Baseball Predictions in February!
Posted: February 16th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 94 Comments »
So, I have been playing around with a new baseball prediction system. I would like to tell you that it is complicated … and it is extremely complicated. But I don’t want to confuse the word “complicated” with “stupid.” I suspect my system is both.* It’s versatile that way.
*I suppose it’s complicated in the same way that my childhood version of Monopoly was complicated. Te first person to land on Free Parking had to sing the entire first verse of Reo Speedwagon’s “Take it on the Run,” and if he could sing it in its entirety then he could take any single property EXCEPT Park Place and Boardwalk, and the person who pulled the one-eyed jack out of the chance pile because we had playing cards in there had to try and get a Yahtzee small straight or else he would have to ride the Reading Railroad until someone else got the suicide king … and so on.
In my prediction system, I basically use a statistical and scouting bouillabaisse to rank the players on each team. And then I … well, look, I can’t remember the whole thing right now. All I can tell you is that I rank players, add some stuff together, subtract some stuff, multiply by pi (or divide by pi) … and … voila … a baseball prediction system!
It’s the perfect Hot Stove system … perfect, because it’s pointless and ridiculously flawed and I’m fairly certain (and fairly hopeful) that people will have forgotten all about it long before the baseball season actually begins.
I should tell you that a big part of the system involves the ranking of players. I ranked each team’s top 3 starters, closer and everyday players on a 20-80 scouting scale, with 80 being Pujols and, well, here’s a little cheat sheet:
80 — Albert Pujols
75-79 — The best of the best not named Pujols. Only a handful of players in baseball in this group. Joe Mauer is a 78.
70-74 — Great players. Chase Utley is a 73.
65-69 — All-Star caliber players. Kevin Youkilis is a 68.
60-64 — Very good players. Raul Ibanez is a 61.
55-59 — I’d say 55 is about an average every day player. I have Cleveland’s Jhonny Peralta as a 55.
50-54 — Now, we’re getting into below average territory, but these guys can be very useful. Mark Teahen is a 53.
45-49 — The worst every day players. For various reasons, I did not allow any everyday player to score lower than 45. So, yes, Yuniesky Betancourt was a 45 for me.
I won’t bore you with all the ratings, but I do list off the players who ranked highest at each position in each division*. I then used those ratings to calculate some predictions. Like I say, complicated and ridiculous. But it’s February. And, really, something has to get us through the winter months.
*Quick note: From early reader response, it seems people miss the point that I really do rank players BY POSITION. So I rank No. 1 starters, No. 2 starters and No. 3 starters. Obviously Joe Saunders is not the third best starter in the AL West, but I have as the best third starter. Same with outfield — I have right fielders and left fielders separately.
So now that you are thoroughly confused … here we go, starting with:
* * *
The National League East
Best players, by positions:
No. 1 pitcher: Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
No. 2 pitcher: Cole Hamels, Philadelphia
No. 3 pitcher: Jair Jurrjens, Alanta.
Closer: Francisco Rodriguez, Mets.
Catcher: Brian McCann, Atlanta
First baseman: Ryan Howard, Philadelphia
Second baseman: Chase Utley, Philadelphia
Shortstop: Hanley Ramirez, Florida
Third baseman: Ryan Zimmerman, Washington
Right field: Jayson Werth, Philadelphia
Center field: Carlos Beltran, Mets
Left Field: Jason Bay, Mets
Best pitcher in the division: Roy Halladay just edges Johan Santana. Well, there are extenuating circumstances. Santana is coming off the surgery. And most people feel that Halladay, who was so dominant in the slugging American League East, will really thrive in the National League. I tend to agree.
Then again, I also think it’s easy to underrate Johan Santana. Since 2003, he is 111-51 with a 153 ERA+ and 1,504 strikeouts against only 354 walks. He won the Cy Young in 2004 and 2006, and easily could have won it in 2005 and 2008 also. The thing is, he’s still reasonably young — he turns 31 in March making him only about a year older than C.C. Sabathia and two years younger than Roy Halladay.
Best player in the division: Hanley Ramirez. Other candidates are Utley, Howard, Zimmerman and the Mets’ David Wright. Especially if Wright regains his power stroke.
And, the predictions:
Philadelphia: 96-66
Comment: My system has Philadelphia as the best pitching team in the division (just ahead of Atlanta) and also has them as by far the best offensive team. The Phillies rank as the best team in the National League by quite a bit.
Atlanta: 88-74
Comment: If Tim Hudson is healthy, that 1-2-3 of Hudson, Tommy Hanson and Jurrjens with Derek Lowe as a fourth looks awfully good. It’s Bobby Cox’s final year … and if he gets that kind of good starting pitching then I think the Braves are a good bet to win the wildcard. And wouldn’t it be justice if after all the close calls, Cox and the Braves win a World Series when they are clearly NOT the best team.
New York Mets: 82-80
Comments: Questions galore. Will David Wright regain his power? Will Jose Reyes stay healthy? Will Carlos Beltran get healthy? Will Jeff Francoeur play as well as he did second half of last season? Will Mike Pelfrey develop into a legit No. 2 starter? Will the Mets really sock the ball? Knock those home runs over the wall? East side, West side, will they all come down? To meet the M-E-T-S Mets of New York Town?
Florida: 81-81
Comments: Terrific young pitching led by potential Cy Young Award winner Josh Johnson, but even with the remarkable Hanley and rookie of the year Chris Coghlan, the system says runs could be hard to come by.
Washington: 65-97
Comments: I actually like the direction of the Nationals … and if Stephen Strasburg makes a huge splash I think they could be a surprise. But the system pegs them for another last place season.
