Strength of Schedule

As we saw from the projected standings I recently posted, I consider the AL East the majors’ most-stacked division (duh!), with three teams forecast to win at least 94 games, and the eventual runner-up likely to win the league’s wild card. The NL East features three strong teams as well, with the second-place club likely to be in the thick of the wild card hunt. Given that these contenders’ interleague slates vary – the Mets play the Yankees six times due to their “natural rivalry,” and likewise for the Braves vs. Red Sox, but the Phillies draw the considerably weaker Blue Jays, and the Rays face the Marlins – it’s worth gauging the impact of the differing schedules.

To evaluate this, I used the aforementioned projected records to calculate the opponents’ winning percentages for all 30 teams, not only for the entire season, but also month-by-month and half-by-half so as to better appreciate the schedule’s contours. Instead of using the raw projected winning percentages, I applied two adjustments based on data from the last three years, one to account for the home team winning 55% of the time, and the other for the AL winning 58% of interleague games. This is a relatively simple task; a 25-point (.025) bonus or tax is applied based on whether the opponent is at home or on the road, and a 40-point (.040) one is applied for interleague play.

Thus when the Athletics (.519) play the Giants (.469) at the Coliseum, the latter’s adjusted winning percentage is recorded as .469 – .025 – .040 = .404. When they play at AT&T Park, it’s recorded as .469 + .025 – .040 = .454. From the Giants’ point of view, the Athletics are a .584 team (.519 + .025 + .040) in Oakland and a .534 team (.519 – .025 + .040) in San Francisco. Applying these adjustments uniformly is fairly crude, since it may be true that more extreme teams on either end of the spectrum have differing home/road or interleague splits, but for this exercise, it’s what we’re using.

Below are the full-season strength-of-schedule measurements:

Team Opp W%
Marlins .519
Orioles .514
Blue Jays .513
Nationals .512
Rockies .507
Padres .506
Pirates .506
Phillies .506
Braves .505
Mets .504
Red Sox .504
Giants .503
Astros .503
Yankees .501
Rangers .501
White Sox .500
Rays .500
Cardinals .498
Brewers .497
Reds .496
Royals .496
Mariners .494
Angels .493
Twins .493
Athletics .493
Dodgers .492
D’backs .492
Indians .491
Tigers .490
Cubs .488

As you marvel at the brutality facing the bottom two clubs in the two Easts, consider the following:

• Among contenders within the same division, full-season strength-of-schedule effects are overstated in the grand scheme of things. Only in the NL Central do the top two teams have more than three points (.003, or a half a game over the course of 162 games) of schedule difference between them; the nine-point advantage in that division equals roughly a game and a half over the course of 62 games) of scheduling difference between them. The top pairs in both Wests are effectively even. The NL East’s top trio, who have the toughest schedules of any contenders, are separated by just two points. These distinctions aren’t minor if they pertain to your chances, but in the big picture, injuries, reliever leverage, and players dramatically over- or under-performing relative to expectations will go further to shape the final standings.

• Among NL wild card contenders, strength of schedule should have a more drastic effect. The schedules of the Dodgers and Diamondbacks measure out at a .492 opponent winning percentage, while those of the Mets, Phillies, and Braves come in between .504 and .506, about a two-game difference. The Brewers, who with an 83-win projection need all the help they can get, catch a break facing opponents with a .497 winning percentage.

• Though the differences between division contenders are small, the breakdowns by half (before and after the All-Star break) are more pronounced. In the NL West, the Dodgers’ first-half slate measures out at .499, while the Diamondbacks’ is just .489. In the second half, L.A. plays the third-easiest schedule (.485) of any team, while Arizona faces a .496 slate. Coupling those splits with the likelihood that the Dodgers will be better able to take on salary at the trading deadline than the Snakes, and it’s not hard to imagine a race following a similar pattern to last year, with the Dodgers staying close in the first half and then breezing in the second.

