While I'm on a Roll...

I have written about this before, and asked nicely. Now I’m going to be a little snarky, since I’ve seen more of it lately. “It” is the use of OBA-BA, which goes by all sorts of different names, to measure patience or walking ability or however you would phrase it. If you take just a second to look at the underlying math, you will see what a stupid, stupid stat this is.

Let’s make everything a lot more simple by eliminating sacrifices from existence, and if you want to consider hit batters, you can count them as walks.

Now, what is OBA-BA? It is:

(H + W)/(AB + W) - H/AB

Anyone who thinks about this should immediately notice that the different denominators are going to make things difficult. The difficulty is illustrated when I ask you, “What is the unit of OBA-BA?” I challenge anyone to explain what this denominator represents, in coherent baseball terms, in ten words or less.

If you write it with a common denominator, you end up with something equal to this (you can obviously re-write it in some other ways):

W*(AB - H)/(AB*(AB + W))

You are multiplying walks by outs. And then dividing by at bats times plate appearances. Great stat you have there.

Tying this back into BA, you can also write that as:

W/PA * (1 - BA)

Walks/PA is what you are after…the player’s walk rate. But OBA-BA multiplies walk rate by one minus BA. So if you have two guys who each draw 50 walks in 550 PA, but one gets 150 hits (.340) and one gets 135 hits (.270), the one with the lower BA has a higher OBA-BA, .066 to .060.

It is remarkably lazy to leave it in the form OBA-BA. You can very easily get walk rate from (OBA - BA)/(1 - BA). If you’d like, you can also use (OBA - BA)/(1 - OBA) = W/AB. Walks per AB is not in as useful a form as Walks per PA, but given the assumptions of this post, it will produce a ranking in the same order. All W/AB is is (I like doing that, even though my English teachers would strangle me) a ratio of walks to non-walks, which if divided by one plus it self will give W/PA.

Of course, a lot of this confusion can be traced to the somewhat silly nature of Batting Average and At Bats themselves. Joe Posnanski’s rift on that subject encapsulates my thoughts fairly well (and of course is a billion times funnier than the way I’d write it).

No Post, but a Link

I do not have a post for you this week, however, I do have a link to an article I wrote for The Hardball Times about bases/(outs or plate appearances) metric. It is somewhat similar to the blog post I wrote a couple months ago, but goes in a different direction at the end. Thanks to Tango Tiger for providing data (and Retrosheet for compiling raw data), and to Studes and the gang at THT for publishing it.

Jimmy Rollins, Curtis Granderson, and the Barbara Walters Number

The 20-20-20-20 achievement of Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson is a great starting point for rumination on the difference between sabermetricians and what I will call, for the lack of a better term, traditionalists. (And an upfront disclaimer: I am by no means the first person to write about this).

Bill James, in his 1982 Abstract, wrote about how people were bothered by sabermetricians because sabermetricians treat numbers as numbers. We multiply and divide them, we endeavor to express relationships between them, we try to put them in context. The traditionalists, for all of their complaints about numbers, use them all the time. Everybody reads the stats; it’s a matter of which ones and how they are interpreted.

Speaking for myself, I have very little interest in numbers for numbers sake, and thus the Barbara Walters number means absolutely nothing to me. It goes without saying that it is worthless from a valuation standpoint, but I’m referring to my own curiosity here. I couldn’t be less interested in those types of statistical groupings, even if they are offered in the spirit of fun.

Of course, that is personal preference; there’s nothing wrong with being interested in odd statistical combinations as long as you don’t ascribe deep meaning to them. Unfortunately, there are folks out there who do, whether it’s the Barbara Walters number, or the 30/30 club, or what have you.

I may be off base here, but it seems as if sabermetrically-inclined people are less interested in the steroids issue than others. I am in no ways saying that there is a correct sabermetric position on the issue, or that there is any sort of uniform view among sabermetricians; it may well be the case that a serious examination would find my intuition faulty.

If we accept my premise, though, I think the “sanctity of the records” may be a contributing factor. As Bonds approached the record, it seemed as if some people were realizing for the first time that 755 home runs in one context might not be equally impressive, equally valuable, equally something as 755 home runs in another context. Of course, most people of non-sabermetric perspective recognize this, but the reactions of a minority seemed to indicate that the idea was relatively unfamiliar to them.