* * *
National League Central
Best players, by position:
No. 1 pitcher: Chris Carpenter, St. Louis
No. 2 pitcher: Adam Wainwright, St. Louis
No. 3 pitcher: Ryan Dempster, Chicago
Closer: Francisco Cordero, Cincinnati
Catcher: Yadier Molina, St. Louis
First base: Albert Pujols, St. Louis
Second base: Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati
Shortstop: Ryan Theriot, Chicago
Third base: Aramis Ramirez, Chicago
Right field: Hunter Pence, Houston
Center field: Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh
Left field: Ryan Braun, Milwaukee
Best pitcher: Adam Wainwright. I wasn’t sure whether to list Carpenter or Wainwright as the Cardinals No. 1 starter. I ranked Carpenter No. 1 out of respect for his comeback and because he was so dominant when he pitched last season. For health reasons, though, I think Wainwright is the best bet in the division to have a great year. Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano and Houston’s Roy Oswalt are a couple of other candidates.
Best player: Albert Pujols. Who else? I have only two other 70s players in the division, both from Milwaukee: Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun.
And the predictions:
St. Louis: 93-69
Comments: I think Colby Rasmus might be the most exciting young player in the division — him or McCutchen in Pittsburgh. … I wonder if Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan will pull off some magic with starter Brad Penny. It’s amazing how Duncan simplifies things and teaches pitchers to stick with their strengths. I have no idea what, if anything, Penny has left, but I think he picked the right team.
Chicago: 86-76
Comments: Derrek Lee is one of the more underrated players in baseball. Since 2000, he has a 130 OPS+. He had the amazing 2005, when he had a season that was basically interchangeable with MVP Albert Pujols. Lee had what was probably the second-best year of his career in 2009 — .306/.393/.579 with 35 homers. And he has had four or five other years that were just about as good.
Cincinnati: 77-85
Comments: The Reds are one of the media’s hot preseason picks. And I can see why — they seem to have a nice blend of youth and experience on the pithing staff and Joey Votto is some kind of hitter. But the system sees them having another blah year because of a consistent inability to score runs.
Milwaukee: 77-85
Comments: Pitching is the big question … if Yovani Gallardo can take a step forward, if Randy Wolf can repeat his Dodger success, if Doug Davis can again be the solid pitcher he was in Milwaukee for a time, if … well, you get the iffy point.
Houston: 72-90
Comments: You would think with Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez, with Lance Berkman and Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee that things could turn around. And maybe they can. At least the Astros are not …
Pittsburgh: 61-101
Comments: It’s going to take time.
* * *
National League West
Best players, by position:
No. 1 starter: Tim Lincecum, San Francisco
No. 2 starter: Matt Cain, San Francisco
No. 3 starter: Edwin Jackson, Arizona
Closer: Jonathan Broxton, Los Angeles
Catcher: Russell Martin, Los Angeles
First base: Adrian Gonzalez, San Diego
Second base: Freddy Sanchez, San Francisco
Shortstop: Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado
Third base: Mark Reynolds, Arizona
Right field: Justin Upton, Arizona
Center field: Matt Kemp, Los Angeles
Left field: MannyBManny, Los Angeles
Best pitcher in the division: Tim Lincecum. But Dan Haren is awfully, awfully good. If Brandon Webb comes back healthy — a real question, but if he does come back healthy — I think Webb-Haren is an even better 1-2 punch than Lincecum-Cain.
Best player in the division: Troy Tulowitzki barely edges out Gonzalez, Upton and Kemp in my scoring system. Barely.
And the predictions:
1. Los Angeles: 94-68
Comments: You know who is turning into a really great player? Matt Kemp. I suppose that’s obvious, but I must admit that I always kind of grouped those young Dodgers players together — Kemp, James Loney, Andre Ethier. And all three are good. But Kemp is emerging as that five-tool guy — and he’s only 25.
2. Colorado: 87-75
Comments: Last year, I picked Zack Greinke to win the Cy Young Award … probably my best baseball pick prediction ever. This year, I’m thinking a lot about Ubaldo Jiminez. The league hit .229 against him last year. With Colorado now having a much more sane home park — that humidor has done wonders for Coors Field — Jiminez is a threat to have a monster year.
3. San Francisco: 83-79
Comments: Don’t see the Giants scoring enough runs to get into the playoffs. But, of course, they could. And if they did sneak into the playoffs NOBODY would want to face a team that with Lincecum and Cain. … The Giants Web site lists Barry Zito as the team’s No. 2 starter. Zito does show signs of being a useful pitcher again — he was 5-4 with a 2.83 ERA in his last 15 starts — but putting him ahead of Cain seems a bit over the top.
4. Arizona: 81-81
Comments: With the Diamondbacks, so much depends on Brandon Webb. There really isn’t another pitcher in baseball quite like him. When healthy, he basically throws his fastball three quarters of the time and even so consistently gets about 65% ground balls. His pitch just has a different sink on it from any other pitchers. When you are getting 65% ground balls and striking out 180 batters, you are going to be really good.
5. San Diego: 70-92
Comments: I’m not sure why anyone would pitch to Adrian Gonzalez with that Padres lineup.
* * *
American League East
Best players, by position:
No. 1 starter: C.C. Sabathia, Yankees
No. 2 starter: Josh Beckett, Boston
No. 3 starter: John Lackey, Boston
Closer: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
Catcher: Victor Martinez, Boston
First base: Mark Teixeira, Yankees
Second base: Dustin Pedroia, Boston
Shortstop: Derek Jeter, Yankees
Third base: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
Right field: Nick Markakis, Baltimore
Center field: Adam Jones, Baltimore
Left field: Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay
Best pitcher in the division: C.C. Sabathia. Edges Boston’s Jon Lester and Josh Beckett.
Best player in the division: I have Alex Rodriguez just a notch ahead of Teixeira, but they’re really pretty close. There are great players everywhere in this division: New York’s Jeter, Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson, Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria and Crawford, Boston’s Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, Baltimore’s Adam Jones, Toronto’s, um, well, Jesse Barfield? Actually, even in rebuilding Toronto, Adam Lind looks like an offensive star in the making.
