tendencies. That actually worked but he’s still too wild to anchor a staff. At best he’s now a low 4.00 ERA pitcher with low 4.00 ERA stuff, and his skill set appears in decline. If the Padres had Cashner and Luebke making 30 starts each, Volquez could be a serviceable #3 or #4 starter but right now he’s the ace of the staff and that’s a real problem because it means the other four arms in the starting rotation have even bigger flaws.
During San Diego’s excellent 2012 second half last year (42-33), the starting pitching was actually worse than in the first half – materially worse (4.93 ERA after the All-Star break vs. 4.03 before) – as a whopping ten different pitchers started a game over the last 70 games of the season. They still won because the bullpen was fantastic, and manager Buddy Black recognized this by limiting the number of innings the starters threw. It’s always dangerous, and usually wrong, to expect consistent bullpen excellence year-over-year, but thanks to a weak first-half performance form the relievers, the Padres have very little mean regression factored in to the 2013 projection.
The problem for San Diego fans looking for a chance at meaningful September baseball is that even though 15 different pitchers started games for the Padres last year (MLB average: 10) and eight of them, had ERA’s over 5.00 – in 51 total starts (!) – believe it or not, there’s actually very little improvement expected due to the skill sets of the projected rotation. When you see the results of those 50 starts above, for a team like the Padres, free agent starting pitchers who had trouble finding a home like Edwin Jackson and Kyle Lohse, would appear to have a huge marginal benefit. I’m not going to fault San Diego’s management yet, however; they’ve done a fabulous job of putting together an exciting core of extremely talented offensive players. If they start the first-half of this year like they ended last year, there will be plenty of time to open the checkbook and pick up some solid starting pitching as the season progresses.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Even though the Padres played .500 ball after the first two weeks of the season, including a 42-33 record after the All-Star break, San Diego is still flying far under the radar of both mainstream analysts and the Vegas oddsmakers. Their total wins market opened at 75, just a game-and-a-half higher than last year. While it’s true that four key players will miss material amounts of playing time, I believe that just removes any realistic shot of competing for the Wild Card. It still leaves plenty of room to clear their over/under hurdle. For the second year in a row, the Padres are one of the most attractive over bets available.
2013 Outlook:
82-80 – Third in NL West
681 Runs Scored 676 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Arizona Diamondbacks
by Ej March 26th 2013, 12:50 pm
2013 PREVIEW: ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
What They Did: 81-81, 3rd Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 734 runs, Allowed 688.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.8 (4.8 above actual)
Restated: Scored 735 runs, Allowed 694.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 85.3 (4.3 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Diamondbacks, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 85 games.)
The Arizona Diamondbacks ended the 2012 season very much like the New York Mets – a team much closer to making the postseason than their final record indicated. It’s hard to understand how the front office could look at last year’s team and feel much different about it than they did the year before when they made the playoffs. After all, last year’s squad scored as many runs as it did the 2011 unit (actually 3 more) and only gave up 26 more. Beneath the surface, there was more evidence of progression, not regression: The 2012 team hit for a higher average, got on base at a higher rate, and had a higher slugging percentage. On the mound, the year-over-year improvement, yes, improvement, in 2012 was even more striking. The staff struck out batters at a much higher rate, walked them less frequently and induced way more ground balls – an important factor in Arizona. Yet they gave up more runs. Why? Because of the cruel mistress that is cluster luck. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, Arizona could have gone to war in 2013 with the same players as they had in 2012 and been a playoff contender.
However, Arizona doesn’t have those players in 2013 because they decided to remake the roster.
Actually, that’s a bit misleading because it implies Arizona made that decision after the season ended. In truth, they started to dismantle their team even before the season ended. Starting third baseman Ryan Roberts and shortstop Stephen Drew were traded when Arizona was still very much in the wild card race and just a handful of games out of first place in the NL West. So was starting pitcher Joe Saunders. After the season ended, outfielders Chris Young and Justin Upton were traded and in return the holes left by the Roberts and Drew departures were filled by Martin Prado and Cliff Pennington. Replacing Upton and Drew will be Arizona youngsters with some major league experience, A.J. Pollock and Geraldo Parra. Although they will start the year on the disabled list, free agent Cody Ross and another highly-regarded prospect, Adam Eaton, will fill out the roster.
When you collapse all of those transactions, some payroll has been saved, but at the cost of considerable upside. Arizona may equal last year’s offensive output mainly because Upton didn’t have a great year, but they’ve largely removed the possibility of having an 800-run offense and that’s what it will take to win 90 games with the pitching staff and diminished defense they bring to the run suppression side of the ledger in 2013.
The starting rotation looks very similar to last year with only free-agent Brandon McCarthy replacing Joe Saunders. Saunders made 21 starts and gave up 68 runs – compiling an RA of 4.71 in the process. McCarthy may be moving from the extraordinarily pitching-friendly confines of Oakland to a hitter’s haven in Arizona, but he may still be able to improve on Saunders’ performance. The problem is that the Diamondbacks may believe last year’s top starter can replicate his 2012 success.
Wade Miley may have gone 16-11 with a 3.33 ERA and finished second in the Rookie of the Year balloting to Bryce Harper, but those results are an absolute mirage. Of the 85 MLB starters who threw at least 150 innings last year, only four had less than 7% of their fly balls allowed turn into home runs. The league average was just over 11%. Miley was 3rd best at 6.6% and he did it in Arizona. It’s an incredible accomplishment but it is in no way repeatable in that environment. Miley is the majors #1 candidate to have an ERA more than 1.00 higher than he had the year before. (Just like his teammate Ian Kennedy the year before – 2.88 ERA in 2011 and 4.02 in 2012 accompanied by a HR/FB increase from 7.7% to 10.8%. Or even more alarmingly look what happened to teammate Daniel Hudson: 3.49 ERA and 6.4% in 2011 to 7.35 ERA and 16.7% in 2012.)
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Arizona doesn’t have a bad team this year and they don’t even have a bad core for the future. I may have them picked for fourth but thanks to the severe deficiencies in the Padres’ starting rotation, I think Arizona has a better chance to sneak into the last Wild Card spot. It’s by no means a good chance, but in financial terms, the Diamondbacks have more upside volatility because their starting rotation may lack a true ace, but it is a collection of 4 largely average starters and a solid #2 in Ian Kennedy. They got great health and career years in 2012 from Aaron Hill, Paul Goldschmidt, and Miguel Montero. While any regression from them could have been made up with Upton’s bat, that isn’t possible now. Look for the Diamondbacks to spend the year scoring as many runs as they allow and finishing right around their opening total wins market of 82.
2013 Outlook:
80-82 – Fourth in NL West
708 Runs Scored 721 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 81-81, 3rd Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 734 runs, Allowed 688.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.8 (4.8 above actual)
Restated: Scored 735 runs, Allowed 694.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 85.3 (4.3 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Diamondbacks, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 85 games.)
The Arizona Diamondbacks ended the 2012 season very much like the New York Mets – a team much closer to making the postseason than their final record indicated. It’s hard to understand how the front office could look at last year’s team and feel much different about it than they did the year before when they made the playoffs. After all, last year’s squad scored as many runs as it did the 2011 unit (actually 3 more) and only gave up 26 more. Beneath the surface, there was more evidence of progression, not regression: The 2012 team hit for a higher average, got on base at a higher rate, and had a higher slugging percentage. On the mound, the year-over-year improvement, yes, improvement, in 2012 was even more striking. The staff struck out batters at a much higher rate, walked them less frequently and induced way more ground balls – an important factor in Arizona. Yet they gave up more runs. Why? Because of the cruel mistress that is cluster luck. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, Arizona could have gone to war in 2013 with the same players as they had in 2012 and been a playoff contender.
However, Arizona doesn’t have those players in 2013 because they decided to remake the roster.
Actually, that’s a bit misleading because it implies Arizona made that decision after the season ended. In truth, they started to dismantle their team even before the season ended. Starting third baseman Ryan Roberts and shortstop Stephen Drew were traded when Arizona was still very much in the wild card race and just a handful of games out of first place in the NL West. So was starting pitcher Joe Saunders. After the season ended, outfielders Chris Young and Justin Upton were traded and in return the holes left by the Roberts and Drew departures were filled by Martin Prado and Cliff Pennington. Replacing Upton and Drew will be Arizona youngsters with some major league experience, A.J. Pollock and Geraldo Parra. Although they will start the year on the disabled list, free agent Cody Ross and another highly-regarded prospect, Adam Eaton, will fill out the roster.
