2011 Predictions

There are many great things to be said about internet publication.  It’s free, it’s instantaneous and any boring person like myself can get his thoughts out there and have them found by interested parties.  The unfortunate thing about it is that any idiot can find it too.  If you write in print or for a price, idiots still read your work (or worse yet, get secondhand accounts that substitute for reading), but there is a higher barrier to entry than a lucky Google search.

No matter how many disclaimers you put on a post, the reader can always ignore them.  The reader can quote you out of context by means of a simple copy and paste that any semi-coordinated five-year old could manage.  No matter how careful you are, there is a decent chance that your disclaimers will be ignored and your words will be turned on their head.

Making the disclaimer more strenuous will do no good, naturally, but it’s the only option available to the blogger.  If you find this site via a Google search and fail to read and understand the next few sentences, that's on you, not me.

These predictions are offered in the spirit of fun, not science or anything resembling science.  They are one man’s opinion, one man’s wild guess at an unknowable future.  If you do not believe that future is unknowable, if you think that you are blessed with some special insight that allows you to predict the outcome of pennant races, you are likely incapable of understanding this point, but nevertheless: even if you could predict exactly how many runs a team would score and allow over the course of the upcoming season, you still could do no better than predict their win total to within a standard error of four games.

Of course, some folks predictions will be more accurate for a single season.  Some will be better over the long haul, too, although expecting a persistent and consistent performance is folly.  It is quite possible that I am poorer than most at this exercise.

Understand, though, that the picks that follow are the product of one man’s feeble mind.  They do not in any way, shape or form reflect the predictions of “sabermetrics”.  They are not based on any sabermetrically rigorous procedure; I do some very crude estimates of team runs scored and allowed based on freely available projections, but then I substitute my own opinion wherever I feel.  If you want predictions based on a more rigorous sabermetric procedure, you need to visit Baseball Prospectus or the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog or somewhere, anywhere else--not this blog.

Another point I make every year but which is hopelessly lost on the mental midgets who invariably stumble upon this page is that the format distorts my true feelings.  I have limited myself to the format of ordinal standings rank not because it is a better format, but because to do what is more telling, offering expected wins and probabilities, requires the use of a rigorous procedure to be remotely credible, and then it becomes harder to shrug it off as a fun, seat-of-the pants exercise.

Given the constraints of the ordinal prediction format, one is forced to predict which team will win the NL Central, and which will finish second, and all down the line.  In reality, I have no idea who will win the NL Central.  I believe that three clubs--Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis--are essentially equal in their chances.  A fourth, Chicago, could certainly win if things broke their ways.  And while it may be unlikely, one cannot give true zero odds to the possibility of a miracle in Houston and Pittsburgh.  Add it all up, and I wouldn’t be willing to give you better than a 35% chance that any single team wins.  But making an ordinal prediction gives the impression that the predictor believes that the team listed first has an expected outcome of first place.  The intelligent reader and prognosticator understand the difference and don’t need to have it spelled out.

Anyway, I’ve done all I could, spilling 650 words on why what follows should not be taken seriously.  Someone with Google will invariably stumble upon this and be unwilling or unable to understand anyway.  Oh well:

AL EAST

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

I agree with the consensus view--the Red Sox look to be the best team in baseball. Their offense should be great, their starting pitching might have only one truly safe bet in Jon Lester but also features four guys with the potential to pitch really well, and their bullpen has three big arms (albeit perhaps with two empty heads) at the back. Too much is being made of the Yankees' pitching concerns, I believe. There are a lot of teams expected to contend with question marks at the back of their rotation, but since we're conditioned to see New York run out four guys with track records, it looks worse than it is. I was very tempted to pick the Rays second, but it would be a dishonest pick for shock value. This should still be a very competitive ballclub, and there a couple divisions I probably would pick them to win. The mainstream is spending too much time fretting about losing Pena, Garza and Bartlett and not enough recognizing that their performances in 2010 were far from irreplaceable. Crawford is obviously a much bigger loss, as is their bullpen's splendid 2010 performance which couldn't be replicated even if they were all still in St. Pete. The Orioles are not nearly as close as they seem to think they are, but I thought they'd be better last year and meeting those expectations could be enough for fourth place. I like Alex Anthopoulos' moves as much as the next guy, but I liked much of what Jack Zduriencik did last winter too. I don't think the Blue Jays project to be a better team than they were last year, and their homer-happy offense is almost surely unsustainable. If you had to fall into the silly cliché trap and pick “this year's Mariners”, you could do worse than Toronto.