And the predictions:
1. New York Yankees: 103-59
Comment: Loaded. And loaded. And on top of that: Loaded. Take last year’s team — maybe the best team of the decade — and add Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez. Did I say loaded?
2. Boston Red Sox: 98-64
Comment: Also loaded … I think the Red Sox have slightly better pitching than the Yankees and their defense should be awfully good. But the Yankees offense seems a notch better. … OK, I have to take a moment to talk about Jacoby Ellsbury’s defense. You probably know that last year, he was voted as the Defensive Player of the Year by the fans on MLB.com. And you probably know that last year, the advanced stats suggested that Ellsbury was, er, let’s call it overrated. He scored minus-15 on the Dewan plus-minus. His Ultimate Zone Rating was minus-18.6.
Whenever you have such a wide gap between what you see and what the numbers record, there will be skirmishes, disagreements, complaints, and the Internet was littered with people who either mocked Ellsbury’s grand defensive reputation or, much more likely, mocked the convoluted statistics that seemed to besmirch that reputation. Take your UZR and shove it!
And that’s fine. Except for this: The Red Sox went out this offseason and signed 37-year-old Mike Cameron. And the plan seems to be this: Put him in center field and move Ellsbury out. So, apparently, the Red Sox believe the defensive stats might have had a point.
3. Tampa Bay Rays: 86-76
Comment: The Rays have a handful of players — David Price, B.J. Upton, Matt Garza, Ben Zobrist, Carlos Pena — who have the potential to have superstar season in 2010. And they have a couple of other players — Longoria and Crawford — who probably WILL have superstar seasons. If all goes right, this team could win 100 games. But, this is baseball. And it so rarely happens that all goes right.
4. Baltimore Orioles: 74-88
Comment: I met a nice guy — a Washington Wizards assistant coach — and he told me he is a huge Orioles fan. We both agreed that the Orioles seem to be improving their minor league system. We both agreed that Matt Wieters is an exciting young player. And then … well, we found that we pretty quickly ran out of stuff to talk about.
5. Toronto: 69-93
Comment: Um, a Blue Jays comment. OK. Um. I like John Buck. He’s one of my favorite people in baseball. You know, he and his wife had twins. Yeah. Great guy. I really like John Buck. And Adam Lind can really crush the ball. Wait, I already said that about Lind? OK. I like John Buck.
* * *
American League Central
Best players, by position.
No. 1 starter: Zack Greinke, Kansas City.
No. 2 starter: Mark Buehrle, Chicago
No. 3 starter: Gavin Floyd, Chicago
Closer: Joe Nathan, Minnesota
Catcher: Joe Mauer, Minnesota
First base: Miguel Cabrera, Detroit
Second base: Gordon Beckham, Chicago
Shortstop: Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland
Third base: Brandon Inge, Detroit
Right field: Carlos Quentin, Chicago.
Center field: Grady Sizemore, Cleveland
Left field: Ryan Raburn, Detroit.
Best pitcher in the division: Zack Greinke. Justin Verlander, Jake Peavy and Mark Buehrle are awfully good.
Best player in the division: Joe Mauer.
And the predictions:
Minnesota: 91-71
Comment: What is wrong with Orlando Hudson? I mean, the league is not exactly overloaded with Gold Glove second basemen who punch up above average OPS+. And yet, the Blue Jays traded him away, the Diamondbacks did not seem especially interested in re-signing him, and the Dodgers seemed thoroughly unimpressed by him — benched him in the postseason. And teams were not exactly jumping over each other to sign him this offseason. Strange.
Chicago White Sox: 84-78
Comment: Good starting pitching, but it’s a weird looking lineup. One guy to watch: Mark Teahen. I know, I’ve been the leader of the Mark Teahen fan club for a while. But he’s back at his favorite position, third base, and he figures to play everyday, and that ballpark could help make him a 20-25 homer guy.
Detroit: 78-84
Comment: Will be weird to see the Tigers without Curtis Granderson in centerfield. But there will be a lot of power pitching with Verlander, Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer going 1-2-3 in the rotation.
Cleveland: 70-92
Comment: Here’s a pretty meaningless statistic for you — no player in American League history has had 30 homers, 30 stolen bases and 100 walks in a season. The closest was Grady Sizemore in 2008 with 33 homers, 38 stolen bases and 98 walks. Here’s hoping he’s healthy again; a healthy Sizemore is a special player. And the Indians really don’t have much else going for them. That pitching staff … yikes.
Kansas City: 64-98
Comment: Here’s what I tell Kansas City fans — any team that has Zack Greinke starting, Joakim Soria closing and Billy Butler in the middle of the lineup can get better pretty quickly. But the Royals’ off-season was baffling. … The Royals really are counting on Alex Gordon to emerge.
* * *
American League West
Best players, by position:
No. 1 starter: Felix Hernandez, Seattle
No. 2 starter: Cliff Lee, Seattle
No. 3 starter: Joe Saunders, Angels
Closer: Andrew Bailey, Oakland
First base: Kendry Morales, Angels
Second base: Ian Kinsler, Texas
Shortstop: Elvis Andrus, Texas
Third base: Chone Figgins, Seattle
Right field: Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle
Center field: Torii Hunter, Angels
Left field: Josh Hamilton, Texas
Best pitcher: King Felix over new teammate Cliff Lee. Not a lot of great starting pitching in this division … Ben Sheets could be a force for Oakland if he’s healthy.
Best player: Ichiro. There are not too many big-money talents in the division — best I can tell there are only four everyday players making eight-figure salaries in 2010. Hunter will make $18 million, Ichiro $17 million, Texas’ Michael Young $16 million and, lamentably for Oakland, Eric Chavez will make $12 million. Seattle’s Eric Byrnes will make $10 million, but Seattle will pay a tiny fraction of that.