When you collapse all of those transactions, some payroll has been saved, but at the cost of considerable upside. Arizona may equal last year’s offensive output mainly because Upton didn’t have a great year, but they’ve largely removed the possibility of having an 800-run offense and that’s what it will take to win 90 games with the pitching staff and diminished defense they bring to the run suppression side of the ledger in 2013.
The starting rotation looks very similar to last year with only free-agent Brandon McCarthy replacing Joe Saunders. Saunders made 21 starts and gave up 68 runs – compiling an RA of 4.71 in the process. McCarthy may be moving from the extraordinarily pitching-friendly confines of Oakland to a hitter’s haven in Arizona, but he may still be able to improve on Saunders’ performance. The problem is that the Diamondbacks may believe last year’s top starter can replicate his 2012 success.
Wade Miley may have gone 16-11 with a 3.33 ERA and finished second in the Rookie of the Year balloting to Bryce Harper, but those results are an absolute mirage. Of the 85 MLB starters who threw at least 150 innings last year, only four had less than 7% of their fly balls allowed turn into home runs. The league average was just over 11%. Miley was 3rd best at 6.6% and he did it in Arizona. It’s an incredible accomplishment but it is in no way repeatable in that environment. Miley is the majors #1 candidate to have an ERA more than 1.00 higher than he had the year before. (Just like his teammate Ian Kennedy the year before – 2.88 ERA in 2011 and 4.02 in 2012 accompanied by a HR/FB increase from 7.7% to 10.8%. Or even more alarmingly look what happened to teammate Daniel Hudson: 3.49 ERA and 6.4% in 2011 to 7.35 ERA and 16.7% in 2012.)
Oddsmakers’ expectations: Arizona doesn’t have a bad team this year and they don’t even have a bad core for the future. I may have them picked for fourth but thanks to the severe deficiencies in the Padres’ starting rotation, I think Arizona has a better chance to sneak into the last Wild Card spot. It’s by no means a good chance, but in financial terms, the Diamondbacks have more upside volatility because their starting rotation may lack a true ace, but it is a collection of 4 largely average starters and a solid #2 in Ian Kennedy. They got great health and career years in 2012 from Aaron Hill, Paul Goldschmidt, and Miguel Montero. While any regression from them could have been made up with Upton’s bat, that isn’t possible now. Look for the Diamondbacks to spend the year scoring as many runs as they allow and finishing right around their opening total wins market of 82.
2013 Outlook:
80-82 – Fourth in NL West
708 Runs Scored 721 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Colorado Rockies
by Ej March 26th 2013, 2:55 pm
2013 PREVIEW: COLORADO ROCKIES
What They Did: 64-98, 5th Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 758 runs, Allowed 890.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 69.2 (5.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 763 runs, Allowed 941.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 65.6 (1.6 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Rockies, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 66 games.)
As almost all casual baseball fans know, when Coors Field opened in 1995 (and Mile High Stadium two years before it) balls flew out of the stadium, aided by the thin air of altitude. Starting in 2002, baseballs have been stored in a humidor prior to play and this restricts their flight. Sure enough, after a record 303 home runs were hit in Coors in one season pre-humidor, home runs have dropped precipitously and the Rockies have often been in the middle of the league pack in terms of home runs allowed at home. However, scoring is still way up in Colorado. Why? Well the ball may not fly as far but the field is still far bigger than any other field in the league. Architects knew the thin air would make it hard to keep balls in the park so they made the fences, by far, the furthest away from home plate in baseball. Simple geometry tells you that there is more fair territory in Denver. A quick glance at the rule book states teams can still only play nine men on defense when playing at Coors so with more field to cover per player, that means more batted balls in the field of play, by far, fall for hits in Colorado than anywhere else.
All that is simple to understand and not at all surprising to most baseball fans reading this. However, it does bring up a point: Which type of offense is the best to have in Colorado? The answer isn’t the prototypical three true outcome offense (walk, strikeout, or home run) that most elite, well-heeled teams try to construct; it’s one that doesn’t strike out. The “power and patience” or “take and rake” approach of the Yankees, or Red Sox, etc. shouldn’t play well at Coors if its accompanied by a lot of strikeouts, or at least not as well as a team that simply puts a lot of balls into the field of play.
Knowing that this is exactly the kind of offense that the Giants possessed in 2012 (last in both home runs and strikeout rate), and one that I labeled as being both sustainable and far more effective than realized, I ran a simple test. I calculated the Rockies home record against the two lowest and two highest strikeout teams (in terms of rate of strikeouts) for the last five years:
Record vs. Record vs.
Year COL Home Record Low K Teams High K Teams
2008 43-38 5-5 5-8
2009 51-30 3-3 9-3
2010 52-29 4-2 9-3
2011 38-43 1-5 5-8
2012 35-46 3-9 5-2
Totals 219-186 16-24 33-24
Look at that: Over a five-year period during which Colorado was an above .500 team at home (.541 overall) they had a great deal of trouble against low-strikeout teams (.400 winning percentage) but had greater than average success against teams which struck out a lot (.579 winning percentage). Of course there are a lot of caveats: I should really do a regression on a number of factors, records don’t necessarily reflect their opponents scoring prowess in Coors, increase the sample size, etc. but I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here and it leads me to three conclusions:
1) While “take and rake” offenses are all the rage, Coors Field tends to reward the most balanced offenses and teams like the 2012 Giants thrive in such an environment.
2) Colorado has a chance to actually be a “Moneyball” team because while high-strikeout, high-walk sluggers like Josh Hamilton are always coveted and therefore, in trading floor parlance, “well bid,” low-cost players who don’t necessarily have power but strikeout infrequently will thrive in Coors. Thanks to the stretched dimensions of the field, the extra hits they get will inflate their slugging percentage in a non-obvious way. (Guys like Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco actually have more value to the Rockies than any other team.) The Rockies have never targeted that type of player as I can’t find a single year in the last decade where they struck out at a rate less than the National League average. You would think it surprising that management hasn’t figured this out until you realize this is the same front office that stocked their 2012 pitching staff with pitch-to-contact, extreme-fly ball pitchers like Jeremy Guthrie, Jamie Moyer, and Tyler Chatwood(*).
(*) (Pssst: New 2013 addition to the rotation, Jon Garland, has a career strikeout rate of 12.6%. The NL average in 2012 was 20.1%. Sigh. Troy Tulowitzki should simply pull a Carmelo Anthony and refuse to play in Denver until he is either traded or the entire front office is replaced.)
3) Anecdotally, the decision last year to trade Marco Scutaro, exactly the type of affordable player the Rockies need, proves the front office has no clue how to match resources to environment
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Rockies are pegged to win 70 ½ games this year according to their total wins market and I see it the same way.
2013 Outlook:
70-92 – Fifth in NL West
765 Runs Scored 886 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 64-98, 5th Place NL West.
Actual Runs: Scored 758 runs, Allowed 890.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 69.2 (5.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 763 runs, Allowed 941.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 65.6 (1.6 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Rockies, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 66 games.)
As almost all casual baseball fans know, when Coors Field opened in 1995 (and Mile High Stadium two years before it) balls flew out of the stadium, aided by the thin air of altitude. Starting in 2002, baseballs have been stored in a humidor prior to play and this restricts their flight. Sure enough, after a record 303 home runs were hit in Coors in one season pre-humidor, home runs have dropped precipitously and the Rockies have often been in the middle of the league pack in terms of home runs allowed at home. However, scoring is still way up in Colorado. Why? Well the ball may not fly as far but the field is still far bigger than any other field in the league. Architects knew the thin air would make it hard to keep balls in the park so they made the fences, by far, the furthest away from home plate in baseball. Simple geometry tells you that there is more fair territory in Denver. A quick glance at the rule book states teams can still only play nine men on defense when playing at Coors so with more field to cover per player, that means more batted balls in the field of play, by far, fall for hits in Colorado than anywhere else.
All that is simple to understand and not at all surprising to most baseball fans reading this. However, it does bring up a point: Which type of offense is the best to have in Colorado? The answer isn’t the prototypical three true outcome offense (walk, strikeout, or home run) that most elite, well-heeled teams try to construct; it’s one that doesn’t strike out. The “power and patience” or “take and rake” approach of the Yankees, or Red Sox, etc. shouldn’t play well at Coors if its accompanied by a lot of strikeouts, or at least not as well as a team that simply puts a lot of balls into the field of play.
Knowing that this is exactly the kind of offense that the Giants possessed in 2012 (last in both home runs and strikeout rate), and one that I labeled as being both sustainable and far more effective than realized, I ran a simple test. I calculated the Rockies home record against the two lowest and two highest strikeout teams (in terms of rate of strikeouts) for the last five years:
Record vs. Record vs.