• In the AL Central, the tables could turn almost perfectly. The Indians (.498 before, .481 after) and Tigers (.482, .498) both face the league’s easiest schedule in one half. Interleague play against the relatively weak NL Central helps account for the weakness of the Tigers’ early schedule, while the Tribe’s easier second half includes 10 games against the Mariners (seven of them at home), 12 games against the Twins (split evenly home and road) and six games hosting the Rangers. Note that Cleveland’s first half is actually the league’s sixth-hardest, and that at a projected 86 wins, the Indians aren’t exactly a powerhouse themselves. We might expect, as in 2006 and 2008, for them to stumble out of the gate but pick up momentum as the season progresses. Whether Eric Wedge is around to see that through is another matter.

• Thanks to their six-pack with the Yankees and the East-vs.-East pairings, the Mets have by far the toughest interleague schedule at .611, followed by the Marlins (.585), Braves (.575) and Phillies (.568). On the other side of the coin, the Tigers (.440), Royals (.441), Rangers (.444) and Rays (.444) have the easiest interleague draws. Among AL teams, the White Sox play the toughest interleague schedule (.484), followed by the Yankees (.480) and Red Sox (.475).

• As for September/October schedules, the Yankees have a slight advantage in the AL East at .507, compared to the Rays at .510 and the Red Sox at .512. Note that the Rays host the Yanks for the season’s final three games, while the Sox host the Indians. In the AL West, the A’s (.475) have a large advantage over the Angels (.495). In the NL East, the Phillies (.479) get the favorable draw relative to the Mets (.491) and Braves (.493), and in the NL West, the fates are with the Dodgers (.463) instead of the Diamondbacks (.496).

• Given Cole Hamel’s early elbow problems, the Phillies are lucky they have the easiest schedule of any team in April (.471). The defending champions had better get their house in order by June, because they’ll face the toughest schedule of any team in any month at .551. In a virtual tie for second-hardest month is Oakland’s July (.550), which could trigger another fire sale at the trading deadline if the youngsters on the team don’t hold up their end.

As for our heroes, the strength of their opponents breaks down by month thusly:

April .520
May .507
June .501
July .452
Aug .498
Sep/Oct .520

So the Giants start off with a relatively tough schedule in April. (But again, look at the poor Marlins; the Giants’ April is almost the same as the Marlins schedule for the entire season!) In fact, if the Giants can make it through April and May at roughly .500, they may still be within shouting distance of first place. If they can capitalize on the relatively weak opponents they face in July and August, maybe – just maybe – they will be in contention late in the season. Of course, they might have to trade pitching for hitting at the deadline to accomplish that. Let’s just hope that Sabean, if he makes a dramatic move, doesn’t mortgage the future, nor evaluate potential hitting acquisitions the way he did Aaron Rowand.

 

NL Predictions

My predictions for this year’s National League standings aren’t likely to receive much brotherly love, since I see the defending world champions finishing with 87 wins, second to the Mets in the NL East, and a game short of the wild card. I think the Phillies’ offense will match last year’s (although Raul Ibanez is a definite downgrade and one of the worst of the off-season free-agent signings), but the pitching is poised for a major drop. Although the staff has seen upgrades; a full year of Joe Blanton and league-average pitching from fifth-starter candidates Chan Ho Park and J. A. Happ make for a stronger back end of the rotation. Their problems start with the improbability of Cole Hamels matching last year’s 3.09 ERA over a career-high 227 innings (plus another 35 in the postseason). I also see regression to the mean for bullpen studs Brad Lidge and Ryan Madson.

I expect the Mets to christen their new ballpark with a 92-win season and the division flag. While they could have done more to patch their rotation and their outfield corners, the bullpen makeover – starring Francisco Rodriguez and J. J. Putz – squarely addresses last year’s biggest flaw, and David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran are three of the league’s ten most valuable hitters. Also in the hunt are the Braves, who not only feature three players who are the best or second-best at their positions (Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, and Kelly Johnson), but can boast adding the Derek Lowe-Javier Vazquez tandem to their rotation.