And the predictions:
1. Seattle Mariners, 87-75.
Comment: The Mariners rather famously have gone after defense … and they should again be a spectacular defensive team. And with the acquisition of Figgins, Casey Kotchman and Milton Bradley they should score more runs. But while the Mariners are everyone’s favorite including my own going into the season, it is worth remembering that Seattle scored just 640 runs last year, dead last in the league by a longshot. That 640 runs was only better than TWO National League teams — and at last check they let the pitchers hit in that league.
2. California Angels, 85-77
Comment: The Angels lost staples Chone Figgins, Vlad Guerrero and John Lackey, not to mention Kelvim Escobar and basically replaced them all with a 35-year-old Hideki Matsui. Still, with the lack of star power in this division, the Angels still have a chance to win a fourth straight title.
3. Texas: 80-82
Comment: The Rangers have so much promising young pitching … and of course it comes just at a time where their once fearsome offense seems to be fading. Last year, the Rangers finished out of the Top 5 in runs scored for the first time since 2000.
4. Oakland: 71-91
Comment: Those of us who admire GM Billy Beane — and it’s a large group of us — keep waiting for something exciting to happen for this team. Three seasons of 76, 75 and 75 wins indicates a team running in place. The pitching staff is young and has some talent. Some of the hoarded prospects could be ready to emerge. The system still predicts another crummy season.
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A little respect for Aaron Hill, please. Despite the fact that I’m Canadian, I don’t like the Jays, but I’d take Hill over Pedroia, and I might even take Cano.
I think you may have made a mistake. The name Justin Verlander does not appear in the #2 or #3 spots in your AL Central starting pitching category….
JoPoz; in the NL Central Outfield…no Matt Holliday? Really? Hunter Pence?
The Twins will have a very disapointing season this year, possibly even a losing record. They were entirely creations of the Metrodome, and they willnot be able to maintain their home winning percentage without it. Not a knock on Mauer and all the talent there. Just a fact
A couple arguments.
First, Utley may very well be the third-best player behind Pujols and Mauer. The guy does EVERYTHING well, it’s ridiculous. BA, OBP, SLG, fielding range. He’s even ridiculously good on the basepaths.
Second, Lester is definitely better than Beckett and Lackey. Egos aside, if the Sox picked their opening day starter based on who they thought gave them the best chance to win, they’d pick Lester.
[...] RJ White wrote an interesting post today on  Here’s a quick excerpt  So, I have been playing around with a new baseball prediction system. I would like to tell you that it is complicated … and it is extremely complicated. But I don’t want to confuse the word “complicated” with “stupid. … [...]
James: Verlander is not a #2 or #3 pitcher.
Joe, there will be a (long) post detailing all the rules of your childhood version of Monopoly, right?
kcemigre: thanks for that! I thought he was just giving the top 3 pitchers in each division (and now some of the other “omissions” make more sense, too lol). Now I see what he did. My righteous Tigers’ anger has cooled down now. lol
Monopoly meets Calvinball! I love it.
Great post…and thankfully, nary a Hall of Fame reference to be seen. What is it about Americans that make them so uniquely keen to draw a line in the sand and point players to either side of it as Hall-worthy or unworthy? I don’t know of any other country where this kind of obsession exists on ANY level – people will talk about Player X being better than Player Y, and occasionally they’ll dig a bit deeper and wider than that, and very occasionally there will be something called a “Hall of Fame” for a particular sport and/or a particular country. But nobody cares or even thinks to formulate the sort of arguments that are so familiar on this and many other sites.
Are you saying, both statistical analysis and scouting are both fishy?
Wait, are you saying that Ryan Theriot is the best SS in the NL Central? Really? Holy crap that’s sad for the NL Central.
I am not going to say that this is the breakout season for A. Gordon, but if he can play a full season at his career avg. or slightly above, he is the best 3rd baseman in the AL Central. Although, if he did have a breakout season, that would be sweeter than Yoohoo!
Joe, you rained on my parade. Several projections systems have had the Reds as wild card contenders, but you have them being quite poor. I had been hopeful. Now, my shoes are soggy from waiting for the Mr. Redlegs balloon. Thanks.
WAR the last two seasons:
2009 – Nick Markakis, 4.6; J.D. Drew, 4.8
2008 – Markakis, 4.1; J.D. Drew, 4.2
So yeah, I don’t agree with your AL East right fielder rankings, Joe.
Wow, the AL Central OF is not exactly filled with the kind of players that other divisions seem to have…..
If only Santana and/or Garza was still a Twin….
I agree with your ranking pitchers relative to who they’ll face (in a way). If your number 2 and 3 pitchers are better than the other teams’ 2 and 3, that’s more important for the regular season than if your number 1 is better than everyone else in the division (see KC Royals….).
Is Russell Martin really the best catcher in the NL West? That’s horrifying.
Martin was once good, but he hit .250/.352/.329 last season. I mean, that’s Jason Kendall, right?
Note that each of the other teams in the division had a catcher that out-VORPed Martin last season. I think each is back with his team in 2010.
(The real answer is Miguel Montero, but really, it’s kind of “Anyone but Russell Martin.”)
2009-Nick Markakis, 25; J.D. Drew, 33
2008-Nicka Markakis, 24; J.D. Drew 32
I think Joe may be on to something here.
“2009 – Nick Markakis, 4.6; J.D. Drew, 4.8
2008 – Markakis, 4.1; J.D. Drew, 4.2″
What is the standard error on these numbers, however? Given sample size, I see these numbers as being approximately equal — thus no overall difference between the two players, given one accepts/respects WAR and the methods and theory behind it.
So big deal that Joe picked Markakis.
You cannot get away with a paragraph on the SF Giants without mentioning Kung-Fu Panda Sandoval. He has a totally different skill set than Mark Reynolds, but he should be challenging him for best 3b.