Year COL Home Record Low K Teams High K Teams
2008 43-38 5-5 5-8
2009 51-30 3-3 9-3
2010 52-29 4-2 9-3
2011 38-43 1-5 5-8
2012 35-46 3-9 5-2
Totals 219-186 16-24 33-24
Look at that: Over a five-year period during which Colorado was an above .500 team at home (.541 overall) they had a great deal of trouble against low-strikeout teams (.400 winning percentage) but had greater than average success against teams which struck out a lot (.579 winning percentage). Of course there are a lot of caveats: I should really do a regression on a number of factors, records don’t necessarily reflect their opponents scoring prowess in Coors, increase the sample size, etc. but I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here and it leads me to three conclusions:
1) While “take and rake” offenses are all the rage, Coors Field tends to reward the most balanced offenses and teams like the 2012 Giants thrive in such an environment.
2) Colorado has a chance to actually be a “Moneyball” team because while high-strikeout, high-walk sluggers like Josh Hamilton are always coveted and therefore, in trading floor parlance, “well bid,” low-cost players who don’t necessarily have power but strikeout infrequently will thrive in Coors. Thanks to the stretched dimensions of the field, the extra hits they get will inflate their slugging percentage in a non-obvious way. (Guys like Juan Pierre and Placido Polanco actually have more value to the Rockies than any other team.) The Rockies have never targeted that type of player as I can’t find a single year in the last decade where they struck out at a rate less than the National League average. You would think it surprising that management hasn’t figured this out until you realize this is the same front office that stocked their 2012 pitching staff with pitch-to-contact, extreme-fly ball pitchers like Jeremy Guthrie, Jamie Moyer, and Tyler Chatwood(*).
(*) (Pssst: New 2013 addition to the rotation, Jon Garland, has a career strikeout rate of 12.6%. The NL average in 2012 was 20.1%. Sigh. Troy Tulowitzki should simply pull a Carmelo Anthony and refuse to play in Denver until he is either traded or the entire front office is replaced.)
3) Anecdotally, the decision last year to trade Marco Scutaro, exactly the type of affordable player the Rockies need, proves the front office has no clue how to match resources to environment
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Rockies are pegged to win 70 ½ games this year according to their total wins market and I see it the same way.
2013 Outlook:
70-92 – Fifth in NL West
765 Runs Scored 886 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ St. Louis Cardinals
by Ej March 27th 2013, 11:30 pm
2013 PREVIEW: ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
What They Did: 88-74, 2nd Place NL Central. Lost in NLCS 4-3.
Actual Runs: Scored 765 runs, Allowed 648.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 93.2 (5.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 774 runs, Allowed 651.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 93.7 (5.7 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Cardinals, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 94 games.)
Masked by the nine games they finished behind the Cincinnati Reds during the regular season, the Cardinals near-run to a second National League pennant (and perhaps a second-straight World Championship) seemed to surprise fans, especially given the stunningly dramatic way they ousted the Washington Nationals in the NLDS. However, on a restated runs basis – as shown above – stripping out all the effects of cluster luck the Cardinals were the second-best team in the National League during the regular season behind only Washington. And once Washington decided to shut down Stephen Strasburg, you could certainly argue the two-game spread they enjoyed in that ranking completely disappeared.
The Cardinals “only” won 88 games last year because they had trouble in extra-inning games (6-12), and one-run games (21-26). Some of that fell on the bullpen, which had just the 20th best ERA in the majors. However, the expected ERA of the pen – based on strikeout, ground ball, and walk rates ranked 7th. (One explanation for the Cardinals unfortunate cluster luck while pitching: The staff was #1 in the majors at inducing ground balls, yet only average in terms of double plays turned with a runner on first. That’s another hidden element of success/failure. San Diego, by far, suffered the most from this lack of DPs versus groundball prowess. This isn’t necessarily bad luck; it can be due to a lack of fielding talent of course, and St. Louis does have a new shortstop this year, as detailed below.)
With one exception, the Cardinals bring back the same lineup which ranked second in 2012 behind the Milwaukee Brewers in runs scored in the NL. Yes, Lance Berkman has departed via free agency for Texas, but he only played in 32 games last year and didn’t even have 100 plate appearances. The new face in the starting lineup will be familiar to both Cardinals and Washington Nationals fans. NLCS Game 5 hero Pete Kozma will take over for Rafael Furcal at shortstop. Postseason heroics, and a shocking success in the 26 regular season games he played in last year (.333/.383/.569) aside, Kozma will probably never have the offensive skills Furcal had in his prime. However, last year Furcal created runs at a rate about 10% below that of an average shortstop. Cardinals fans can realistically expect the same .264/.325/.346 results from Kozma this year. The St. Louis offense is balanced, the bench is deep, and only Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday are on the wrong side of 30. Outside of injury, there is no reason they shouldn’t lead the league in runs scored in 2013.
For the second year in a row, St. Louis must replace the innings of its prior-year workhorse. Last year they smoothly transitioned away from the 237 1/3 innings Chris Carpenter provided in 2011 (he only pitched 17 innings in 2012). This year they face the challenge of finding someone to step in and replace the 211 innings of 2.86 ERA that departed free-agent Kyle Lohse provided last year. The Cardinals will look to highly-regarded 22-year old rookie Shelby Miller to fill that role. He’s not going to allow 3 runs per 9 innings in his first year – although reports are he has to power arm and pitch arsenal to one day do it – but he’s still my choice for rookie of the year. He’s probably undrafted in your mixed-league fantasy league but he’s a legitimate high-win stud who should strikeout more than a batter an inning this year.
While the Lohse-to-Miller transition will certainly cost the Cards some runs this year, interestingly every other member of the rotation projects to have a better ERA than last year. Some of that will get eaten up by the team’s mildly below-average defense (they missed Albert Pujols in the field) but overall the team should weather the loss of Lohse just fine.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: It’s a real credit to the offensive talent on the roster that St. Louis was able to lose the services of both Albert Pujols and, effectively, Lance Berkman from the 2011 World Champions and still score more runs than they did to lead the NL the year before. (They have super offensive prospect Oscar Taveras waiting in the AAA wings this year as well.) Vegas has the Reds sharply favored to repeat as division champs but I think that’s a mistake. By my count St. Louis was the better team last year and even with the departure of Lohse, I can’t support the 5-game gap in expectations this year. St. Louis has opened with a total wins market at 86. I love the over and link it with Philadelphia and San Diego as my favorite NL overs. However, of the three, the Cards are the ones with the best post-season chances.
2013 Outlook:
90-72 – First in NL Central
770 Runs Scored 685 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 88-74, 2nd Place NL Central. Lost in NLCS 4-3.
Actual Runs: Scored 765 runs, Allowed 648.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 93.2 (5.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 774 runs, Allowed 651.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 93.7 (5.7 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Cardinals, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 94 games.)
Masked by the nine games they finished behind the Cincinnati Reds during the regular season, the Cardinals near-run to a second National League pennant (and perhaps a second-straight World Championship) seemed to surprise fans, especially given the stunningly dramatic way they ousted the Washington Nationals in the NLDS. However, on a restated runs basis – as shown above – stripping out all the effects of cluster luck the Cardinals were the second-best team in the National League during the regular season behind only Washington. And once Washington decided to shut down Stephen Strasburg, you could certainly argue the two-game spread they enjoyed in that ranking completely disappeared.
The Cardinals “only” won 88 games last year because they had trouble in extra-inning games (6-12), and one-run games (21-26). Some of that fell on the bullpen, which had just the 20th best ERA in the majors. However, the expected ERA of the pen – based on strikeout, ground ball, and walk rates ranked 7th. (One explanation for the Cardinals unfortunate cluster luck while pitching: The staff was #1 in the majors at inducing ground balls, yet only average in terms of double plays turned with a runner on first. That’s another hidden element of success/failure. San Diego, by far, suffered the most from this lack of DPs versus groundball prowess. This isn’t necessarily bad luck; it can be due to a lack of fielding talent of course, and St. Louis does have a new shortstop this year, as detailed below.)