Over in the NL Central, the Cubs will have the league’s highest win total (95), as well as the largest margin (11 games) over the second-place team (the Brewers). The division could be a closer contest if Carlos Zambrano’s shoulder problems return, or if oft-injured Milton Bradley and Rich Harden can’s approach their playing time projections. The Brew Crew’s winter blueprint consisted of trying to replace the departed CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets with Braden Looper (good luck with that), and still figure to be respectable (84 wins), but not much more than that, particularly with ace-in-waiting Yovani Gallardo capped at 150 innings due to workload concerns. They’ll scuffle with the 83-win Cardinals, whose hopes of soaring higher hinge upon Chris Carpenter, and the 79-win Reds, whose fate could improve if the much-touted maturation of Homer Bailey (80 innings last year with a dreadful 5.62 ERA) is for real. The Cards are dragged down by a truly awful defense; the Reds are limited by Dusty Baker’s insistence upon not only playing Willy Tavares regularly, but sticking him in the leadoff spot.

The Central forecasts as the league’s weakest division according to overall winning percentage (.488) because of the two doormats, the Astros and Pirates. The 64-win Bucs are a lock for their 17th consecutive losing season, while the 69-win Astros are poised for a 17-win drop-off from last year. The latter finished nine games above their Pythagorean record last year, so they’re an easy bet to regress, and the combination of an inflexible payroll hamstrung by a few big contracts, the worst farm system in the game, and a rotation relying upon Brian Moehler and the undead Mike Hampton and Russ Ortiz add up to one more chance to invoke the time-honored phrase, “Houston, we have a problem.”

The Dodgers took home last year’s Mild Mild West flag with a paltry 84 wins, but their current forecast calls for a robust 92 victories thanks to the maturation of their homegrown talent. Led by young studs Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and Jonathan Broxton, their staff should be the league’s best. On the flip side, their offense projects to finish fifth in scoring, thanks largely to Manny Ramirez and a team OBP that should rank at or near the top of the league.

As for the Diamondbacks, their 88-win forecast makes them the favorite for the wild card. Despite a winter which saw them shed several key free agents (Orlando Hudson, Randy Johnson, Adam Dunn, Juan Cruz) and skimp on their replacements due to economic concerns, they forecast to be solid in both scoring (sixth) and pitching (fifth), thanks to an enviable young nucleus of their own in Chris Young, Stephen Drew, Conor Jackson and Justin Upton, not to mention Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, who I think will be two of baseball’s four most valuable pitchers.

At the end of the day, my projections are not destiny. There are thousands of probabilities for all the players involved. Which teams will break out beyond my projections, or underachieve relative to them, is part of the fun of watching the season unfold.

NL W-L RS RA
Cubs 95-67 861 726
Mets 92-70 825 721
Dodgers 92-70 819 714
D’backs 88-74 815 741
Phillies 87-75 828 769
Braves 86-76 799 742
Brewers 84-78 785 754
Cardinals 83-79 787 767
Reds 79-83 762 775
Nationals 77-85 780 819
Giants 76-86 683 717
Padres 72-90 679 753
Marlins 71-91 727 824
Rockies 71-91 842 951
Astros 69-93 704 811
Pirates 64-98 709 875

 

AL Predictions

My friend Ombudsben runs a pool every season in which we pick the league-wide order-of-finish for all the teams in the majors.  Bettors are assigned points for how far off they are on each team.  For example, if I pick the Yankees to finish at the top of the AL and they finish third, I get two points (3-1=2).  The participant with fewest points wins the pool.  I won the pool two years ago, but not last season (despite picking the Rays to finish with the fifth-best record in the AL).  I thought this year, I’d share my picks, all of which were made on April 5.