In the AL East you seem to be drawing distinctions between basically three players who have put up identical value over the past two years- A-Rod, Teixiera and Youk all have had basically a 960 ops with 400 obp and 560 slg. They are interchangable offensive players at the moment. A-Rod has more injury/age risk and plays a more difficult defensive position, Youk has positional flexibility and Teixiera plays the most games, but for 2010 you shouldn’t have more than a point difference between them.
Curtis Granderson 2010 is not the same player as Curtis Granderson 2007. In fact, I don’t see how CG2010 is an upgrade over Johnny Damon’s 2009. It’s basically a wash.
And Matsui’s gone. And Jeter, A-Rod, Posada are a year older. Sure, they’re going to score a ton of runs. But it will be fewer than last year, not more.
In my simplistic analysis of your analysis, I have decided that the playoff teams will be comprised of the clubs with the best No. 3 pitchers, plus a wildcard of the highest team you have ranked that didn’t have the best No. 3 pitcher. So here’s the lineup:
NL East: Alanta
NL Central: Chicago
NL West: Arizona
NL WC: Philadelphia
AL East: Boston
AL Central: Chicago
AL West: California
AL WC: New York
Call it the all ABC’s plus NY and Philly. Take it to Vegas, baby!
Joe,
Love this post and would love to see more of your player rankings.
Wanted to point out that you have the NL 6 games under .500 collectively and the AL 12 games over for a major league total of 6 games over (which obviously can’t happen), also there’s no AL West Catcher.
the other thing that’s sort of weird about this is that, with the exception of seattle, you’ve picked exactly the playoff roster that we saw last year. the national league is just about identical. and when does that ever happen?
I know we’ve been to the last two World Series and all, but it still brings tears of joy and disbelief to see these words — “The Phillies rank as the best team in the National League by quite a bit” — in print. It’s a bit like finding out that your dog is, and has been, all these years, actually a superhero in disguise. I guess Yankee fans are jaded by hearing their team described as the best in the league. Phillies phans aren’t.
Paul White @ 16, I must agree with #19 and #20 and add that J.D. played 246 games the last two years (and is known to take a few days off for a hangnail or stubbed toe) and Markakis played 318 games (or 6 less than the maximum he could have played)
Have a feeling there aren’t going to be many people joining in on Paul White’s defense of JD > Markakis. I’m a Sox fan, and I would readily make that exchange, taking into account their respective age, health, and overall gutsiness.
Hey, it’s close, so picking Markakis is fine and defensible, especially given Drew’s durability. He could get another hangnail and miss half the year, true enough. Still, when Drew plays, he’s better than Markakis. Despite playing only three-quarters of the games Markakis did, he still posted slightly better WAR scores, so he would be my choice.
dtro @19: Their respective ages are pretty much irrelevant to me, since the exercise wasn’t about who you’d take for the next five years, it’s who is the best for 2010. The one caveat I’ll throw in there is that if Markakis has a peak year, as aging patterns suggest he will, then I’ll probably be wrong.
Joe– enjoyed it. Also the post about Frank Thomas. Tulo is a below average shortstop for 2 months each season and the best in baseball for 4 months each season. If (when?) he learns to play in April and May he will be one of the greatest ever. Of course, that is barring a serious injury. Maybe this will be the year. Time will tell. This is the annual hope of all us Rockies fans.
@29 Paul White, how can ages be irrelevant? Drew has been injury prone throughout his career and going into 2010 Markakis will be 26 and Drew will be 34. I’m not implying Drew won’t be better or have a greater WAR, which to me, doesn’t necessarily mean he was better, but Markakis is entering his prime and rarely misses a game while Drew is moving farther from his prime each day. joe is simply predicting who will be better in 2010 at RF. If you’re going to disagree, fine, but provide more information than past season WAR. These are projections, not comparisons of past seasons exploits.
I would pick Markakis over Drew due to durability and the likelihood of increase/decrease in performance. It is likely that Markakis is heading up and Drew is not heading up.
This is the best part:
New York Mets: 82-80
The Mutts are so bad, their fans don’t let them play a full season.
I never realized that no ALer had done 30-30-100. Barry Bonds did it four times… I couldn’t find another by random guess-and-check. Mays didn’t walk 100 times until his age-40 season, Bobby Bonds’ closest was 39-43-87…
@ 33
Uhh…82+80=162…?
The California Angels at 85-77? Perhaps if Brian Downing doesn’t regress, Jack Howell can improve, and they get healthy seasons from Kirk McCaskill, Dan Petry and Willie Fraser. Otherwise, you’re asking too much of Devon White, Wally Joyner and Chuck Finley.
@ 33
Ah, I see you’ve stumbled on the paradox.
I’d love to see these lineups from each division play each other to determine the rankings of the divisions.
Jeremy,
Bagwell did it twice.
Abreu did it twice.
Just wanted to point out an error by your proofreader. They accidentally listed Freddy Sanchez as the best 2B in the NL West.
Matt Kemp, huh??
So, I guess along with multiplying by Pi, you’ve also added a vaunted “Banging Rihanna” Bonus.
I don’t know though…if I was a Dodger fan, I’d be worried she’d be more likely to have a Memo Paris rather than Kate Hudson effect.
/beats self in head to rid it of the “Umbrella-ella-ella” song
Brad @31: You lost me on the whole “these are projections, not comparisons of past season exploits” thing. What are projections other than educated guesses of the future based largely upon the past? I think past performance, particularly recent past performance, is pretty germane to the projection business.
To your main point about age, for this exercise, age doesn’t matter much to me at all because I just don’t see any markers for Drew to suddenly drop off in performance. He’s slugged and gotten on base at rates above his career average each of the last two seasons. His UZR has improved each of the past two years. In short, there’s no sign his performance is going to drop any time soon. Durability will always be a concern with him, as I have already acknowledged, but I think it’s very reasonable to project that his performance when he does play will be at his normal level for at least one more year, and that level is historically better than Nick Markakis.