As for me, I don’t care about the home run record. I recognize its historical significance as the most hollowed record in baseball, and think it is worthy of attention for that reason. It has absolutely no personal meaning to me, though, and I don’t attach any meaning to it like “greatest home run hitter of all-time”, etc. It simply is the man who hit the most home runs in major league games. Without even a cursory consideration of context, it takes on no significance to me. Nor do 3,000 hits, 300 wins, a 56 game hitting streak, and other such marks.

So when I look at Barry Bonds breaking the record, I do not feel in anyway violated. (Of course, I don’t care about steroids for other reasons, which are in the philosophical/political realm and are not germane to this discussion. Even if I was opposed to steroids, though, I wouldn’t be any more upset at the record being broken by a user than I already would be that the guy was allowed to play and have an impact on pennant races).

I will admit to having an obsession with no-hitters, particularly my quest to have a scoresheet of one. I don’t care about no-hitters analytically, particularly in a post-DIPS world, but they are at least a rare occurrence that is a feat of unique value. It’s tough to give up many runs without yielding a hit (yes, yes, I know about Matt Young and company). Contrast the no-hitter with the cycle, though. Of course, any game in one manages to collect four hits, three of them for extra bases, is a superlative performance. But the cycle is noted not because it is the most valuable of games, as is arguably true for a no-hitter, but because it is a curiosity. There are many combinations of hits, walks, and outs that produce more value than a cycle. These, however, don’t get put on any special lists for historical posterity, unless they involve hitting a lot of home runs.

And that’s the point I’m trying to make here. The general baseball public loves things that they can wrap their head around easily. Sabermetricians love things that produce the most runs or the most wins, regardless of whether they arise from unique combinations. Those on the other side who sneer at the seeming analytical coldness of the position should not lose track of why Jimmy Rollins is trying to hit doubles in the first place. Likewise, I need to remind myself occasionally that there is nothing wrong with numbers for their own sake in the spirit of fun.

So, were they scheduled to play 13?

... Be a Believer (?)

The older I get, the more I care about baseball (or at the very least, my interest has leveled off at its peak), the more I know about baseball, the less invested I am in the performance of my team, the Indians.

Some of that is surely natural. After all, as a kid my levels of attachment were clearly unhealthy. I was despondent for at least a week after the World Series losses in 1995 and 1997. Only kids or mentally unstable adults have such reactions to mere baseball games; fortunately, I was the former, so I grew out of it (and started obsessing over much more important sporting events, in which there truly is an epic struggle between good and evil).

The last point is actually one that I think may help explain it. When one is a child, he does not control his own destiny, and he is not free to form his own associations. Latching on to the sports team that is geographically closet or that his parents root for may be an act of convenience, or an act of conformity. In my case it was the former. Rooting for some other team has the potential to serve as an act of rebellion, a small outlet of individuality that can be expressed without any real repercussions.

When one becomes an adult, though, choices can be made (more) freely, and one can form his own identity. What are the first choices of importance that many young Americans make in adulthood? Choosing a college to attend is one for many people. I may have been born in the Cleveland area, through an act of God or parents or however you’d like to phrase it, but I chose where to go to college. I could have gone anywhere (not really, of course; intelligence, academic accomplishments, and certainly not least of all finances has bearing on that matter) or nowhere, but I chose my school. Perhaps that is why college sports loyalty runs so much deeper than pro (and if you went to a university with a Division I athletics program and disagree with the premise of that sentence, than I would humbly suggest that you went to the wrong school).

However, my love for the game itself has never waned--it has only gotten stronger with time. Stronger despite quickly abandoning any notion that I could actually play at a level above the backyard (my baseball career highlight is either a catch made on the street or…never mind, it’s too pathetic to detail here. Suffice it to say, I suck). Stronger despite recognizing that the league and its teams are businesses with an eye on the bottom line just like any other (of course, that helps the decline in devotion to any one team, but it doesn’t explain why I follow that league more closely than before).

The recognition of the business-nature of professional sports is, along with the college/free will explanation, the best explanatory factors that I can come up with. As a capitalist, recognizing that all businesses are out to maximize their profits in no way causes me to revile them all. However, it does compel me to choose between them on a rational basis (Which will be the best investment on the stock market? Which will offer the best career opportunity?), rather than on a matter of where they are located (What would one think of an investor who says "American Greetings is from Cleveland, I should buy their stock"?)