Let’s make something clear: There is method to my madness.  I go about this by predicting runs scored and allowed for each team, and the records are simply a function of that. I make some minor adjustments to correct for rounding errors and the possible impact of a particularly strong or weak bullpen, but for the most part, I’m concerned with runs.  We simply don’t have much evidence that outside the effect of a bullpen, teams can distribute their runs in a way that gives them a leg up on the Pythagorean formula.  So my predictions, and my evaluations of them, focus on runs.  Nailing a team’s record, but being off by 70 runs of differential is a bug, not a feature.

We’ll start with the American League, where, in the East, once again we have the three best teams fighting for the two playoff spots that go with the division title and the wild card.  In the AL Central, all five teams have reasonable hope.  In the AL West, three teams have a decent chance to make the post-season.  When at least 11 of 14 teams have statistically reasonable chances of making the playoffs, you can’t call it parity because of those beasts in the East, but you can call it entertaining.

I expect us to see a milder West in 2009.  Although the Angels won 100 games last season, that was in no small part because of them outperforming their expected finish by 13 games.  Operate from that starting point, delete Mark Teixeira, and anticipate a good amount of lost ground from the pitching staff – especially Joe Saunders, but also from a bullpen that helped the Angels finish an MLB-best 31-21 in one-run games – and you’ve got a .500 ball club.  I think that lets the Athletics nose slightly ahead with a much-improved offense, but questions about their rotation and health will make for two teams with bids fragile enough that the Mariners could sneak into the picture.

The Central’s fun because it’s tight.  From the Indians’ projected 86 wins to the Royals’ last-place tally of 75, there is no division quite so competitive top to bottom.  The Indians’ bid would be a lot more secure if they could guarantee big bouncebacks from Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner, not to mention a completely ready Matt LaPorta, to give their lineup some big bats behind Grady Sizemore.  Run prevention is a source of concern.  Does anyone know what comes next for Cliff Lee, let alone Fausto Carmona?  Will Kerry Wood provide stability for the bullpen?  The Indians look like a mediocre contender on my list below, but there’s enough upside play to make the Tribe the one team in the Central with a solid shot at 90 wins.

For the rest, the Tigers’ decision to copy the Rays and go for an infield makeover keeps them closest to the Tribe, but here again, questions over which starters they can count on make them an unpredictable commodity.  It’s for that reason that the White Sox and Twins can make sustained plays for the title – both teams have quality at the front end of their rotations that could propel either back to the postseason.  If the White Sox get good work from Jose Contreras and/or Bartolo Colon to give their power-driven lineup enough winnable ballgames, the Sox might have the laugh on me.  If the Twins can find a way to shore up one of the league’s weaker offenses, they’re also in the hunt, although losing Joe Mauer early reflects how little the franchise has to go on once you get past a few key hitters.  The Royals become least-likely because they have problems on both sides of the ball.  Getting more offense from slow-developing sluggers like Alex Gordon and Billy Butler could compensate for the shortcomings of Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs as middle-of-the-order power sources.

Which brings us to the East, where three teams enter, but only two teams leave.  Which one gets left behind?  The cream of the league is so tightly grouped that it’s easy to envision play-in games after the regular season, and all three teams can already be second-guessed.  Going without an A-Rod replacement during his injury-induced absence?  Sending down David Price?  Missing Manny?  Where the Rays have a young team built to last and the Red Sox have a core of talent that should be shored up in-season with reinforcements, the Yankees have to hope this year’s bought-and-paid-for team gels fast.  With this winter’s gig-ticket free agents added to aging pillars Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte, can they make my expectation that theirs is the game’s best pitching staff stand up?  If A. J. Burnett comes up short or Joba Chamberlain breaks down, you can kiss that league-best record good-bye, see another Bomber-free October, and watch for the long knives in the Bronx.