AL CENTRAL

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

I've had it out for the White Sox organization for a long time, mostly focused on their manager. It's more a personality thing than a baseball thing, but I'd be lying if I said that I've always been able to successfully separate the two.  So it is not with any sort of relish that I predict they'll win the AL Central. But their starting pitching is excellent, and while I wouldn't want their 2013 offense, their 2011 offense should be fine. The Twins did nothing, which is usually not a great sign. If Justin Morneau is healthy, I'm not sure he's a great bet to provide much more value than he did in 2010, when he was arguably the best hitter in the league for half a season. My crude spreadsheet actually gives Minnesota an insignificant edge over Chicago, so I see these two clubs as quite close. The Tigers are spending money without any particular target in mind, or at least that is the impression they give off. They are a contender in this division, but they represent the second tier. The second tier is small because it does not include the Indians or the Royals. Neither pose much of a threat, and I won't rehash my thoughts on the Tribe here. Dayton Moore's farm system is a universally-acknowledged jewel, but the man has yet to provide much evidence that he is capable of constructing a winning major league team, although this wasn't really the year to try, One can easily imagine five-star prospects surrounded with the Jeff Francoeurs and Melky Cabreras and Pedro Felizs of 2014 (that would be a fun exercise--who is the next Jeff Francoeur? Who was the last Jeff Francoeur?)

AL WEST

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

The Rangers are my reluctant pick--I love to pick against pennant winners without sterling regular season records, because the mainstream halo effect for playoff success is far too strong. Like the talk of the Twins dangling Liriano, the decision to keep Feliz in the bullpen gives off a sense of complacency and overconfidence. However, Texas does look like the strongest club on paper. Of course, games aren't played on paper, and so if the great clubhouse influence of the sainted team-player Michael Young is dispatched, they will plummet to 100 losses. The A's made an effort, but their offense still makes them hard to pick. They also don't have a strong Buster Posey candidate to emulate the 2010 trick of their baymates. The big splash Tony Reagins promised for the Angels was fulfilled if you think about “big splash” in terms of Olympic diving. The Pythagorean fairy better bring some extra pixie dust. The Mariners have to score more runs, don't they? Don't they?

NL EAST

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

Four aces = unbeatable! The pitching fetish that still looms large in the conventional narrative demands that tribute be paid to the Phillies, but would it be sacrilege to point out that pitchers often get hurt, and an offense built on a bunch of players on the wrong side of thirty whose best player is a major injury question might be a little vulnerable? Just checking. The Braves have been my irrational NL pick for some time now; since they finally rewarded my faith with a playoff berth, there's no reason to stop now. The bullpen is due for some regression, but the starting pitching looks fine and they should score some runs. The Mets look like a .500 team, which means the ratio of lamenting how bad they are to reality will be way out of whack. The Marlins seem stuck in neutral, even if they hadn't traded Uggla; even if you believe in success cycle theory, it's no one's birthright to win the World Series on a six-year cycle. This might be the MLB division with the most delusional owners; the Mets apparently put all their eggs in one basket, Loria thinks his world title is two years overdue, and the Nationals think that Jayson Werth + Stephen Strasburgh + Bryce Harper = 2012 contention without a lot of downside risk. Good luck to all.

NL CENTRAL

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

My crude projections have some kind of borderline irrational love for the Cardinals. Perhaps it's the fact that they ignore fielding; perhaps there's some truth there. Picking them to win after the Wainwright injury in an already close division may seem foolish, but what the heck? At least I can point to the fact that it's not alone—PECOTA also puts St. Louis on top, albeit by an insignificant margin. The Brewers have shown a tendency to go for it with gusto by trading for starting pitchers, and while I wouldn't want my team doing the same, it could very well pay off in this division; and for the moment, fate has smiled upon them. The Cubs probably aren't as close to winning this division as the Garza trade suggests they think, but a lot went wrong for them last year (some of it of their own volition, mind you), obscuring the fact that in 2009 they were kind of in the mix. My own intuition tells me that the picks for this division are scrambled, but the spreadsheet really doesn't like the Reds that much, and I can see why. Their offense still has issues at short and in left, Scott Rolen was a big contributor in 2010 but at this stage isn't the most reliable guy around, Joey Votto isn't really Albert Pujols Jr., and I'm not really a Drew Stubbs believer. They don't really have a leadoff hitter (which I point out not because the leadoff role is particularly important but because they either don't have or don't trust high OBA guys without power), and you still have to wonder about Dusty's ability to push the right the buttons if things don't go according to plan. The starting pitching has solid depth, but they also lack front line starters barring a Cueto or Volquez breakout. They are certainly the team I've picked fourth in a division that I think has the best chance to win it--again, that's the inherent peril in using an ordinal standing prediction approach. It should go without saying that they're much closer to St. Louis on paper than they are to Pittsburgh. The Pirates should not lose 100 games again, and the Astros might be as good of a bet as any team in the game to do so.