Now, as I also already said, Markakis certainly could reach a new peak this year and surpass Drew, and if that happens I’ll likely be wrong in projecting Drew to be the better player this year. And, obviously, if this was a game to pick the right fielder you’d want for the next five years, Markakis would clearly get the nod.
I can see why you’d not want to pick a “best” catcher in the AL West. How about a “least bad” catcher?
Let’s see where to start? Total wins does not equal total losses. It’s close, but still needs some work. Three extra wins by my count. Your methodology is worthy of a FJM post.
benny:
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2005/04/wisdom-of-crowds.html
Joe, your projection passes the smell test. It didn’t put the Yankees in 3rd place or have them winning only 92 games. Kudos to you.
Joe
Love your work, but some weird reasoning on Ellsbury vs. Cameron.
Maybe the Red Sox just though Cameron was better in CF than Ellsbury? Not the craziest thought. Doesn’t mean they agree with Jacoby’s negative UZR. For instance, when Manny Ramirez had a +11 UZR in 2003, the Red Sox didn’t exactly endorse the defensive stats when they put him on irrevocable waivers.
Frankly, I don’t think either decision had much to do with defensive stats.
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“No. 1 pitcher: Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
No. 2 pitcher: Cole Hamels, Philadelphia
No. 3 pitcher: Jair Jurrjens, Alanta.”
And just think how truly historic the Phillies 2010 season would have been had they kept Cliff Lee…
No. 1 pitcher: Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
No. 2 pitcher: Cliff Lee, Philadelphia
No. 3 pitcher: Cole Hamels, Philadelphia
Paul @42, when you’re projecting 2010 performance, 2008-2009 performance will obviously be a big factor, but you just can’t neglect age, even when you’re only looking at one year. When a player is turning 34, you should expect that player to be in a decline phase, even if his recent seasons have been good or trending upwards. That doesn’t mean you should project him to have a bad season entirely due to age, or that he can’t continue an upward trend–it just means that the most likely scenario is one in which his 2010 performance is somewhat worse than his 2009 performance. Conversely, for a player on the younger side of 28, you’d expect a better 2010 than 2009. If you say Markakis and Drew were similarly valuable in 2008-2009, and you bump Markakis up a bit and Drew down a bit, it’s pretty reasonable to project Markakis to have the better 2010.
@43
Mike Napoli is a good catcher, though Scioscia likes to play Jeff Mathis a lot for some reason. And Kurt Suzuki is very underrated.
Joe there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics like UZR
My guess on the methodology.
1. Rank 8 offensive players from 45-80. Take previous year’s stats and adjust up or down depending on age. Add or subtract points depending on the awesomeness of their facial hair.
2. Rank 4 pictchers (SP1, 2, 3, RP) from 45-80.
3. Add them up and divide by 10. This equals team wins.
4. Do some fudging to have total league wins equal total leagues losses (or at least get it within 3).
I thought I was pretty smart with my guess when I put together a team entirely with 45′s and got 52 wins. I then maxed out a team with nothing by 80′s and only got to 96 wins. Either I am very wrong of #4 is some seriously good fudge.
Joe, am I right that you excluded the DH in the AL? Didn’t see them listed in your best player in each division.
@ Paul White
So the players are so close that it wasn’t worth calling out in the first place? And you’ll likely be wrong regardless? And not one sane Sox fan would take Drew over Markakis? Thanks for stopping in Paul. You’re a joy.
Heard it from a friend, who … heard it from a friend, who …
Joe,
Speaking of baseball in February, I have something of a dilemma…
I’ve been running a fantasy baseball league of some kind since I was 12 years old. In its heyday, (circa 2000) the (Yahoo!) league fielded 20 teams, with huge rosters (A full infield plus additional MI, CI, and IF spots, five outfielders, two util slots and a six-man bench) making it a league so deep that players like Ben Petrick and Jeff D’Amico could be huge assets.
But some of my core participants have ‘matured’ over the years. They have wives, and mortgages, and student loan payoffs, and some have stopped obsessing about baseball enough to make it fun for everyone else.
So, I was wondering if I could put out an open invitation to you and your brilliant readers, to see if anyone wanted to add a super-deep competitive league to their usual rotation of fantasy leagues.
We’ve got a very interesting group, including a number of writers who excel at artful message board tauntings. But frankly, we need new blood. I really do not want to run one of those ersatz mini-fantasy leagues where everyone fields an all-star team. That is no fun.
If anyone is interested in joining, feel free to e-mail me at russ@mepreport.com.
Thanks,
The Lonely Commish
Best 3b in NL West? Pablo Sandoval! I think he can also be put into discussion for best player in division.
Have you noticed that 3b seems to be pretty stacked in the NL; Wright, Zimmerman, Chipper, Panda, Reynolds
Sobering thought … I don’t know that I’d bet on either of the two Central Division “best of” teams finishing higher than third in the AL East.
Call me crazy, but Franklin Gutiérrez > Torii Hunter.
Also, what about predictions for AL and NL Cy Youngs, RoY, and MVPs?
“So, apparently, the Red Sox believe the defensive stats might have had a point… ”
I’m not taking the time to read the 60 comments which precede me, so I’ll have to assume that I’m not the first person to point out that the sentence should read, “Not surprisingly, Bill James believes the defensive stats might have had a point…”
Phenomenal, as always, Joe. Thanks.
Joe … you confirmed once again – how awful the Tribe is gonna be. (sigh). Even after the blockbuster signing of Mark Grudzielanak…. it appears they are second city material … again!
@ Barack Obama (#4): You said this was “Just a fact.” I’m pretty sure you handed us an opinion there, buddy. “Entirely creations of the Metrodome.” Ok, what is your defense for that argument?