Even the teams you have to feel for have reasons to feel good.  While the Blue Jays and Orioles are doomed to the bottom of baseball’s best division, both feature worthwhile prospects worth following – starting off with Matt Wieters in Baltimore and Travis Snider in Toronto – with more to come at the end of the season.  The Orioles and Rangers can’t really anticipate changing fortunes until two of the best collections of young pitching anywhere in baseball begin to come up towards the end of the season, while the Jays have to hope another season squandered on long-term deals with offensive mediocrities doesn’t whittle down what interest remains in any pitching staff that can boast Doc Halladay’s latest bid for a Cy Young award.

AL                W-L        RS   RA

Yankees           99-63       801   634

Red Sox           95-67       846   715

Rays              94-68       814   690

Indians           86-76       818   774

Athletics         84-78       781   755

Angels            81-81       777   777

Tigers            80-82       789   802

Mariners          77-85       719   753

Blue Jays         76-86       713   755

White Sox         76-86       779   828

Twins             76-86       746   792

Royals            75-87       737   792

Orioles           75-87       822   891

Rangers           70-92       795   909

 

Fun With Comparables – Second Basemen

The Giants have a competition of sorts for the second-base position.  Yet, coming off a strong Arizona Fall League showing (.331/.392/.421) that mimicked his career minor-league line (.327/.391/.458), Kevin Frandsen is the favorite to win the second-base job. His first comparable player is Kevin Sefcik, who spent portions of six years as a back-up for the Phillies in the 1990s, hitting more or less (.275/.351/.371) what we might reasonably expect Frandsen to hit at the major-league level.

Mark DeRosa, Frandsen’s second comp, has had the career that might be considered Frandsen’s upside. The University of Pennsylvania Quakers’ quarterback was drafted by the Braves in the seventh round of the 1996 draft. He’s not been fazed by any of the innumerable new responsibilities he’s been handed over the years, and has become a bit of a super-utilityman. (Despite DeRosa’s many uses, the Cubs traded him in his last contract year to the Tribe, and while that should have provided the Indians a ready excuse to move Jhonny Peralta to third and Asdrubal Cabrera to short, it appears they’ll put DeRosa at third and simultaneously play three infielders at their second-best defensive positions.)

DeRosa’s power spike last year shouldn’t be expected every season. As a matter of fact, DeRosa can be a bit streaky. After missing most of April 2006 with a sprained ankle, DeRosa rejoined the Cubs roster and tore the cover off the ball. At the end of June, he was hitting .346/.401/.514. But 31-year-old infielders rarely morph into Ty Cobb-hitting outfielders overnight, and DeRosa came back to earth, batting a more DeRosa-like .265/.333/.423 the rest of the way. The Tribune Company, of course, bought the May-June surge and gave DeRosa his current contract. Should Frandsen surf a similar wave in 2009, let’s hope the Giants don’t start shoveling money his way.

Steve Dillard, Frandsen’s third comp, spent seven years (not counting one game in 1975) as a utility infielder for the Red Sox, Tigers, White Sox and Cubs. He hit .243/.297/.343. Joe Strain, the fourth comp, was a Giant (1979-80) and then a Cub (1981) and hit .250/.292/.288 in 572 career at-bats. Giants fans hope Frandsen does better than either. What Frandsen has going for him are work ethic and contact-rate. But he doesn’t draw many walks, has middling power, and is an average fielder. All of those things may be an improvement over last year’s second basemen, but they should mean the Giants are still looking to plug that hole.

 

Comparing First Basemen

For our second installment of “Fun With Comparables,” we’re going to look at the Travis Ishikawa, who will get the chance this year to build on his 2008 minor-league breakout season.  Ishikawa’s first comp is Garrett Jones, currently 28, whose only major-league experience was with the 2006 Twins.  In 84 plate appearances, he hit .208/.262/.338.  Guys who can’t field have to be monsters with the bat, and Jones isn’t.  Ishikawa, on the other hand, is a excellent defensive first baseman who will take the occasional walk.  Jones mastered neither skill.  Now a Pirate, Jones is waiting for something bad to happen to Adam LaRoche.