In the same way, while I can still pull for the Indians because they are/were my “hometown” team, I can also look around the league and see teams that I admire for other reasons, like the philosophy of their GM (Oakland) or the players they happen to employ at the moment (the Chicago frickin White Sox of all teams). The Indians are still #1, and will always be, (and they are helped by the fact that I like Mark Shapiro and Eric Wedge and Chris Antonetti), but there’s no blind devotion to the cause anymore, and there’s no hating whoever knocks them out of the playoffs just because.

In the final analysis, the childhood favorite team served as the hook that got me to bite on baseball. Had the Indians not opened a new ballpark in 1994 and emerged as a contender, who knows when or if I would have become a baseball nut? But they served their purpose in that regard, and then I somewhat discarded them.

On the other hand, there are folks who are older, well-rounded baseball fans that remain fanatical followers of their team. Perhaps I’m just too cynical or too wrapped up in singing Hang on Sloopy to relate to the average baseball fan. Either way, it is the general prospect of Major League Baseball being played that has me smiling, rather than the fact that the Cleveland Indians will open their campaign with a decent chance to return to the playoffs.

NOTE: For those who are not familiar with official Indians team jingles (hopefully 99% of the audience), the title of this piece and the Indians preview are derived from a 1980s entry in that genre. Unfortunately, I cannot find the lyrics to this song online, so you will have to make due with my memory of what they are (also, I did not hear this song when it was actually in use):

Indian Fever; it’s catching fire with everyone
Indian Fever; you can be part of the fun
Go to (winner?) at every game, that’s when the excitement begins
So catch Indian Fever, be a believer with the Cleveland Indians

Indian Fever; it starts from the very first inning
Indian Fever; each game is a brand new beginning
It’s the hits, the homers, the double plays, it’s how you feel when we win
So catch Indian Fever, be a believer with the Cleveland Indians

Housekeeping

This is a low-quality post (Reader: “Tell me something I don’t know”), here mostly to mention that I am trying to figure out the new Blogger sidebar options, and getting that set up (they actually made it a lot easier to customize the sidebar for those of us who aren’t HTML experts, but I’ll still have to figure it out). So the links or the archives might disappear for a while, but they’ll be back eventually.

Anyway, I wanted to briefly touch on the Opening Day in Tokyo “issue”. I use quotation marks because I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. There are two strains of commentary on the issue: one is from intelligent people, and another is from those who are appear to be jingoists. I’m not opposed to a little jingoism here and there, but not in the baseball world (unless you’re one of those fools who claim that rooting for the US in the World Baseball Classic constitutes jingoism).

Dealing with the intelligent criticisms, I just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. MLB is attempting to increase its worldwide profile, and I think that is a great thing. So there were some Japanese league games going on at the same time that may have been overshadowed? So what? It’s a long season, they’ll be plenty of time for Japanese fans to focus on their league (and of course, no one was stopping them from doing so if they wanted to ignore the MLB games).

I direct the same point about it being a long season to those who are disturbed that A’s fans lost two home games. In the long run, the difference between 79 and 81 games is negligible. I don’t believe that a season ticket holder would even notice the difference if the season was cut from 162 to 158 games, unless they went out of their way to count how many tickets they had.

Some say that Opening Day is a special day, and it is. But home Opening Day is special too, and the Red Sox and A’s will still hold one of those. So the A’s started their home schedule in a road park. Excuse me if I am not overcome with sympathy. The Indians have not opened the season at home since 2001(including three years in a row at beautiful Comiskey Park). Last year, their first three scheduled home games had to be moved to Milwaukee. I think the A’s fans can live with waiting a week for their home opener, and having it not be the season opener.

The Japanese fans have seen a large number of talented players leave their teams for major league teams. The situation is a bit different than those of players from other countries that immigrate to MLB since the Japanese leagues represent a much higher level of play and professionalism than can be found in Latin America. I don’t want to suggest that this means MLB owes them in any way; after all, baseball players are not national assets except in the twisted mind of Fidel Castro, and Hideki Matsui can choose to go play in the US if he pleases. However, is it too much to ask that the Japanese occasionally be rewarded with a major league game in their country? Perhaps one that actually counts, rather than patronizing them with an exhibition as if they were a bunch of baseball neophytes like the Chinese?