NL WEST

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

I really don't like picking the Giants. Winning the World Series doesn't wipe the fact that their playoff berth was not secured until the final Sunday of the season out of existence, and their offense is still quite suspect. However, the Rockies didn't do much to improve; I wouldn't be surprised to see serious regression from Carlos Gonzalez, and my crude projection attempt sees them as a .500 team. The Dodgers could surprise some people since expectations are not particularly high. Their pitching staff should be one of the best of the NL (at least before park adjustments), but there are a number of weak/questionable spots on offense. The Padres obviously traded away their best player without much coming back to help them in 2011; still, they should be respectable. The Diamondbacks may think that shedding strikeouts is the magic elixir to increased offense, but you still should expect to score more runs with Mark Reynolds as your third baseman than Melvin Mora.

WORLD SERIES

Boston over Atlanta

While I think they are far from a juggernaut (just as I thought during last year’s postseason), I would have to admit that the Phillies are the team most likely to win the NL pennant and the NL East.  However, my estimation of their chance to do so is so much lower than that of the mainstream that to pick them to win and thus replicate everybody's prediction would be boring. I almost feel the same way about Boston--the scattered talk about winning 110 games is irrational. However, I think Boston stands out from the pack more than Philly, and picking against your head twice is just a waste of everyone's time. My crude standings projections have the Giants second in the NL behind the Phillies, but picking them would be even worse in terms of overvaluing the previous postseason and assuming repeats, so the mantle falls to the Braves.

AL Rookie of the Year: SP Jeremy Hellickson, TB
It doesn't feel like he should be eligible, but he is.
AL Cy Young: Jon Lester, BOS
Let's try this again. I picked him last year and he had a fine season, but not a spectacular one.
AL MVP: 1B Adrian Gonzalez, BOS
I always like to pick a newcomer for MVP if possible (voters love shiny things), and Fenway should help the mainstream perception of his performance if nothing else.
NL Rookie of the Year: 1B Freddie Freeman, ATL
Having a job is half the battle.
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, LA
I was going to pick Zack Greinke, but missing a few starts is a hurdle to overcome.
NL MVP: SS Troy Tulowitzki, COL
You know that the writers are just dying for an excuse to give this to Ryan Howard.

First manager fired: Jim Riggleman, WAS
Spending all that money on Jayson Werth leads me to conclude that the powers that be in Washington think they're a stronger club than they are.
Best pennant race: NL Central
Worst pennant race: AL West
Worst team in each league: KC, HOU
Most likely to go .500 in each league: OAK, CHN
Team in each league most likely to disappoint mainstream consensus: DET, CIN
Team in each league most likely to surprise mainstream consensus: TB, LA
Most obnoxious stories of the year: Michael Young, Pujols' contract status, Nolan Ryan taught the Rangers pitchers to do X, Josh Hamilton, whether various starters turned relievers should be used in a sane manner (Chapman, Joba, Feliz)...basically the Texas Rangers, win or lose.

Historical Park Factors, 1901-2008

I have posted an updated spreadsheet with park factors for all teams, 1901-2008, as a Google Spreadsheet. These are five-year park factors, calculated in the same manner I describe on this page.

The guiding philosophy was to try to include as much data as possible. If there are five possible years of data to be used for a park, they will all be used, even if four of the seasons were in the past or in the future. The source of the raw data was KJOK’s excellent park database for past seasons and various sources (most notably Baseball-Reference) for recent seasons.