Ishikawa’s second comp, is listed as “Mike Hocutt.”  I’ve searched high and low and cannot find a thing about any such player at any level of organized ball.  Oh, well.  Let’s move along.

Over parts of four seasons, and 149 plate appearances, Jim Adduci, Ishikawa’s third comp, hit .236/.242/.326, and was out of baseball at age 29. On April 19, 1987, Adduci was actually purchased by the San Francisco Giants from the Milwaukee Brewers, only to be sent back in one week.  (Having a young Will Clark at first allows that.)  On June 4, the Brewers released Adduci, and he finished the season playing for the Taiyo Whales in Japan.

Ishikawa’s fourth comp is former Athletic Dan Johnson.  Johnson can do two things Oakland loves — hit for power and take some walks — but he doesn’t do enough of either to overcome his deficiencies.  His poor 2007 led to the Daric Barton era in Oakland.  The Rays picked Johnson up off waivers last year, and assigned him to Durham, where he was player of the year.  The Rays didn’t have much use for his skills til late-season roster expansion.  Then, on September 9, in his first big-league at-bat with his new team, he took Jonathan Papelbon deep to help pull out a win in the ninth inning of the biggest win in franchise history at the time.  At the close of the season, Johnson went for the payday, signing a seven-figure deal to play in Japan in 2009.

While Ishikawa has promise, his minor-league career is a bit checkered, and he is already 25, so pinning too much hope on his bat might lead to disappointment.  He plays Gold-Glove calibre first base, though, and that might count for a lot with Pablo Sandoval’s stylings at third.  If Ishikawa, like two of his comps, ends up playing some in Japan, he might naturally prove popular there.

 

Fun With Comparables

My favorite baseball annual, Baseball Prospectus, lists statistics for the players it profiles, and uses its proprietary PECOTA system to project a player’s likely statistics for the upcoming season. PECOTA projects player performance based on comparisons with thousands of historical player-seasons. The annual also lists for each player his four highest scoring comparable players, as determined by PECOTA. These are the four most similar comparables, and not the entire sample from which PECOTA generates its projection.

The comparables are only supposed to suggest what a player might do in a particular year; if the top comparables for young outfielder Johnny Wetcougar, 22, are Dave Winfield and Ed Delahanty, the most you can infer is that the system likes him and thinks he’s going to be a good hitter in the style of those players at a similar point in their career. The comparables do not suggest either that Wetcougar will deliver 3000 hits like Winfield or get drunk and fall off of an open drawbridge like Delahanty. The PECOTA comps are not destiny, but they do represent a snapshot of how the listed player was performing at the same age as the current player. Thus, if a 23-year-old hitter is compared to Sammy Sosa, he’s actually being compared to a 23-year-old Sammy Sosa, not to Sosa at the age of 31, when he was one of the best hitters on the planet, or Sosa at 38, when he was an adequate DH who could stand to be platooned.

Having made that statement, I am not forced to admit that I like to take them as destiny, or at least a hint thereof.  Between now and Opening Day, I’ll be taking a look at the comparables for each of the players likely to get major playing time for the Giants this season, with the hopes of discerning what sorts of performances we might expect from them.  We start today with catcher Bengie Molina.

Molina’s top four comparables are Brian Harper, Darrin Fletcher, Bill Freehan, and Jeff Conine.  Harper’s age-34 season was his second-to-last, and marked a steep decline for him.  He actually caught in only 25 games for the 1994 Brewers, a significant decrease from the 130-odd he’s caught in each of the previous two years.  He had fewer than half the plate appearances he’d had in either of the two previous seasons, most of those at DH.  His rate stats (.291/.318./398) may have explained why Phil Garner used him so much less, but it also had something to do with the rise of 24-year-old Dave Nilsson.  For the first time in six years, Harper’s EQA was less than the league average.  The next season, he had seven plate appearances with the Athletics, and retired.