I am no fan of Bud Selig, but it must be said that MLB is doing well right now. You don’t necessarily have to give him or the current owners or the MLBPA or any other group credit for it, but likewise some go over-the-top in their criticisms of the man. Personally, I am no fan of interleague play, unbalanced schedules, a 16 team NL and a 14 team AL that spits in the face of all historical precedent, five-game playoff series, or the “This time it counts” All-Star Game. But I can also give credit where credit is due, and sharing baseball with Japan and other countries of comparable baseball passion is an idea that deserves credit. That in no way implies that Selig or anything MLB has done is the cause of that passion. Embracing it is what I applaud.

2008 Predictions

Disclaimers first: these are offered in the spirit of fun and BS-ing, not in the nature of serious analysis. If I was trying to be serious, there would be confidence intervals and probabilities of winning the division and all sorts of other stuff. I have no interest in doing any of that.

Last year, I successfully predicted six of the eight playoff teams (the Mets and the Padres let me down, losing out to the Diamondbacks and Rockies). I also correctly tabbed the Red Sox as the World Champions. This is remarkable, since in the previous two years of this blog, a team that I picked fourth in one of the Central divisions went on to the pennant (and in 2005, two of them did). The point: I make no claim to being accurate, I make no claim that you should pay attention to what you read here. They are for my own personal amusement, and you can laugh if you want, but please don’t sneer, because if you sneer, you’re taking it way too seriously. Also, there are enough spaces in this darn thing as it is, so I use one paragraph per division, which results in a couple of run-on paragraphs.

I’m going to switch my usual order and begin with the Neanderthal League:

EAST

1. Atlanta
2. New York
3. Philadelphia
4. Washington
5. Florida

New York will be the popular choice, but Atlanta cannot be overlooked. All three of the top teams were very close in EW% and PW% last year. The Braves may not have improved themselves by losing Renteria and Jones, but the trade for Santana has obscured the fact that the Mets offseason was considered very shaky. The Mets’ pitching has a lot of questions, outside of Johan--Pedro's health, El Duque’s age, and while I like John Maine and Oliver Perez, they’re not quite proven commodities at their 2007 effectiveness levels. The Phillies can certainly be a factor again as well. The Nationals and the Marlins are overmatched, of course.

CENTRAL

1. Milwaukee
2. Chicago
3. Cincinnati
4. Houston
5. Pittsburgh
6. St. Louis

Milwaukee will score a whole bunch of runs, and I like their pitching well enough. Their defense should be improved with the addition of Cameron and the consequent reshuffling of the other positions. That does not mean it will be easy for them to beat out the Cubs, who were better on paper than they were on the field last year. Those two stand out in this division, and I think that they will get some separation on the middle two teams, the Reds and the Astros. I am hesitant to put Cincinnati third, since I have little faith that guys like Votto and Bruce will actually get a fair shot this season. The Astros made a bunch of ill-advised moves that really did not do much for their prospects in the short term, and can’t possibly be justified in the long-term. The Pirates remain the Pirates, but the Cardinals are just a bad baseball team. A rotation that is counting on Looper, Pineiro, Mulder, Reyes, Lohse, etc.? I’m sure they’ll be able to come up with a couple of effective guys behind Wainwright, but they look like a longshot to have a solid starting five. With Pujols’ health in question, look out below. Incidentally, in the last two seasons, neither World Series participant has returned to the playoffs in the following season (Houston and Chicago in ’05, St. Louis and Detroit in ’06). Those two instances are the first time in the history of the wildcard that neither pennant winner qualified for the playoffs a year later (although the ’93 Phillies and Blue Jays were in big trouble when the plug got pulled). Before that, you have to go back to 1990, when Cincinnati and Oakland failed to qualify in 1991. Two years in a row? 1986 (Mets/Red Sox) and 1987 (Twins/Cardinals).

WEST

1. Los Angeles
2. Colorado (wildcard)
3. Arizona
4. San Diego
5. San Francisco

Once again, I don’t see a lot to separate the top four teams. I am going with the Dodgers because I truly think that they have the most talent. Unfortunately, Joe Torre does not inspire optimism that guys like LaRoche, Kemp, and Ethier will get playing time over Garciaparra and Pierre. Their rotation has the potential to be really good. Colorado was not a fluke last year; the Diamondbacks may have been, but they also have the young talent to make a real improvement. San Diego appears to be the weakest of the four, but it is not hard to imagine them being in the mix down to the wire. The Giants are a different kettle of fish. They would fit in much better with the aimless mediocrity of the NL Central.