I treat a park as new if there are major changes to the dimensions, but I did not by any means do a complete historical survey to find out when those changes have taken place, so some that probably should have been treated differently are not. If you have specific data on when a change should have (or shouldn’t have) been made, feel free to leave a comment and I will try to incorporate these changes when I update the chart some time in the future.

Additionally, when a team moves, and a new team immediately moves in (for example, the Senators of ’60 and ’61), this is treated as a new team. Also, in cases in which teams have played a significant (which I defined as around ten or more) number of games in a different stadium in the same year, those years are treated as being a new park (an example is the Dodgers playing games in New Jersey the two years before they moved from Brooklyn). Whenever a “new park” of this sort is established, when the old order is restarted it is treated as another new park.

The reason the park factors are only shown through 2008 is that my ideal data set is two previous years, the year in question, and two future years. For most of the parks active in 2009, we will after 2011 be able to fill this dataset, and so I don’t want to publish a park factor now and change it later. However, there are parks where the 2008 or 2007 factors are not yet settled because they are new and there are not yet five years of data available. In these cases, I have listed a PF but marked it as one that will change in the future (this is indicated with an orange shading; park factors for the first year after a switch are in pink text).

Now I will give an example of how I chose the years to be considered in figuring the PF. Suppose we look at the Diamondbacks, who have played in Bank One Ballpark since 1998. In 1998, we have no previous data, but there is four future years of data, so the sample is 1998-2002. For 1999, there is one previous year, so we also look at three future years, and get 1998-2002. For 2000, there are two previous years, so we use two future years, and have a sample of 1998-2002. This is now in the ideal format--the year in question, plus the two immediately prior and future years. Of course, in 2001, we use the two previous years (1999 and 2000), and two future years (2002 and 2003), making the total sample 1999-2003, and it will continue in that manner until something changes.

Let’s also consider the end of the Braves’ tenure in Fulton-County Stadium. The last season there was 1996. For 1994, we have two previous years (‘92 and ‘93) as well as two future years (‘95 and ‘96), so we use 1992-1996. For 1995, we have just one future year, so we use three previous years, and also use 1992-1996, and the same for 1996.

In the previous iteration of these park factors, there were three recent parks for which I needlessly inserted a changepoint and thus changed the factors for the surrounding seasons. These teams were pointed out by Terpsfan101, and I have corrected their PFs in this edition. They are Detroit, 1994-1999; Minnesota, 1989-1995; and Seattle, 1993-1996.

2011 Indians “Preview”

If you close your eyes and dream just a little bit, you can see the Indians contending in a division without a clear favorite. A healthy Grady Sizemore and a healthy Carlos Santana teaming up with the overlooked Shin-Soo Choo to form a secondary average all-star wrecking crew at the heart of the offense. Maybe Matt LaPorta lives up to his potential, just a little, and provides average first base output. Michael Brantley is able to get on base, and Asdrubal Cabrera fields well, and second and third base are not complete black holes. Meanwhile, the bullpen is anchored by Chris Perez, with Rafael Perez and Tony Sipp combining to give the Tribe two solid left-handed relievers. A couple of other somewhat promising righties take bullpen spots and run with them. That team is no threat to win 100 games, but it could win 87 games.

“But wait”, you say. “Your rosy scenario said nothing about the starting pitching.” Oops. And that is the problem with the 2011 Indians in a nutshell; they might not wind up having a good offense or a good bullpen, but it's not that hard to envision how it might happen. On the other hand, it's very hard to see the starting pitching performing in a manner that could make Cleveland a legitimate threat in the AL Central.

Carlos Santana will be the catcher, and is said to be back to normal after recovering from the knee injury that prematurely ended his rookie season. Even assuming that to be reality, it's easy to see Santana being something of a disappointment to fans in 2011 after hitting .261/.408/.469 in 187 major league PA. Whether those expectations are met or not, Santana should be on of the Tribe's best offensive players and have the bat to carry first base, where he is slated to see some time.

The competition to be his backup will continue throughout the spring. Lou Marson started last season as the Indians catcher, but my money would be on him beginning the season in Columbus. He's still young enough that the organization would presumably like to get him some regular playing time rather than the rare chances that figure to come behind Santana. That leaves an assortment of uninspiring choices (veterans Paul Phillips and Luke Carlin and youngster Juan Apodaca). I would be very surprised if it was Apodaca, and the fact that Marson is already on the 40-man roster may wind up winning him the position after all.

