Tea leaves. The I Ching. Extispicy. PECOTA. You name it, I’ve looked at it in my utterly insane efforts to predict the outcome of the 2007 Major League Baseball season, beginning even before pitchers and catchers reported to camp. Why on earth am I doing this? The answer, in a nutshell, is simply because I can. Do I have any hope that my predictions will turn out to be true? Not really. Still, I might be on to something here. Or, at the very least, it gives us a place to start talking about the upcoming season.
Author’s Note: I originally published this article at Newsvine.com last Monday. After having watched it languish there for a general lack of interest in baseball, I decided I’d give it a shot here. I hope everyone’s cool with that.
Now, for the most part, I’m making any wild pronouncements, like suggesting that the Royals will win it all or that the Yankees and Red Sox will end up in a tie for last in the AL East. Nope, I’m not going out that far on any particular limb. In fact, I deliberately tried to play this as conservative as possible while also doing my best to minimize my own biases’ (Astros fan, Yankees hater, etc.) effect on my predictions. So I do stand a chance of hitting some of these right just because of my efforts at a balanced, statistics-based approach.
How I Got To My Predictions
This may be more interesting to some readers that the predictions themselves, so let’s take a moment to talk about the method.
I took the PECOTA projections for Runs Scored for each of the likely batters of each team, including bench players and the like, and did my own little proprietary mumbo-jumbo to get a reasonable team Runs Scored (RS) value. Then I worked even more math – which is likely to turn out to have been somewhat faulty, we’ll see in October – to develop a team Runs Allowed (RA) value, accounting for the likely starters, relievers and closers for each team. Then, armed with my PECOTA-based RS and RA for each team, I turned to the big man, Bill James, and his Pythagorean Record concept.
What’s that? You don’t know what the heck the Pythagorean Record thing is all about? Well, the bottom line is that you can come pretty close to projecting a team’s winning percentage with the following formula: (RS^2)/(RS^2+RA^2). One you have that percentage, all you have to do is apply it to the 162 game schedule and, voila!, you have the number of wins that team should rack up in the season. And, of course, a little simple subtraction will get you their losses, too. And that means, you’ve got their record.
Geeky Stat Geek Note
I actually used 1.83 as my exponent, because some folks have found it to project a little more accurately. Actually, some other people have found a way to determine an even more accurate exponent, but hey, despite the nature of this article I actually do have a real life that needs tending to from time to time.
OK. Enough Already. Make With The Predictions!
You ask, I deliver. Here are my predictions for the 2007 American League final standings:
AL East
New York Yankees (94-68)
Boston Red Sox (91-71)
Toronto Blue Jays (88-74)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (80-82)
Baltimore Orioles (78-84)
The Yankees dominate the East. Big surprise. Despite the obviousness of this outcome, this was the hardest division for me to predict simply because I really don’t want the Yankees to win. I don’t want the Red Sox to, either. I’d love to see Toronto work some magic and walk away the winner. But what you see above is my best realistic prediction. I’ll talk more about what I want to see in another column. That the Devil Rays wind up above the Orioles is a sad testament to the trajectory of baseball in Baltimore the past 10 years.
AL Central
Minnesota Twins (89-73)
Cleveland Indians (88-74)
Detroit Tigers (82-80)
Chicago White Sox (79-83)
Kansas City Royals (67-95)
The Twins take the Central. It’s happened more often than not in recent memory, so why not again? Still, the Indians seem inclined to give Ron Gardenhire’s bunch a run for their money, so it should be interesting. But not, as you can see, anywhere near as interesting as most of America’s sportswriters would have you believe. Nope, not at all. I see no repeat for the Tigers, alas. And, as a bitter Astros fan I’m glad to see the White Sox fall from glory. Now, just to be clear on my methods, I honestly tried extra super secret double hard to be as exacting as I could be with the Sox’ record just so I wouldn’t let my need for revenge overshadow the honest work I am trying to do here. And that, of course, makes this prediction all the sweeter.
AL West
Los Angeles Angels (92-70)
Oakland A’s (87-79)
Texas Rangers (82-80)
Seattle Mariners (80-82)
The Angels win the West. Powered by Vladimir Guerrero and held together with manager Mike Scioscia’s grit and determination (I threw that in for all you folks who hate the idea of grit and determination), the Angels will likely eclipse the A’s in 2007. In truth, it’s Vlad plus Howie Kendrick plus some seriously badass pitching that will allow the Angels to overcome some otherwise significant offensive holes – including the ludicrous offseason contract for Gary Matthews, Jr. That my childhood favorite Rangers and inexplicably recently-adopted Mariners will stink is, frankly, no surprise to anyone.
Additional Information On The Process
Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind after reading this article is that the Pythagorean Record doesn’t account for things like luck, so it’s not infallible. Along with that, one has to understand that my approach made limited concessions to the effects of injuries on the teams. PECOTA does a fair job of accounting for past injuries in determining playing time for the next season. And playing time, in the form of plate appearances, directly affects the number of runs scored by each player. So there is some consideration there, but probably not enough once hindsight kicks in later in the year.
My selection of batters and pitchers to use for RS and RA was based on the depth charts for each team as currently projected by MLB.com. I tried to include prospects who are likely to make their respective big league teams (i.e., Alex Gordon in KC). But there’s always a chance that someone comes out of nowhere during spring training.
One last note: For each player, I used the weighted mean PECOTA values. That means that there’s little chance I accounted for a breakout season – or an absolute collapse – from anyone, regardless of whether such an occurrence is likely or not. PECOTA does include breakout and collapse chance information, but I didn’t consult that data for this project. Perhaps I will for 2008.
Coming Soon
Look for my National League predictions, post season prognostications and a little piece on my own personal hopes & dreams in the very near future. Meanwhile, how about a little second-guessing, “you hate my team!” ranting and general baseball talk down in the comments? I’m game, are you?