With one exception, the Cardinals bring back the same lineup which ranked second in 2012 behind the Milwaukee Brewers in runs scored in the NL. Yes, Lance Berkman has departed via free agency for Texas, but he only played in 32 games last year and didn’t even have 100 plate appearances. The new face in the starting lineup will be familiar to both Cardinals and Washington Nationals fans. NLCS Game 5 hero Pete Kozma will take over for Rafael Furcal at shortstop. Postseason heroics, and a shocking success in the 26 regular season games he played in last year (.333/.383/.569) aside, Kozma will probably never have the offensive skills Furcal had in his prime. However, last year Furcal created runs at a rate about 10% below that of an average shortstop. Cardinals fans can realistically expect the same .264/.325/.346 results from Kozma this year. The St. Louis offense is balanced, the bench is deep, and only Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday are on the wrong side of 30. Outside of injury, there is no reason they shouldn’t lead the league in runs scored in 2013.
For the second year in a row, St. Louis must replace the innings of its prior-year workhorse. Last year they smoothly transitioned away from the 237 1/3 innings Chris Carpenter provided in 2011 (he only pitched 17 innings in 2012). This year they face the challenge of finding someone to step in and replace the 211 innings of 2.86 ERA that departed free-agent Kyle Lohse provided last year. The Cardinals will look to highly-regarded 22-year old rookie Shelby Miller to fill that role. He’s not going to allow 3 runs per 9 innings in his first year – although reports are he has to power arm and pitch arsenal to one day do it – but he’s still my choice for rookie of the year. He’s probably undrafted in your mixed-league fantasy league but he’s a legitimate high-win stud who should strikeout more than a batter an inning this year.
While the Lohse-to-Miller transition will certainly cost the Cards some runs this year, interestingly every other member of the rotation projects to have a better ERA than last year. Some of that will get eaten up by the team’s mildly below-average defense (they missed Albert Pujols in the field) but overall the team should weather the loss of Lohse just fine.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: It’s a real credit to the offensive talent on the roster that St. Louis was able to lose the services of both Albert Pujols and, effectively, Lance Berkman from the 2011 World Champions and still score more runs than they did to lead the NL the year before. (They have super offensive prospect Oscar Taveras waiting in the AAA wings this year as well.) Vegas has the Reds sharply favored to repeat as division champs but I think that’s a mistake. By my count St. Louis was the better team last year and even with the departure of Lohse, I can’t support the 5-game gap in expectations this year. St. Louis has opened with a total wins market at 86. I love the over and link it with Philadelphia and San Diego as my favorite NL overs. However, of the three, the Cards are the ones with the best post-season chances.
2013 Outlook:
90-72 – First in NL Central
770 Runs Scored 685 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Cincinnati Reds
by Ej March 28th 2013, 1:59 pm
2013 PREVIEW: CINCINNATI REDS
What They Did: 97-65, 1st Place NL Central. Lost in NLDS 3-2.
Actual Runs: Scored 669 runs, Allowed 588.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 90.5 (6.5 below actual)
Restated: Scored 692 runs, Allowed 632.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 87.7 (9.3 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Reds, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 88 games.)
161 games. A lot went right for Cincinnati in a lot of different ways but the most obvious element is represented by 161 games. That’s the number of starts made by the Reds starting rotation. How rare is that in this day and age? 272 pitchers started an MLB game in 2012 which means each team had an average of a little more than 9 different pitchers start a game. There were only 73 pitchers in all of baseball who started at least 30 games and the Reds had 5 of them. Stated another way, the average team’s 5th starting pitcher only started 14 games and the top 5 averaged 27.5 For the Reds, that means they got 25 more starts from the Opening Day rotation than the average MLB team. That’s incredibly fortunate health for a team’s pitching staff, and it’s also incredibly valuable because 25 starts from replacement level pitchers are <.500 propositions. (Note that the one game the core rotation didn’t start came from Todd Redmond and he gave up 4 runs in three and one-third innings pitched, taking the loss.)
Not only did they start every game they were asked to, as a group, they were extremely effective all season – and their results (ERA of 3.64, 5th in all of baseball) were produced playing half of their games in a traditionally very hitter-friendly park. Here’s the thing: At first glance, I don’t know how they did it.
It turns out there were a lot of little reasons, many of which look unrepeatable, and all of them benefited Cincinnati in 2012. They stranded runners on base at an MLB leading 75.2%. In other words the rotation seemed to develop an ability to pitch better “in the clutch.” Lest Reds fans think that’s going to continue. I’d remind them of this: The 2011 Phillies rotation had the highest strand rate in the majors. In 2012, it dropped 4% and the Phillies ERA jumped a full point. If you do think pitching in “the clutch” is skill-based who do you think would have a better chance of repeating that “skill”: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels or Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, and Homer Bailey?
There’s another factor related to an offshoot of cluster luck. Cincinnati gave up an abnormally high percentage of their home runs with the bases empty. They weren’t particularly good at preventing home runs (7th in the NL in total home runs allowed, consistent with their rate at inducing groundballs) but they were very fortunate in that they gave up so many of them with the bases empty. That’s another example of sequencing that isn’t likely to be repeated from year to year. (The Arizona Diamondbacks pitching staff suffered this fate from 2011 to 2012.)
The entire Reds staff was very good last year, especially the bullpen, but they had a very large gap between expected ERA, based on the staff’s skill sets, and their actual runs allowed. Some of that can normally be explained by defensive support but the Reds defense was barely above average. Even if all five starters made every one of their starts this year and pitched as well this year as last, I’d expect a material increase in runs allowed – something in the ballpark of 35 runs. But no one should expect or project any team to need only 1 start from a replacement-level long-relievers or minor leaguers. If the Reds revert to league-average and need at least a dozen or so of those starts, there will be even more runs allowed from the rotation. Add in some bullpen regression, (no bullpen is 2.65 ERA good over 400+ innings) plus a significant change in the defense – Drew Stubbs’s outstanding glove in centerfield is being replaced by the poor-fielding right fielder Shin Soo-Choo – and when you put it all together, the Reds project to give up an additional 100 runs this year, even with the same Opening Day pitching personnel.
Then there’s the offense. Reds fans will surely point out that, thanks to injury, the team lost a little more than 200 plate appearances from the National League’s best hitter, Joey Votto. That’s very true (note that I’ve got them scoring more runs this year) but, believe it or not, his injury didn’t hamper the team’s ability to get to 97 wins. (Rewriting this section brings back horrible memories because it has a lot to do with why my fund’s second-half performance last season was so disappointing – see the book’s epilogue for details.) From July 16 to September 4, Votto was on the disabled list while he underwent minor knee surgery.
Through July 15 – 88 games in all – the Reds scored 370 runs, an average of 4.2 runs per game. During that time, Votto was simply the best hitter in baseball hitting .342/.465/.604 – all figures which would have led the NL at the end of the year. Joey Votto doesn’t just lead the league in on-base percentage plus slugging, he leads it in on-base percentage and slugging. Over the next 49 games when they were without the services of the best hitter in baseball, Cincinnati scored 226 runs, an average of 4.6 runs per game.
Once Vottp was injured, the model called for material plays against the Reds on nearly a daily basis. And somehow, the Reds offense got even better! This can happen in basketball – the inherent interdependence of teammates can mask the fact that a “star” player can actually be inhibiting the team as a whole. Not in baseball – or at least no way that I can model. Along with all that went right for the Reds last year, it’s just another piece of evidence that suggests the performance can’t be replicated this year.
Fans in Cincinnati will be sure to point out that not everything went right for the Reds in 2012, and they’re absolutely right. When they were up two games to none against the Giants in the best-of-five NLDS, coming home for three games, and in the midst of getting a one-hit, nine inning performance from Homer Bailey and two relievers in Game 3, there was no way to expect their season would end 48 hours later. That’s the cruelty, and to my mind the beauty about baseball; it is unpredictable and all the modeling and probability-based decisions in the world don’t change the fact that virtually any outcome is possible. Reds fans should view this projection the same way; I think Cincinnati is going to be on the different end of regression and mean reversion this year, but maybe it will take until October for it to happen, and this time they’ll come back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit to advance in the playoffs.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Reds have been installed as the solid favorite to win the NL Central this year. I wouldn’t quibble too much with that market if it were close to a pick-‘em with St. Louis, but it’s not. That’s also reflected in the total wins market. The Reds opened at 91 ½, five games higher than St. Louis. I’m already on record as backing the Cardinals “over” so I’ll take the Reds “under” here. I don’t have quite as much conviction as I do in a similar inter-divisional pairs trade in the AL East (under Toronto/over Tampa) but this still ranks as a solid play.
2013 Outlook:
84-78 – Second in NL Central
737 Runs Scored 703 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 97-65, 1st Place NL Central. Lost in NLDS 3-2.
Actual Runs: Scored 669 runs, Allowed 588.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 90.5 (6.5 below actual)
Restated: Scored 692 runs, Allowed 632.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 87.7 (9.3 below actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Reds, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 88 games.)
