Tools of Ignorance, a Giants Baseball Blog

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

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