*insert “That guy is acting like the real Obama” joke here*
I agree Joe, you forgot to mention Aaron Hill’s monster season with the Blue Jays. Plus, were you trying to say Jesse Carlson or Josh Barfield? To my knowledge, there is no such player as Jesse Barfield,* and Josh Barfield is with the Indians.
* Edit: Jesse Barfield played from 1981-1992 with the Blue Jays and Yankees, peaking with a .289/.368/.559 with 40 HR and 107 RBI in 1986. I understand your joke now.
@ James (#2): I believe Joe counted Verlander as the #1 starter for Detroit, which made him lose out to Greinke.
[pozposter]
Joe,
I can’t believe you picked Player X as the best shortstop in the division. Surely everybody knows that Player Y is better. And what about player C in center field, and Player D in right? Those guys are clearly the best in the division, way better than the losers you picked. Just because they play on Team A doesn’t mean you have to ignore them. You must have something against Team A. [/pozposter]
I entirely disagree with # 64. he has it almost exactly backwards.
man, the irony of josh(22)’s post is pretty amusing. So you first make the completely legitimate point that Curtis Granderson is not the same player in 2010 as he was in 2007, then you completely ignore the whole premise of that point in suggesting that Curtis Granderson in 2010 has to be better than Johnny Damon of 2009 to be an improvement? Did you somehow miss the fact that the Yanks didn’t have a chance to sign the Johnny Damon of 2009 to a contract in the off-season? I’m sure if they knew for sure he would have put up the exact same numbers this year as he did last year that they would have signed him back.
Trust the System.
Where’s the love for Aaron Hill?
He’s progressing to be the AL version of Chase Utley. In an unfriendlier lineup, and ballpark no less.
The best centerfielder in the AL West is Franklin Gutierrez. And it’s not close.
Adam Jones over Brett Gardner?
This is an outrage!
Joe, you wrote “And it so rarely happens that all goes right.”
A team that had it all go right last year was the Yankees. They had 4 starters who made at least 31 starts. Their 39 year old closer had one of the best seasons of his career. And offensively, everybody met or exceeded their 2009 projections.
If you look at Marcel, Chone, PECOTA, every single starter, except ARod, exceeded all of the projections for SLG. ARod’s .532 SLG was worse than 2 of the 3 projections. Everybody else was higher than projected.
Only ARod, Melky and Matsui had lower BAs than the highest projected number: ARod .294 (actual .286), Melky .280 (actual .276), Matsui .277 (actual .274).
Only Posada, Teixeira and Melky didn’t reach the projections for OBP: Posada .363 (projected .374), Teixeira .383 (proj .387), and Melky .336 (proj .345).
And some of the players were way over their projections, like Jeter’s OBP of .406 when the highest projection was .370. Or Posada’s SLG of .532 vs. highest projection of .466. Or Cano’s BA of .320 vs highest projection of .300.
It was remarkable, especially considering the age of some of their players. Joe Girardi did a good job last year, I guess, but how could he not have?
Regarding the prediction about the Mets, I believe that like last year, the players’ health will determine how well the team plays. Finishing the season at 82-80 may be very generous considering that outside of signing Jason Bay, the Mets didn’t make much noise during the offseason (ok, so they signed Henry Blanco for catcher). The team didn’t make many moves regarding pitching, so they’ll have to hope that the good side of the two-headed Oliver Perez monster stays around. If the Mets are healthy next season, I see them with about a 77-85 record, but if it’s a repeat of last season, I’m sorry to say but my team will probably find its way to the division basement.
Not to re-open the Drew vs. Markakis can of worms, but that comparison comes into play in other debates. Meaning sometimes we look at qualitative stats OPS+, ERA+, etc and decide player M had a better season or career than player R. However, those stats don’t always tell the whole story. If one player shows up ready to play everyday that has to have a value as compared to a player the team never knows whether he will feel up to playing. Unless the unreliable player is much, much, much better when he does play, then he is not as valuable. Look at it from a non-baseball perspective. If you have two employees who perform about the same and you have to let one go because of budget cuts. Do you can the one who shows up everyday or do you can the one who a few times each month doesn’t bother coming to work? Always has nice excuses, but the excuses don’t get trucks onloaded or reports submitted, etc.
Nice, fun stuff and pretty much what I expect. One small thing though: Jair Jurrjens ist not the No 3 guy in Atlanta, he’s actually more like the ace. If the Braves would score some runs for him once in while (unlikely) and played good defense (even more unlikely) he would be in Cy Young Contention. You can put him at No. 2 but ahead of Hanson anyway. By the way, since the Royals don’t need a closer, could you tell Dayton Moore to trade Soria to the Braves for Chavez or Acosta? No?
@66 missed my point, so I guess I wasn’t all that clear.
1. Joe said the Yankees were loaded last year
2. And got better
3. I think they didn’t get any better offensively, and
4. They may have gotten worse.
My hunch is that Granderson 2010 is going to be about as valuable as Damon 2009 — meaning that he won’t really help their offense (plus defense). Matsui was replaced by Nick Johnson who is always hurt.
The Yankees won’t score more runs in 2010 than they did in 2009.
The greatest Dayton Moore quote in a while, from today’s KC Star:
“I love the moves that we’ve made this offseason,” he asserted. “We wanted to get more athletic, and we wanted more team speed. (We wanted) guys who could play better defense. And for a little over $8 million, we’ve added Chris Getz, Josh Fields, Rick (Ankiel), Scott Podsednik, Jason Kendall, Noel Arguelles and Brian Anderson.”
Yippee!!!
