Project Baseball, April 17
Posted: April 17th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 24 Comments »
American League playoff teams:
Yankees or Boston (one game playoff, bring back Bucky!)
Chicago
Angels or Oakland (one game playoff)
Wild card: Royals!
MVP: A.J. Pierzynski. Love him or hate him, probably the latter, you can’t deny a catcher hitting .405/.468/.690 and carrying a team to a surprising American League Central title. Pierzynski projects to hit 29 homers, drive in 130 RBIs, and — perhaps unrealistically — hit 87 doubles. Joe Crede’s 185 RBIs makes him a good candidate as well, and the RBI candidate often gets the prize. I think the voters go with the catcher.
Cy Young: Zack Greinke. Undefeated. 0.75 ERA. Projects to go 32-0, but surprisingly with only 97 strikeouts in 259 innings. You could argue for Brian Bannister, who also projects to 32-0 with more strikeouts a better WHIP and a lower batting average against. But I predict Zack’s ERA lead (0.75 vs. 0.86) carries the day. Also tough to argue with Royals closer Joakim Soria, who projects 54 saves, a 0.00 ERA and 22 hits allowed all year.
Biggest disappointment (team): Obviously you can go with Detroit, but at this point Cleveland is also projecting to a 53-109 season, which is a bit of a downer after an appearances in the ALCS.
Biggest surprise (team): Hard to argue with the White Sox, but how about a Royals team on pace to score 562 runs all year (3.4 per game), fewest in the AL since the horrendous 1988 Orioles and still projecting to 97 victories.
Biggest disappointment (player): Tough to argue with David Ortiz, projecting to .121/.239/.172 with 11 homers and 43 RBIs in 623 at-bats. But I’ll go with C.C. — 0-32, 13.50 ERA, 54 homers allowed, 151 walks, 151 Ks.
National League playoff teams
Florida
Cardinals
Arizona
Wildcard: Chicago Cubs
MVP: Derrek Lee. Hard to argue against .393/.449/.787, 69 homers, 69 doubles, 150 RBIs. That would mean, sadly, that Rafael Furcal’s .407 batting average would not be enough, meaning that the last two of the last three .400 hitters going back to Ted Williams in 1941 would not win the MVP award.
Cy Young: Brandon Webb. I guess you give it to the guy projected to 42-0 with a 1.86 ERA and 314 innings pitched. Kyle Lohse at 20-0 with a 1.04 ERA just doesn’t go enough innings.
Biggest disappointment (team): Rockies playing .428 ball after going to the World Series hurts. But I think this should now and always go to the New York Mets, left out of the playoffs again.
Biggest surprise (team): Gotta be the St. Louis Cardinals, right? Projecting to 119 victories when no one expected anything? Like I always say, that Tony La Russa is a super genius.
Biggest disappontment (player): Are we going to give this to Andruw Jones every year (.157/.259/.235, 0 homers, 22 RBIs,551 ABs). The guy had a chance to sign with a winner in Kansas City, but he went for the money instead.
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Methinks the projections are tad, um, off. But it is April, when every fan has hope, a hope that turns to a faint hope come July and to bitter resentment on the last week of September.
I’d still bet that the Blue Jays with their run differential (looking good!) would take the WC over the Royals… not that either is a really good bet.
HAHA. Joe enjoy it while you can my friend. The beast in Detroit has awoken from it’s slumber.
The beast in Detroit has awoken from its slumber
Slouching toward Cleveland?
Remember when George Bell hit three dingers on opening day one year? He was on a pace for 486 home runs!
I wonder why he tailed off so badly after that?
This is quite possibly the greatest thing ever posted on the internet.
Over-under* posterisks this season?
* I don’t know how to spell them.**
** Is it a them***, or a collective it?
*** I project 894, the number of runs the Phillies will end up scoring!!
small sample size rules!!!
Small sample size fun. I love it!! I mean, the Giants are on pace right now to only lose 101-102 games.
Joe Morgan, during A-Rod’s first at bat last night, noted that he wasn’t in the top 10 in home runs or RBI.
This post makes no sense. There’s no way any of those guys keep up those paces.
Yeah I wanted to be that guy.
Man… I wanted to be that guy.
Brian, it’s not about what is expected to be at the end of the season, simply how it looks now. Love it.
I think postericks need to work like Roman numerals:
*
**
***
v*
v
v*
v**
v***
*x
x
That’s *v, not v* for the fourth one, of course.
I love it! It’s almost exactly what my projections look like!
GO ROYALS!!!!!!
Firejoemorgan.com should grill you for this one. It may be their only chance.
And all of this in a sample size 2 or 3 times as big as a MLB post season playoff series.
Funny how we all laugh at these small sample size anomalies and then take the playoffs so seriously.
The Best
“Remember when George Bell hit three dingers on opening day one year? He was on a pace for 486 home runs!
I wonder why he tailed off so badly after that?”
Tuffy Rhodes’ drop was much worse ….
I would take Chipper Jones hitting .443 with 46 HRs and 162 RBIs over Furcal for the #2 N.L. hitter.
Especially with that bum Teixeira, hitting around the Mendoza line, behind him.
Ortiz is making people long for the halcyon days of Jeremy Giambi as Sox DH.
When I first read the title to this post, I read it as “Project Baseball”. Only after reading the post in its entirety did I realize that the was in fact “Project Baseball”.
Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George got up and left the room every time he made a joke that went over well? Showmanship they called it. I think Pierzynski and Crede should do something similar. Retire now. Or at least take the rest of the year off. They’ll look back on 2008 as the year they OPS’d over 1.000 and people will remember it. It’s the perfect plan.
Alfonso Soriano is without question my biggest disappointment, projecting to blow out his calf 10 times.