Darrin Fletcher at 34 had 453 plate appearances for the 2001 Blue Jays, which was way too many considering his rate stats fell off a cliff from previous seasons.  .226/.274/.353 (a .218 EQA) is unacceptable, certainly from a catcher not known for his defense.  But with Kevin Cash the best catcher in their farm system, the Jays were a bit stymied for a solution.  So desparate were the Jays for a catcher that for 2002, they signed minor-league journeyman free agent Ken Huckaby, whose claim to fame at the time was one major-league at-bat, albeit for the 2001 world champion Arizona Diamondbacks.  Fletcher’s EQA fell to .202 in 2002, and he retired.

Bill Freehan was one of the great catchers in the 1960s.  A five-time Gold Glove winner, he held the career record for fielding percentage until 2002, and was runner-up for the AL MVP award in 1968, when his Detroit Tigers won the World Series.  At 34, though, Freehan was in his last season, catching in 61 games, the same number as Bruce Kimm, and only two more than John Wockenfuss.  He retired at the end of the season.

At 34, Jeff Conine still had six more years of above-league-average hitting ahead of him, and would play until he was 41.  The fact that PECOTA sees Conine as a comparable for Molina is encouraging, but the fact Conine was not a catcher makes this comp perhaps less reliable.

It might be argued that Molina’s career highs in RBI (and double plays hit into!) last season was the result of career highs in games and plate appearances, something of a red flag for a catcher who will turn 35 in July.  Fortunately, Molina is in the last year of his contract, and Buster Posey should be ready to take over behind the plate in 2010.

 

The Diamondbacks: Beating Pythagorus in the Desert

The Arizona Diamondbacks won the West last season, shooting past a poorly-directed Dodgers team and the twice-defending division-champion Padres, while keeping just barely ahead of the surprising Rockies. I’ll toot my horn a bit and reveal that in an office pool in March 2007 I picked the Diamondbacks to have the second-best record in the National League. However, if you’d told me then that the Snakes were going to allow more runs than they scored, I’d have said they wouldn’t be a contender.

As explained here, teams’ won-loss records generally reflect their run differentials. A team that allows more runs than it scores is almost always going to have a losing record. The Diamondbacks allowed 732 runs last year and scored just 712, yet still won the division with a 90-72 record. So the Snakes’ record was nearly 11 games better than their run differential would have suggested.

What the Diamondbacks did last year goes against our accepted beliefs about how baseball teams win. The relationship between run differential and overall record is so consistent that it has created a measure of certainty among performance analysts. When that relationship is fractured to the degree that it was by the Snakes last year, we’re tempted to write it off as a fluke, but if we take a closer look, we can see how they managed to undermine sabermetric orthodoxy to such an alarming degree – and perhaps get a picture of how well we should expect them to play in 2008.

 

For Entertainment Purposes Only

My friend OmbudsBen oversees an annual pool in which participants rank the teams in each league, from best to worst, and then are assigned points based on how far off each of their picks is from that team’s actual finish. (You can see OmbudsBen’s picks in last season’s pool here and here.) I won the pool last year, which means of course that I won’t place in the top five this season. I actually try to estimate the number of runs each team will score and allow and then use a simple formula to derive their likely winning percentage. My picks:

American League: New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles, Oakland, Toronto, Chicago, Seattle, Minnesota, Kansas City, Texas, and Baltimore.

National League: New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Arizona, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Colorado, Cincinnati, San Diego, St. Louis, Washington, Houston, Pittsburgh, Florida, San Francisco.

Yes, it’s going to be a long season for Giants fans. But look at what fans in Tampa Bay can look forward to!