161 games. A lot went right for Cincinnati in a lot of different ways but the most obvious element is represented by 161 games. That’s the number of starts made by the Reds starting rotation. How rare is that in this day and age? 272 pitchers started an MLB game in 2012 which means each team had an average of a little more than 9 different pitchers start a game. There were only 73 pitchers in all of baseball who started at least 30 games and the Reds had 5 of them. Stated another way, the average team’s 5th starting pitcher only started 14 games and the top 5 averaged 27.5 For the Reds, that means they got 25 more starts from the Opening Day rotation than the average MLB team. That’s incredibly fortunate health for a team’s pitching staff, and it’s also incredibly valuable because 25 starts from replacement level pitchers are <.500 propositions. (Note that the one game the core rotation didn’t start came from Todd Redmond and he gave up 4 runs in three and one-third innings pitched, taking the loss.)
Not only did they start every game they were asked to, as a group, they were extremely effective all season – and their results (ERA of 3.64, 5th in all of baseball) were produced playing half of their games in a traditionally very hitter-friendly park. Here’s the thing: At first glance, I don’t know how they did it.
It turns out there were a lot of little reasons, many of which look unrepeatable, and all of them benefited Cincinnati in 2012. They stranded runners on base at an MLB leading 75.2%. In other words the rotation seemed to develop an ability to pitch better “in the clutch.” Lest Reds fans think that’s going to continue. I’d remind them of this: The 2011 Phillies rotation had the highest strand rate in the majors. In 2012, it dropped 4% and the Phillies ERA jumped a full point. If you do think pitching in “the clutch” is skill-based who do you think would have a better chance of repeating that “skill”: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels or Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, and Homer Bailey?
There’s another factor related to an offshoot of cluster luck. Cincinnati gave up an abnormally high percentage of their home runs with the bases empty. They weren’t particularly good at preventing home runs (7th in the NL in total home runs allowed, consistent with their rate at inducing groundballs) but they were very fortunate in that they gave up so many of them with the bases empty. That’s another example of sequencing that isn’t likely to be repeated from year to year. (The Arizona Diamondbacks pitching staff suffered this fate from 2011 to 2012.)
The entire Reds staff was very good last year, especially the bullpen, but they had a very large gap between expected ERA, based on the staff’s skill sets, and their actual runs allowed. Some of that can normally be explained by defensive support but the Reds defense was barely above average. Even if all five starters made every one of their starts this year and pitched as well this year as last, I’d expect a material increase in runs allowed – something in the ballpark of 35 runs. But no one should expect or project any team to need only 1 start from a replacement-level long-relievers or minor leaguers. If the Reds revert to league-average and need at least a dozen or so of those starts, there will be even more runs allowed from the rotation. Add in some bullpen regression, (no bullpen is 2.65 ERA good over 400+ innings) plus a significant change in the defense – Drew Stubbs’s outstanding glove in centerfield is being replaced by the poor-fielding right fielder Shin Soo-Choo – and when you put it all together, the Reds project to give up an additional 100 runs this year, even with the same Opening Day pitching personnel.
Then there’s the offense. Reds fans will surely point out that, thanks to injury, the team lost a little more than 200 plate appearances from the National League’s best hitter, Joey Votto. That’s very true (note that I’ve got them scoring more runs this year) but, believe it or not, his injury didn’t hamper the team’s ability to get to 97 wins. (Rewriting this section brings back horrible memories because it has a lot to do with why my fund’s second-half performance last season was so disappointing – see the book’s epilogue for details.) From July 16 to September 4, Votto was on the disabled list while he underwent minor knee surgery.
Through July 15 – 88 games in all – the Reds scored 370 runs, an average of 4.2 runs per game. During that time, Votto was simply the best hitter in baseball hitting .342/.465/.604 – all figures which would have led the NL at the end of the year. Joey Votto doesn’t just lead the league in on-base percentage plus slugging, he leads it in on-base percentage and slugging. Over the next 49 games when they were without the services of the best hitter in baseball, Cincinnati scored 226 runs, an average of 4.6 runs per game.
Once Vottp was injured, the model called for material plays against the Reds on nearly a daily basis. And somehow, the Reds offense got even better! This can happen in basketball – the inherent interdependence of teammates can mask the fact that a “star” player can actually be inhibiting the team as a whole. Not in baseball – or at least no way that I can model. Along with all that went right for the Reds last year, it’s just another piece of evidence that suggests the performance can’t be replicated this year.
Fans in Cincinnati will be sure to point out that not everything went right for the Reds in 2012, and they’re absolutely right. When they were up two games to none against the Giants in the best-of-five NLDS, coming home for three games, and in the midst of getting a one-hit, nine inning performance from Homer Bailey and two relievers in Game 3, there was no way to expect their season would end 48 hours later. That’s the cruelty, and to my mind the beauty about baseball; it is unpredictable and all the modeling and probability-based decisions in the world don’t change the fact that virtually any outcome is possible. Reds fans should view this projection the same way; I think Cincinnati is going to be on the different end of regression and mean reversion this year, but maybe it will take until October for it to happen, and this time they’ll come back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit to advance in the playoffs.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Reds have been installed as the solid favorite to win the NL Central this year. I wouldn’t quibble too much with that market if it were close to a pick-‘em with St. Louis, but it’s not. That’s also reflected in the total wins market. The Reds opened at 91 ½, five games higher than St. Louis. I’m already on record as backing the Cardinals “over” so I’ll take the Reds “under” here. I don’t have quite as much conviction as I do in a similar inter-divisional pairs trade in the AL East (under Toronto/over Tampa) but this still ranks as a solid play.
2013 Outlook:
84-78 – Second in NL Central
737 Runs Scored 703 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Milwaukee Brewers
by Ej March 29th 2013, 2:42 pm
2013 PREVIEW: MILWAUKEE BREWERS
What They Did: 83-79, 3rd Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 776 runs, Allowed 733.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.2 (2.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 771 runs, Allowed 736.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 84.4 (1.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Brewers, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 84 games.)
Last year had to be both pleasing and depressing for Brewers fans. Pleasing because the team that lost Prince Fielder to free agency still finished as the highest-scoring team in the National League. Depressing because while the average bullpen in the major leagues had an ERA of 3.77, the relievers for the Brewers had a 4.66 ERA – the worst in baseball. If Milwaukee had simply had an average bullpen, over the 512 innings pitched, they would have given up 51 less runs. 51 runs equate to something between five and six wins and the Brewers finished five games out of the final wild card spot. It does seem a shame that they wasted a second straight MVP-caliber season from Ryan Braun and traded away Zack Greinke with two months left in the season all because the bullpen was horrendous.
Making it even more of a waste is that the Brewers pen actually displayed skill sets above the MLB average. They were 9th in strikeout rate, 6th at inducing ground balls, although they were 28th in walk rate. Put together though and it comes to an 11th ranked bullpen by SIERA, or expected ERA – a far cry from the one that got the worst results in all of baseball.
Knowing how often extreme bullpen performances reverse, both good and bad, you’d think the Brewers would be a candidate for a playoff spot this year. Instead, I see a team that will get outscored and finish below .500. The problem this year is going to be the other side of the pitching staff. Although signing Kyle Lohse helps immensely by taking 200 innings out of the hands of possible 5.00 ERA guys like Mark Rogers and Wily Peralta, there are still a lot of innings that need to be started by two inexperienced and largely unproven arms plus another 5.00 ERA candidate in Chris Narveson. On the unproven side, I like Mike Fiers and Marco Estrada a lot, but even though they are inexperienced, they’re not that young (28 and 29, respectively) and the nearly 130 innings both started last year were by far the most of their career. I don’t see how the Brewers can expect to get 400 innings of work out of them of the same caliber they got last year. Either their performance will suffer from the excess work or injury/fatigue/ineffectiveness will lead to being replaced by one of the 5.00 ERA candidates.
I also know “your eyes lie” and skill sets, not past results, are supposed to be the best predictors of future results, but despite his strikeout rate, John Axford scares the hell out of me. His walk rate skyrocketed last year, to 12.6%, and that is unacceptable for a closer. The only other double-digit rates for a closer in 2012 were from former Pirate Joel Hanrahan (14.2% -- enjoy Red Sox fans!) and the Marlins 2013 disaster, Heath Bell (10.1%). Perhaps Axford’s failure in high leverage situations wasn’t all bad luck and reflected a rapidly diminishing ability to locate his pitches.