Now, the home of truth, justice, and the Designated Hitter, long live the American League:

EAST

1. New York
2. Boston (wildcard)
3. Toronto
4. Tampa Bay
5. Baltimore

The division of bays, Jays, and Rays may look the same on paper as it has for a while, but it’s a lot more interesting than a cursory glance might indicate. The popular consensus seems to give the BoSox the edge over the Yankees, but I’m not so sure. These two weren’t that far removed last year, and I think people have overrated Boston’s offense based on their October performance. They’re very good, no doubt, but the Yankees’ is better, and if they can avoid all the pitching problems of last year, this could be very interesting. It does seem like Boston has more depth to plug any injury problems, but the front-line talent for these two is close enough that I’m going to be a contrarian and pick New York. Toronto remains a team that could, with good fortune and others’ misfortune, find their way into October, but also remains a team that has to be picked third. I would nominate “Rays” as the worst team name in the post-1900 history of the game, but the Boston Bees might have something to say about that. Of course, they would stand no chance against the giants of the nineteenth century--the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the Cincinnati Porkers, the Cleveland Infants. And of course I’ve stuck with big city teams--no Union Association teams in Altoona, or National Association teams in Rockford (those two didn’t have bad names, but the Elizabeth Resolutes is another matter). Their name may be historically bad, but the team is making strides, and their moves should shore up their pitching and defense. I would tag them as team that might be able to stay in the hunt in September if they did not play in this killer division. The Orioles are my choice as the worst team in the AL.

CENTRAL

1. Detroit
2. Cleveland
3. Minnesota
4. Chicago
5. Kansas City

As much as I hate to do it, I am picking the Tigers to win, but I think they will be overrated in the public perception. Their offense is being touted as a juggernaut, and adding Cabrera obviously helps, but Polanco, Granderson, and Ordonez are all good bets to be less productive than they were a year ago. Predicting them to score 1,000 runs is downright silly. However, their pitching figures to be better than last year, and Cleveland’s figures to be worse. The Indians have a good shot, but I just can’t tab them as the favorites. Minnesota should be able to get better production from third base, left field, and shortstop, which will help keep them afloat despite some serious losses. Chicago seems to think that they are a contender, but they also seem to think that Ozzie Guillen is the kind of guy who you give a long term contract to. Unfortunately for my dislike of them, the acquisition of Nick Swisher means that I have to cut them a little slack. The Royals are still the Royals, at least for now. But they have a real shot at beating out Minnesota and/or Chicago, and that’s progress.

WEST

1. Los Angeles
2. Seattle
3. Texas
4. Oakland

The Angels have the clearest path to a division crown in all of baseball. I have never been wild about their team, but they definitely outclass their division rivals, although their recent injuries in the rotation give one pause. The Mariners are a team that I am hesitant to comment about, since there is a very vocal group of supporters who get upset and go to extreme lengths to justify the Mariner’s outperformance of their basic component statistics. Let’s just that I don’t think they are as good as they think they are, and leave it at that. I was the idiot who thought Texas would be a factor in this race last year. It saddens me to see Nick Swisher cast off from the A’s and sent to the White Sox of all teams, but I think the rebuild was a wise choice. It is an interesting rebuild, trading pieces that are still young and under contract for a few years, rather than those who are about to become free agents. It could pay dividends, though, since the return ratio is greater than if you wait (compare the package the A’s got for Haren to the one the Twins got for Santana).

WORLD SERIES

New York (A) over Los Angeles (N)

The World Series pick should be taken far less seriously than the divisional picks (which puts it pretty low on the serious scale). I think last year was the first time in my prognosticating life (going back to 1995) that I correctly identified the World Series champion.

I can’t justify picking the NL champ to win, and by picking the Yankees to win the East, I painted myself into a corner and have to pick them to win it all.