 

Parity in the NL

During the last 15 years, and especially during the last five, major league baseball’s central office’s policy has made it easier for a bad team to be good, and more difficult for a good team to be great. Successive collective bargaining agreements have entrenched a redistributionist tax scheme; slotting in the amateur draft has discouraged rich teams from buying up the best amateur talent; the equal split of online revenues has left some teams (and not just the Yankees and Red Sox) with more money than they can spend, and the advent of the wild card has made playoff spots cheap and plentiful. These policies have worked. Only nine teams haven’t played in October this decade, and only one team has won more than one World Series.

Right now, all a team needs to compete is creative intelligence. This may be a good thing in the abstract, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into great baseball. The National League this year essentially comprises the Mets, seven rebuilding or badly run teams with little hope of a playoff spot and little need to worry that they’ll truly embarrass themselves, and eight 85-win teams.

Just as a function of random variance, some of these eight teams will make the glorious rush to 91 wins that no National League team managed last year, and some will end up struggling to break 80 wins. Any of these teams could be this year’s Colorado Rockies. Any of them could just as easily list through the season. Which will be which is anyone’s guess, but there are at least signs to look for as spring training concludes.

In the NL East, the Mets’ main competition will be Atlanta and Philadelphia. The defending division champion Phillies are a known quantity; as long as their three MVP-caliber players are healthy, they should be fine. Atlanta is a more interesting team. John Smoltz and Tim Hudson may be the best one-two in the league, and each infielder, including catcher Brian McCann, should be among the league’s better hitters at his position. Their problem is their mystery outfield, and there’s no way to tell what to expect from it. Matt Diaz, although he hit .338 last season, is a merely decent hitter by left-fielder standards. He won’t hit .338 again, but can he hit .320? Will right fielder Jeff Francoeur, formerly an object of mockery for his free-swinging ways, break out after managing to draw a walk every fourth game last year? Will Mark Kotsay continue to bear an unnatural resemblance to oft-injured Darin Erstad?

In the NL Central, the whole game is between Chicago, which doesn’t have a closer, and Milwaukee, which doesn’t have a defense. The Cubs, like the Phillies, are going with a modestly improved version of last year’s division winner, which makes good sense; their biggest issue is seeing whether or not Kerry Wood can adapt to the closer’s role. The Brewers have a more interesting problem — a surfeit of infielders who can’t field at all. Ryan Braun and Corey Hart, who came up as third basemen, are both true butchers, and both will end up in the outfield, with Bill Hall, a shortstop, at third, and Rickie Weeks, another butcher, at second base. Brewers pitchers won’t be amused.

In the NL West, parity (or mediocrity) reaches its apotheosis, as four all but indistinguishable teams vie for the crown. Last year, Arizona and Colorado each won 90, San Diego won 89, and Los Angeles could have made a case it was the best of the lot. Colorado is a very good young team and boasts Troy Tulowitzki, who may be better than any of the East’s vaunted shortstops. The Rockies issues mostly revolve around the comings and goings of their starters’ marginal stuff. San Diego’s worries revolve around an outfield that features Jim Edmonds and Brian Giles, better fits for a contender in 1998 than they are in 2008.

The power in the division, though, probably rests with Arizona and Los Angeles, in each case because of the embarrassment of young hitters. Arizona made the playoffs last season despite shortstop Stephen Drew, 25, and center fielder Chris Young, 24, posting on-base averages of, respectively .313 and .295. If those two and 20-year-old prodigy Justin Upton hit, and if starters Brandon Webb and Dan Haren demonstrate that their Braves counterparts aren’t all that, this team could be ridiculously good. Los Angeles is the biggest question mark of all, simply because it’s not clear that new manager Joe Torre will play his best players. If Nomar Garciaparra gets playing time at the infield corners at the expense of a healthy Andy LaRoche and/or James Loney, or if Juan Pierre starts in an outfield spot at all, the Dodgers will have sunk themselves. In the Bronx, Torre proved that he was quite good at breaking in young players, and also that he could be quite reluctant to do so. In a league where some of the talent gaps can be measured in inches, that kind of reluctance could lead a team a lot closer to 80 wins than to 90.