Offensively, the Brewers have injury problems at the key offensive position of first base. Mat Gamel is lost for the season and Corey Hart projects to play no more than 100 games. That’s important because in 2012 the Brewers averaged more than 600 plate appearances from five highly productive players – Braun, Hart, Norichika Aoki, Aramis Ramirez and Rickie Weeks. It’s doubtful they could get both that level of health and production from all of them in 2013 as only Braun enters the season less than 30 years-old.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Brewers offense looks like a candidate for regression at the same time their rotation will rely on inexperienced arms. I liked this under a lot better – and in fact had the Brewers in 4th place – until they signed Kyle Lohse this week. I will don’t think he will get them to a .500 record but he definitely improves their outlook. The opening market for the Brewers total wins is 81 ½. I can’t quite pull the trigger on the under as the result of the Lohse signing.
2013 Outlook:
79-83 – Third in NL Central
689 Runs Scored 711 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 83-79, 3rd Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 776 runs, Allowed 733.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 85.2 (2.2 above actual)
Restated: Scored 771 runs, Allowed 736.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 84.4 (1.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Brewers, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 84 games.)
Last year had to be both pleasing and depressing for Brewers fans. Pleasing because the team that lost Prince Fielder to free agency still finished as the highest-scoring team in the National League. Depressing because while the average bullpen in the major leagues had an ERA of 3.77, the relievers for the Brewers had a 4.66 ERA – the worst in baseball. If Milwaukee had simply had an average bullpen, over the 512 innings pitched, they would have given up 51 less runs. 51 runs equate to something between five and six wins and the Brewers finished five games out of the final wild card spot. It does seem a shame that they wasted a second straight MVP-caliber season from Ryan Braun and traded away Zack Greinke with two months left in the season all because the bullpen was horrendous.
Making it even more of a waste is that the Brewers pen actually displayed skill sets above the MLB average. They were 9th in strikeout rate, 6th at inducing ground balls, although they were 28th in walk rate. Put together though and it comes to an 11th ranked bullpen by SIERA, or expected ERA – a far cry from the one that got the worst results in all of baseball.
Knowing how often extreme bullpen performances reverse, both good and bad, you’d think the Brewers would be a candidate for a playoff spot this year. Instead, I see a team that will get outscored and finish below .500. The problem this year is going to be the other side of the pitching staff. Although signing Kyle Lohse helps immensely by taking 200 innings out of the hands of possible 5.00 ERA guys like Mark Rogers and Wily Peralta, there are still a lot of innings that need to be started by two inexperienced and largely unproven arms plus another 5.00 ERA candidate in Chris Narveson. On the unproven side, I like Mike Fiers and Marco Estrada a lot, but even though they are inexperienced, they’re not that young (28 and 29, respectively) and the nearly 130 innings both started last year were by far the most of their career. I don’t see how the Brewers can expect to get 400 innings of work out of them of the same caliber they got last year. Either their performance will suffer from the excess work or injury/fatigue/ineffectiveness will lead to being replaced by one of the 5.00 ERA candidates.
I also know “your eyes lie” and skill sets, not past results, are supposed to be the best predictors of future results, but despite his strikeout rate, John Axford scares the hell out of me. His walk rate skyrocketed last year, to 12.6%, and that is unacceptable for a closer. The only other double-digit rates for a closer in 2012 were from former Pirate Joel Hanrahan (14.2% -- enjoy Red Sox fans!) and the Marlins 2013 disaster, Heath Bell (10.1%). Perhaps Axford’s failure in high leverage situations wasn’t all bad luck and reflected a rapidly diminishing ability to locate his pitches.
Offensively, the Brewers have injury problems at the key offensive position of first base. Mat Gamel is lost for the season and Corey Hart projects to play no more than 100 games. That’s important because in 2012 the Brewers averaged more than 600 plate appearances from five highly productive players – Braun, Hart, Norichika Aoki, Aramis Ramirez and Rickie Weeks. It’s doubtful they could get both that level of health and production from all of them in 2013 as only Braun enters the season less than 30 years-old.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Brewers offense looks like a candidate for regression at the same time their rotation will rely on inexperienced arms. I liked this under a lot better – and in fact had the Brewers in 4th place – until they signed Kyle Lohse this week. I will don’t think he will get them to a .500 record but he definitely improves their outlook. The opening market for the Brewers total wins is 81 ½. I can’t quite pull the trigger on the under as the result of the Lohse signing.
2013 Outlook:
79-83 – Third in NL Central
689 Runs Scored 711 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Pittsburgh Pirates
by Ej March 30th 2013, 12:45 pm
2013 PREVIEW: PITTSBURGH PIRATES
What They Did: 79-83, 4th Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 651 runs, Allowed 674.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 78.4 (0.6 below actual)
Restated: Scored 637 runs, Allowed 651.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 79.4 (0.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Pirates, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 79 games.)
The Pirates fooled us last year and maybe it’s because we wanted to get fooled. Outside of the Phillies somehow managing to wrest control of the NL East back from the Nationals, this is the outlook we hope is the most inaccurate to the downside. For the second consecutive year, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team with the unfathomable twenty-year run of under .500 finishes, had themselves in the thick of a pennant race well into August. After beating St. Louis 6-3 in a thrilling Sunday afternoon-into-late-night 19-inning game, exactly three-fourths of the 2012 season was over and the Pirates were 13 games over .500 and leading the pack for the second Wild Card berth.
The year before (interestingly, the Pirates 2011 season also fell apart after a 19-inning game) Pittsburgh’s collapse seemed entirely predictable. Both the offense and pitching were getting results in excess of their skills displayed, and most of all the fielders – largely the same collection that was worst in the majors the year before – was playing best-in-baseball defense. When it all turned around the last two months, it wasn’t a surprise. Last year though, I saw an offense that scored 392 runs in the second and third quarters, the most in the National League. And the runs scored appeared deserved and sustainable as the team had developed into a legitimate band of sluggers. The power never waned (they would finish fourth in the NL in homers) but we missed some warning signs; it’s o.k. for a team of sluggers to strike out a lot (only the Astros struck out a higher rate) but to be truly explosive power must be accompanied with patience. The Pirates were 28th in baseball at taking walks. Worse Pittsburgh was the only team in baseball to give up more runs in each quarter than the previous one. By the time the season ended, the Pirates were a 79-win team in both results and talent.
The talent upgrade coming into 2013 has been minimal. Former Yankees catcher Russell Martin replaces the weakest link in Pittsburgh’s 2012 lineup, Rod Barajas, but Martin doesn’t bring much more to the table. He provides a little better batting eye and a little more power, but that's if he doesn’t continue to age rapidly. Given his swift decline in both speed and power over his short career, Martin appears to be an old 30. Everyone else projected to get major playing time is 30 or younger except 32-year old Garrett Jones who hit a career high 27 homes runs last year. It’s nice to be young and have potential improvement ahead of you, but if that doesn’t happen to the Pirates this year, their low-walk-rate, low-contact lineup may hit a lot of home runs again, but there won’t be enough people on base to overcome the runs the pitching staff is going to allow.
The Pirates front office did a great job in the 2012 offseason acquiring strikeout pitchers which minimized defensive deficiencies because fewer balls were hit into play in 2012. From 2011 to 2012 the Pirates went from 29th in strikeout rate to 17th and it was a large reason why they allowed 38 less runs year-over-year. Promising youngster Jeff Locke will move into the starting rotation where he will probably match the near strikeout-an-inning pace of the departed Erik Bedard. While that’s an upgrade given Bedard’s 5.01 ERA over 24 starts, I’m telling you if new rotation mate Jonathan Sanchez matches that ERA, there will actually be rejoicing in the Three Rivers area. Sanchez had an 8.07 ERA (not a misprint) in 15 starts last year and a 4.26 ERA the year before pitching in the ERA-friendly confines of San Francisco’s AT&T Park. When a pitcher walks more batters than he strikes out, as Sanchez did last year, my model doesn’t spit out a win expectancy figure when he takes the mound, it simply displays a picture of an ATM machine.
In the bullpen, Jason Grilli is a huge upgrade over Joel Hanrahan as he strikes out more batters and walks less, both in material quantities. Hanrahan may have been the wildest closer in the majors (Carlos Marmol excepted, who held that role for the Cubs during parts of 2012) but he managed to stay dry between the raindrops and produced a 2.72 ERA. Gilli, like Hanrahan is also flyball happy and even though he’s better, I don’t’ think he’ll match Hanrahan’s results this year.