NL ROY: Kosuke Fukudome, CHN
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana, NYN
Take a guy who was the fifth-best pitcher in the AL during an off-year in 2007 and move him to a moderate pitcher’s park in the NL.
NL MVP: Mark Teixiera, ATL
Being a relatively new face, he’ll get a lot of credit when the Braves are a mild surprise.
AL ROY: Evan Longoria, TB
AL Cy Young: Daisuke Matsuzaka, BOS
Just as Josh Beckett took a big step forward in his second year in Boston, so will Matsuzaka.
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera, DET
I’m staying with the “credit the new guy” approach to prognosticating the MVP winner.

Most annoying story of the year: Steroids and related witch-hunts
Most predictable stories of the year: “White Sox continue slide, Guillen upset”; “Tigers’ offense not as dynamic as anticipated”; “ARod chokes in /insert situation here/”
First manager fired: Tony LaRussa quits in St. Louis, but as far as a firing goes, I don’t have a good candidate. Of course, I should note that these predictions on the bottom involve even less thought and are even more in the spirit of fun than the standings predictions.

Over/under on posts on this blog during the season: 20

Indian Fever...

In the past, I have written a preview for the Indians, since they are the team I follow most closely. I’m not going to do a full-blown preview this year, but this mini-preview will suffice. This is in the vein of a preview magazine, running down the positions and who is expected to fill them, rather than an introspective look at the organization that you would get from Baseball Prospectus and other such outlets, to be clear upfront. It really will give you no insight into the team if you know anything about them, just some vague predictions from me on which players will have better seasons.

The Indians rotation has the first four set with CC Sabathia, Fausto Carmona, Jake Westbrook, and Paul Byrd. Behind them, three lefties battled for the fifth spot. As I am writing this, none of them has been particularly effective in the spring, so one assumes that Cliff Lee, with the most experience and the largest contract, will get the job, while Jeremy Sowers and Aaron Laffey will head to Buffalo.

This is an area that actually concerns me as a fan. I guess if you are a supporter of the Orioles or the Cardinals or some other team, this is easy to scoff at, and I understand that…but the Byrd is always walking a tight rope, and he isn’t getting any younger. Westbrook is your standard issue groundball pitcher. Sabathia is a legitimate ace, but he was the best pitcher in the AL last year, and it would be asking a lot for him to repeat that performance. Carmona was almost certainly over his head last year; the question is how far he will drop off. On the plus side, his strikeout rate improved in the second half; on the negative side, he made a big jump in workload last year, especially when you consider the playoffs.

The story in the bullpen is similar, where Rafael Betancourt and Rafael Perez cannot reasonably be expected to repeat their performance. Jensen Lewis should be serviceable as a middle reliever, and hopefully Masa Kobayashi can pitch in there. Aaron Fultz and Joe Borowski are what they are. It should be a good group, but I hesitate to predict anything beyond that with the unstable nature of bullpens.

If you add all that up, one has to conclude that the Indians will allow more runs this season. The good news is that it is reasonable to expect that they will score as many or more than they did in 2007. Dividing the regulars into categories of likely to do better, worse, and about the same, I would say:

Better: DH Travis Hafner, CF Grady Sizemore
Same: C Victor Martinez, 1B Ryan Garko, SS Jhonny Peralta, LF Platoon, RF Franklin Gutierrez
Worse: 2B Asdrubal Cabrera, 3B Casey Blake

While Cabrera probably played over his head during his major league stint, the Indians overall production from second base (3.25 RG) was poor, and should be improved by Cabrera or previous starter Josh Barfield, who is ticketed for Buffalo.

The bench will consist of Kelly Shoppach as catcher, Jamey Carroll as utility infielder (an acquisition I am befuddled by), Jason Michaels/David Dellucci as the inactive part of the left field platoon, and Andy Marte as the out of options must-carry. Were I in charge, I would try to move Michaels and let Ben Francisco into the platoon, and if Shin-Soo Choo comes back from his elbow issues healthy, I wouldn’t mind seeing him take over the lefty part. Regardless, Francisco deserves to be on the team on merit, and has little to prove at Buffalo, but the Marte situation will preclude that.

I will post my predictions for the major league standings in a couple of weeks, but I tend to think as most observers do that the Indians will be in the mix for the playoffs, fighting for the division and the wildcard. Ultimately, though, I have to give Detroit a slight edge in the division and New York/Boston the edge in the wildcard hunt. It should be another fun season, though, and that’s all you can really ask for.