Jim-EN-ez.
doug:
i wouldn’t necessarily call 82-80 “very generous”. the mets were predicted to me 86-76 last year by Baseball Prospectus, and the only truly noteworthy differences between this time last year and now are sheffield vs bay and delgado vs murphy*. the mets were not only injury-prone last year (which affected nearly everyone on the roster, including guys who were playing all the time), but they were unlucky as well. BP’s adjusted standings for last year had them at 72-76 wins (3rd order wins being the higher number). i’d say that if the mets were totally healthy, i wouldn’t be surprised if they got at least 82 wins. anyway, as a fellow mets fan, i feel compelled to share some actual optimism about oliver perez:
http://fonzieforever.blogspot.com/2010/01/oliver-perez-will-be-our-2-starter-in.html
*which makes you wonder why we’re signing guys like mike jacobs and not guys like russell branyan — still available, by the way — who would provide a good lefty/righty platoon, provide some power, and who could even provide experience as a platoon player. branyan is a perfect fit for the mets, but they seem more interested in guys like rod barajas.
I like Paul White.
Jhonny Peralta needs to be moved down, Joe.
League average bat on the decline, crappy defense.
I hope that, even though you have us 64-98, you will still be publishing your column on why the royals will win the division!
It is my favorite column of the year
Joe,
Clearly, the Orioles, Jays and Rays don’t have a chance. Will any of these cities have baseball in 2020? Without a salary cap, I don’t see how.
[...] Joe Faux-Pasnanski Jump to Comments I like Joe, I really do. I enjoy reading him; I think he’s a really bright guy. But I have to call him out for an excerpt I read from one of his most recent blog posts. The post in question can be read in its full entirety here. [...]
OK, Ellsbury might not be great defender, but there is no way he’s below average. There’s got to be something wrong (or exception or outliers or..) with that defensive stat.
I know range and jump on the ball are subjective, but you have to watch the guy to see it.
All these player names remind me that sure, the Royals suck and will for the forseeable future. But for a very short period they had the best double play to first names in mlb history:
Graffanino to Grudzielanek to Mientkiewicz
Say that ten times in a hurry.
One of my earliest memories was at Campanella night, and the lights out Coliseum lit by matches and cigarette lighters in tribute to that great, crippled Dodger catcher. Since then I’ve seen a lot of Dodger catchers, most of whom featured defense over offense: Roseboro, Torborg, Yeager, Ferguson, Scioscia, Piazza, LoJuicer, and now Russell Martin.
When Dionner Navarro got injured, and Martin came up, in his first game be prevented a wild pitch on a slider in the dirt by sliding WAYYY to his right and getting his entire body in front of the pitch, something I could not recall any Dodger catcher doing as well. Ever. I turned to my mom (we were watching the game) and said, “That was a special play. That guy can really catch.” I mean, Yeager was a great defensive catcher, and Scioscia blocked the plate like nobody’s business, and Torborg and Roseboro were both fine. But Martin combined a total lack of concern for getting injured by a bad hop with more mobility than I’ve ever seen. Maybe Bob Boone had as much mobility, earlier in his career. Maybe.
Last year, a year in which the Dodgers basically ran away with the division (yes, the Rockies made it close at the end, but only for the title, not for making the playoffs), and a year in which Brad Ausmus hit like never before while still fielding like Brad Ausmus as Martin’s backup catcher, IIRC Martin still led the league (or was it the majors?) in innings caught. And Martin just isn’t the right body type to do that. Some catchers can catch a lot by being big and sturdy (Bench, Piazza). Some can catch a lot by being wiry and resilient and thin enough to avoid getting hit by lots of bad hops and foul tips (Boone, who was 4 inches taller and 15 pounds lighter than Martin). Martin isn’t big enough to be sturdy and isn’t wiry enough to avoid tips. He still caught the most games in the division and led NLW catchers in fielding statistics (31% of baserunners caught, surprisingly passing Bengie Molina)/
This will probably be a make or break year for Martin’s career. If Torre limits Martin to 120 or so games behind the plate, I think Martin can return to the GG/SS form of just three years ago. If Martin catches another 137-149 games, then he likely will continue his downward trend. For his career: .800 OPS first half, .744 second half, which reflects fatigue from catching too much. Also worth noting: 1H of the season, better than 75% base stealer; 2H, 62%. I also saw some games late the last two seasons where Martin didn’t have that great speed to block a pitch to the side. It looked to me like he was just plain tired.
Montero is probably the best hitting catcher in the division, but only probably. For his career, Martin’s OPS+ is 103, Montero’s is 95, and Martin has played a lot more games, caught a lot more games, and both have been in the bigs four seasons. If we’re looking at just one season, okay, Montero’s best season (2009) was better than Martin’s worst (2009) offensively. Maybe catching 27 fewer games really helped Montero that much. Of course, if Montero fielded like Martin, maybe he’d get overused as well.
Reaaly? No one gets it? Even after that player ranking intro? Even after Benny points out the classic W/L math problem?
[...] favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, has developed a baseball prediction system of his own. He describes it in perfect detail when he says: In my prediction system, I basically [...]
NL Central…
I would take the Cardinals entire outfield over that one, and SS too
hawk,
Ellsbury has excellent speed, but often misreads the ball right off the bat and is sometimes indecisive on balls that end up landing right in front of him. Last year’s UZR is perhaps a bit harsh, but he can’t really be much above average as a CF.
speedracer,
OK I am willing to concede that he might misread the ball once in a while(who really doesn’t?).Fom my experience (I ‘ve watched at least 60 % of his games) I actually feel good when theball is hit to centerfield.
If you think about it, given his speed (leads the AL in steals last 2 years) , he must be some fumbling idiot to be the worst defensive outfielder. I just don’t see it. I don’t think he is below average defensive CF. Would you be concerned about his defense if he was your CF?
I disagree on c c Sebathia being the best in the National League East broh…
[...] first the issue was transparency – I understand the concepts of WAR, UZR, and WPA, but I have never seen the formulae. I [...]
“Last year, I picked Zack Greinke to win the Cy Young Award … probably my best baseball pick prediction ever. This year, I’m thinking a lot about Ubaldo Jiminez.”