The Pirates were awful in quarters 1 and 4 last year and terrific in the middle 81 games. I’m through being fooled with those bi-polar results and realize I have to regard them as essentially a sum of their season parts. They are a mildly-below .500 team with a ceiling no more than mildly-above .500.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Pirates are once again poised to surprise people if they can play over .500 baseball for any stretch of time to begin the season. Despite their hot starts the last two years, their total wins market opened at just 77 games. I’m on board with a season to top that, but not by enough of a margin to recommend an “over” play.
2013 Outlook:
79-83 – Fourth in NL Central
659 Runs Scored 675 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 79-83, 4th Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 651 runs, Allowed 674.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 78.4 (0.6 below actual)
Restated: Scored 637 runs, Allowed 651.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 79.4 (0.4 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Pirates, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 79 games.)
The Pirates fooled us last year and maybe it’s because we wanted to get fooled. Outside of the Phillies somehow managing to wrest control of the NL East back from the Nationals, this is the outlook we hope is the most inaccurate to the downside. For the second consecutive year, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team with the unfathomable twenty-year run of under .500 finishes, had themselves in the thick of a pennant race well into August. After beating St. Louis 6-3 in a thrilling Sunday afternoon-into-late-night 19-inning game, exactly three-fourths of the 2012 season was over and the Pirates were 13 games over .500 and leading the pack for the second Wild Card berth.
The year before (interestingly, the Pirates 2011 season also fell apart after a 19-inning game) Pittsburgh’s collapse seemed entirely predictable. Both the offense and pitching were getting results in excess of their skills displayed, and most of all the fielders – largely the same collection that was worst in the majors the year before – was playing best-in-baseball defense. When it all turned around the last two months, it wasn’t a surprise. Last year though, I saw an offense that scored 392 runs in the second and third quarters, the most in the National League. And the runs scored appeared deserved and sustainable as the team had developed into a legitimate band of sluggers. The power never waned (they would finish fourth in the NL in homers) but we missed some warning signs; it’s o.k. for a team of sluggers to strike out a lot (only the Astros struck out a higher rate) but to be truly explosive power must be accompanied with patience. The Pirates were 28th in baseball at taking walks. Worse Pittsburgh was the only team in baseball to give up more runs in each quarter than the previous one. By the time the season ended, the Pirates were a 79-win team in both results and talent.
The talent upgrade coming into 2013 has been minimal. Former Yankees catcher Russell Martin replaces the weakest link in Pittsburgh’s 2012 lineup, Rod Barajas, but Martin doesn’t bring much more to the table. He provides a little better batting eye and a little more power, but that's if he doesn’t continue to age rapidly. Given his swift decline in both speed and power over his short career, Martin appears to be an old 30. Everyone else projected to get major playing time is 30 or younger except 32-year old Garrett Jones who hit a career high 27 homes runs last year. It’s nice to be young and have potential improvement ahead of you, but if that doesn’t happen to the Pirates this year, their low-walk-rate, low-contact lineup may hit a lot of home runs again, but there won’t be enough people on base to overcome the runs the pitching staff is going to allow.
The Pirates front office did a great job in the 2012 offseason acquiring strikeout pitchers which minimized defensive deficiencies because fewer balls were hit into play in 2012. From 2011 to 2012 the Pirates went from 29th in strikeout rate to 17th and it was a large reason why they allowed 38 less runs year-over-year. Promising youngster Jeff Locke will move into the starting rotation where he will probably match the near strikeout-an-inning pace of the departed Erik Bedard. While that’s an upgrade given Bedard’s 5.01 ERA over 24 starts, I’m telling you if new rotation mate Jonathan Sanchez matches that ERA, there will actually be rejoicing in the Three Rivers area. Sanchez had an 8.07 ERA (not a misprint) in 15 starts last year and a 4.26 ERA the year before pitching in the ERA-friendly confines of San Francisco’s AT&T Park. When a pitcher walks more batters than he strikes out, as Sanchez did last year, my model doesn’t spit out a win expectancy figure when he takes the mound, it simply displays a picture of an ATM machine.
In the bullpen, Jason Grilli is a huge upgrade over Joel Hanrahan as he strikes out more batters and walks less, both in material quantities. Hanrahan may have been the wildest closer in the majors (Carlos Marmol excepted, who held that role for the Cubs during parts of 2012) but he managed to stay dry between the raindrops and produced a 2.72 ERA. Gilli, like Hanrahan is also flyball happy and even though he’s better, I don’t’ think he’ll match Hanrahan’s results this year.
The Pirates were awful in quarters 1 and 4 last year and terrific in the middle 81 games. I’m through being fooled with those bi-polar results and realize I have to regard them as essentially a sum of their season parts. They are a mildly-below .500 team with a ceiling no more than mildly-above .500.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Pirates are once again poised to surprise people if they can play over .500 baseball for any stretch of time to begin the season. Despite their hot starts the last two years, their total wins market opened at just 77 games. I’m on board with a season to top that, but not by enough of a margin to recommend an “over” play.
2013 Outlook:
79-83 – Fourth in NL Central
659 Runs Scored 675 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
- Number of posts : 6668
Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
Thinkdog Affiliation : Founder of T.D
30 in 30 ~ Chicago Cubs
by Ej March 31st 2013, 1:35 am
2013 PREVIEW: CHICAGO CUBS
What They Did: 61-101, 5th Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 613 runs, Allowed 759.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 65.4 (4.4 above actual)
Restated: Scored 609 runs, Allowed 773.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 63.6 (2.6 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Cubs, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 64 games.)
When an analyst looks for unrepeatable performance, good or bad, the best place to examine is small-sample size, high-leverage situations. Small sample sizes have the largest variance and high-leverage events are the most crucial. The combination of the two can provide an outsized influence on overall performance.*
(*) Notice how most of today’s insider trading scandals revolve around getting advanced insight into a company’s quarterly earnings, compared to the Wall Street (the movie/Michael Milken-era convictions which always seemed to involve leaked takeover bids? If you followed a stock for an entire year, and only got the sentiment, fundamentals, etc. correct four days out of 250 trading days but it was the four days before quarterly earnings were announced – even if you were wrong the other 246 – you’d most likely be considered a superstar analyst. That’s small-sample, high-leverage situations in the financial industry. Want to root out insider trading at a hedge fund, Freakonomics style? Find high-performing portfolio managers who only create alpha in their fund around earning's release dates.)
A team’s bullpen typically accounts for one-third of its total innings pitched, but because of the high-leverage nature of late inning results, they have a much bigger effect on a team’s won-loss record. Because of the inherent volatility, you’d expect significant fluctuation in year-to-year bullpen results, even from the same participants. But bullpen parts are highly interchangeable and often not very expensive so if a team has relievers with poor skill sets, management can replace them mid-season. (The Phillies did this masterfully last year.) All of this leads to the following conclusion: Bullpens that post terrible results usually aren’t as bad as the results might indicate. In other words, it’s hard to expect a bullpen to be awful.
If a rule is strengthened by the presence of an exception, well then I guess this is the only time anyone is going to refer to the 2012 Chicago Cubs as exceptional.
In general you want relievers who strike people out (since they often inherit baserunners), don’t walk batters (no fuel on the fire) and induce groundballs (leading to double play opportunities and, obviously, less home runs.) Here is where the Chicago Cubs entire bullpen ranked across the majors in those three categories in 2012:
Strikeout rate: 29th (out of 30)
Walk rate: 30th
Groundball rate: 27th
Thus, the Cubs bullpen ERA of 4.50, unlike virtually every team which posts an ERA nearly two standard deviations away from the league average (3.67) actually deserved its results. (We looked at those bullpen rates for each team for the last 5 years, and of those 350 team seasons, the Cubs had the 8th worst projected ERA (and the worst of any team since 2009.) That takes the variance factor out of the equation in terms of 2013 progression (i.e. positive regression). What about the interchangeable parts element? Chicago is bringing back the three pitchers who threw the most innings out of the bullpen for them last year, Carlos Marmol, Shawn Camp, and James Russell. Even though they were not the worst offenders in 2012, they certainly aren’t better than league average – Marmol, notably, spends entire weeks where it looks like he’s trying to use Apple Maps to find the strike zone. They’ll be joined this year by a collection of cast-offs, a rookie, and an overseas veteran. 2012’s results might improve, but if one standard deviation worse than average is the upside, is it really an improvement?
As Cubs fans know, it’s not like the bullpen was the only problem last year. The Wrigley nine were the third lowest scoring team in the majors. 17 batters had more than 100 plate appearances and four of them had negative WAR totaling -3.9 (per FanGraphs). Of the four, only backup catcher Steve Clevenger returns, so the Cubs purged themselves of some (rotten) low-hanging fruit. Except for new right field platoon of Nate Schierholtz and Scott Hairston, all of the other starting positions will be filled by players from last year’s roster. There aren’t any terrible players there; it’s not impossible they could form a league-average offense, but that is absolutely the upside. The Cubs only had four players with double-digit home runs totals (the average MLB average team had more than six) and they play half of their games in a homer-friendly venue. Just like last year, the Cubs will still be a team that doesn’t get on base or hit for power.
The most dramatic roster changes occurred in the starting rotation where only Jeff Samardzjia and Travis Wood, representing just 54 of 2012’s 162 starter games, are on the Opening Day roster. The rotation is rounded out with a trio of other team’s cast-offs, Scott Feldman, Carlos Villanueva, and the much-traveled Edwin Jackson. (The return in May of injured Matt Garza will improve the rotation’s outlook, but, like Ryan Dempster last year, it’s questionable how long Garza will actually be a Cub.) Outside of Samardzjia who shockingly emerged as a legitimate #2 starter in 2012 (even though he’ll be the Cubs “ace” and the huge increase in career-to-date workload last year has to be a concern), that’s not a rotation that has much chance at all of fronting a league-average offense and emerging with even a .500 record.
By all accounts Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer are laying the groundwork to field a contender perhaps by 2015. But the improvements are being made at the foundation level of the franchise, and frankly they’re more or less letting the big-league club flounder for another year. It’s not a bad organizational strategy – why waste assets chasing a .500 record? – but it will be at least a year, and probably two until a Cubs outlook has any chance of including a mention of playoff odds.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Cubs were at least seven games under .500 in five of six months last season. That was the most in baseball, as even the Astros only had three such months. Stated another way, the Cubs were the most consistently bad team in baseball last year, and it runs counter to the perception that they didn’t tank their season until the trading deadline when they jettisoned a number of starters. Due to the last minute signing of Kyle Lohse, I backed off the Brewers as my final “under” selection, but we are going to make it the Cubs instead. They opened at 73 total wins. The projection below supports the “under” as does the chance – not factored in anyone’s projection – that Epstein & Co. will trade Garza, and any other producing player on the team, for future prospects as the season wears on.
2013 Outlook:
69-93 – Fifth in NL Central
627 Runs Scored 735 Runs Allowed
What They Did: 61-101, 5th Place NL Central.
Actual Runs: Scored 613 runs, Allowed 759.
Expected wins based on RS and RA: 65.4 (4.4 above actual)
Restated: Scored 609 runs, Allowed 773.
Exp. wins based on restated RS and RA: 63.6 (2.6 above actual)
(Glossary: Expected wins, based on a modification of Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem, are the amount of wins a team should win in any season based on the amount of runs it actually scored and allowed. Deviations will be explained in the appropriate team capsules.
Restated Runs Scored and Runs Allowed are the amount of runs a team should have tallied based on its actual components of batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging achieved/allowed. In the case of the Cubs, if they posted exactly the same stats in 2013 as 2012, they should expect to win 64 games.)
When an analyst looks for unrepeatable performance, good or bad, the best place to examine is small-sample size, high-leverage situations. Small sample sizes have the largest variance and high-leverage events are the most crucial. The combination of the two can provide an outsized influence on overall performance.*
(*) Notice how most of today’s insider trading scandals revolve around getting advanced insight into a company’s quarterly earnings, compared to the Wall Street (the movie/Michael Milken-era convictions which always seemed to involve leaked takeover bids? If you followed a stock for an entire year, and only got the sentiment, fundamentals, etc. correct four days out of 250 trading days but it was the four days before quarterly earnings were announced – even if you were wrong the other 246 – you’d most likely be considered a superstar analyst. That’s small-sample, high-leverage situations in the financial industry. Want to root out insider trading at a hedge fund, Freakonomics style? Find high-performing portfolio managers who only create alpha in their fund around earning's release dates.)
A team’s bullpen typically accounts for one-third of its total innings pitched, but because of the high-leverage nature of late inning results, they have a much bigger effect on a team’s won-loss record. Because of the inherent volatility, you’d expect significant fluctuation in year-to-year bullpen results, even from the same participants. But bullpen parts are highly interchangeable and often not very expensive so if a team has relievers with poor skill sets, management can replace them mid-season. (The Phillies did this masterfully last year.) All of this leads to the following conclusion: Bullpens that post terrible results usually aren’t as bad as the results might indicate. In other words, it’s hard to expect a bullpen to be awful.
If a rule is strengthened by the presence of an exception, well then I guess this is the only time anyone is going to refer to the 2012 Chicago Cubs as exceptional.
In general you want relievers who strike people out (since they often inherit baserunners), don’t walk batters (no fuel on the fire) and induce groundballs (leading to double play opportunities and, obviously, less home runs.) Here is where the Chicago Cubs entire bullpen ranked across the majors in those three categories in 2012:
Strikeout rate: 29th (out of 30)
Walk rate: 30th
Groundball rate: 27th
Thus, the Cubs bullpen ERA of 4.50, unlike virtually every team which posts an ERA nearly two standard deviations away from the league average (3.67) actually deserved its results. (We looked at those bullpen rates for each team for the last 5 years, and of those 350 team seasons, the Cubs had the 8th worst projected ERA (and the worst of any team since 2009.) That takes the variance factor out of the equation in terms of 2013 progression (i.e. positive regression). What about the interchangeable parts element? Chicago is bringing back the three pitchers who threw the most innings out of the bullpen for them last year, Carlos Marmol, Shawn Camp, and James Russell. Even though they were not the worst offenders in 2012, they certainly aren’t better than league average – Marmol, notably, spends entire weeks where it looks like he’s trying to use Apple Maps to find the strike zone. They’ll be joined this year by a collection of cast-offs, a rookie, and an overseas veteran. 2012’s results might improve, but if one standard deviation worse than average is the upside, is it really an improvement?
As Cubs fans know, it’s not like the bullpen was the only problem last year. The Wrigley nine were the third lowest scoring team in the majors. 17 batters had more than 100 plate appearances and four of them had negative WAR totaling -3.9 (per FanGraphs). Of the four, only backup catcher Steve Clevenger returns, so the Cubs purged themselves of some (rotten) low-hanging fruit. Except for new right field platoon of Nate Schierholtz and Scott Hairston, all of the other starting positions will be filled by players from last year’s roster. There aren’t any terrible players there; it’s not impossible they could form a league-average offense, but that is absolutely the upside. The Cubs only had four players with double-digit home runs totals (the average MLB average team had more than six) and they play half of their games in a homer-friendly venue. Just like last year, the Cubs will still be a team that doesn’t get on base or hit for power.
The most dramatic roster changes occurred in the starting rotation where only Jeff Samardzjia and Travis Wood, representing just 54 of 2012’s 162 starter games, are on the Opening Day roster. The rotation is rounded out with a trio of other team’s cast-offs, Scott Feldman, Carlos Villanueva, and the much-traveled Edwin Jackson. (The return in May of injured Matt Garza will improve the rotation’s outlook, but, like Ryan Dempster last year, it’s questionable how long Garza will actually be a Cub.) Outside of Samardzjia who shockingly emerged as a legitimate #2 starter in 2012 (even though he’ll be the Cubs “ace” and the huge increase in career-to-date workload last year has to be a concern), that’s not a rotation that has much chance at all of fronting a league-average offense and emerging with even a .500 record.
By all accounts Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer are laying the groundwork to field a contender perhaps by 2015. But the improvements are being made at the foundation level of the franchise, and frankly they’re more or less letting the big-league club flounder for another year. It’s not a bad organizational strategy – why waste assets chasing a .500 record? – but it will be at least a year, and probably two until a Cubs outlook has any chance of including a mention of playoff odds.
Oddsmakers’ expectations: The Cubs were at least seven games under .500 in five of six months last season. That was the most in baseball, as even the Astros only had three such months. Stated another way, the Cubs were the most consistently bad team in baseball last year, and it runs counter to the perception that they didn’t tank their season until the trading deadline when they jettisoned a number of starters. Due to the last minute signing of Kyle Lohse, I backed off the Brewers as my final “under” selection, but we are going to make it the Cubs instead. They opened at 73 total wins. The projection below supports the “under” as does the chance – not factored in anyone’s projection – that Epstein & Co. will trade Garza, and any other producing player on the team, for future prospects as the season wears on.
2013 Outlook:
69-93 – Fifth in NL Central
627 Runs Scored 735 Runs Allowed
Ej- Rainmaker
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Age : 55
Current Locale : Poughkeepsie, NY
Born : Larchmont, NY
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