At first base, the hope that Matt LaPorta could be the impact hitter that would really make the CC Sabathia trade payoff have essentially been extinguished--it's now just a question of whether he can be an adequate major league hitter at the position. The jury is still out on that, but his former prospect status still has at least another year or so with which to tease observers. LaPorta has seen time in left field in the past, but appears anchored to first base now.

Second base figures to be a black hole for the team as it has been since Asdrubal Cabrera moved across the bag for good. Luis Valbuena played himself out of Cleveland's plans last season, and while he is in camp and ostensibly competing for the job, the odds against him are staggering. If the team wouldn't promote Santana at the outset of the 2010 season, you can forget about seeing prospect Jason Kipnis (or Lonnie Chisenhall at the hot corner, although he is considered to be farther away anyway). That leaves Jason Donald, who'll likely instead be slotted at third base, and non-roster invitee Adam Everett as options (and let's be honest--if you're not going to use Everett's shortstop glove, you're not going to put him in your everyday lineup).

Thanks to this grim outlook, the Indians decided to bring in a veteran to at least give a steady presence at the position--Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera really doesn't offer much more than his name at this point, but given the choice of watching Luis Valbuena or just about any human being other than Muammar Gaddafi, things could be worse.

Third base is the other position where the team has thrown their hands up. Jayson Nix was thought to be the favorite, and will almost certainly be on the team one way or the other, but his late season trial at the hot corner was scary from a fielding standpoint, and the man has a career 77 OPS+ in over 700 PA, so it's not as if there's a tradeoff being made between fielding and offense. Donald now appears to have the inside track on the position, but he too leaves much to be desired offensively. Jared Goedert, who hit 27 homers between Akron and Columbus last year, will also get a look, but at 26 and without much a previous track record, he's more suspect than prospect. Jack Hannahan is also in camp as an option of last resort.

Cord Phelps, like Chisenhall and Kipnis, could be a midsummer or later addition to the team. Phelps is trained to play some third as Kipnis has surpassed his as the second baseman in waiting, but third base puts him in competition with Chisenhall, so he may really be preparing to take a utility job down the line. The Indians will have decent flexibility, as Cabrera and Donald can both back up short and second; there will be no need for an Everett type to be tacked on the roster solely for Asdrubal Cabrera's days off.

The outfield picture is much clearer than the infield, particularly if Sizemore is able to perform. Right field belongs to Shin-Soo Choo, who is not really appreciated by the home fans anymore than the general consensus. If you tried to tell a typical Tribe fan that Choo was roughly comparable in value to Carl Crawford in 2010, they'd laugh you off as most people from Chicago or San Francisco would as well. Sizemore will likely not be ready for Opening Day; apparently two weeks into the season is the target, but personally I don't expect to see him before May. The brass seems to be committed to playing him in center when he returns, but left is a possibility with Michael Brantley sliding over to center as he will in Sizemore's absence. I remain a Brantley skeptic, as he has yet to display a hint of power; he will need a .350ish OBA to be an asset. His .270 BABIP suggests some bad fortune, but given that his major league OBA is .313 in over 400 PA, it's going to take more than a few hits dropping in to make him a legitimate major league outfielder.

I was not particularly pleased that Austin Kearns was brought back; his hot start obscured the fact that he was a below average hitter in a corner position. He does provide a right-handed bat to platoon with Brantley, and he's borderline playable in center (as is Choo), so he brings a bit more to the table than Shelley Duncan. Duncan is left-handed, more of a liability in the field, and has performed no better at the plate. He'll probably make the team anyway and also see time at DH, particularly on days Hafner is scheduled to sit and a righty is pitching. Travis Buck, signed to a minor league deal, is a more intriguing option, similar but more useful in the field than Jordan Brown (a LF/1B). Both are left-handed, which is problematic given Brantley's presence.

Trevor Crowe would be another candidate for the bench, but he is held back by an injury and may not be ready for some time. Ezequiel Carrera, Chad Huffman, and Nick Weglarz are also in camp but don't figure to win a spot on the team.

Travis Hafner is the DH, and it's worth noting that he still contributes to the offense. 5.7 RG is still an acceptable and even slightly above-average performance from a DH. His production was similar in 2009--5.9 RG, which was actually a little worse relative to the league. The problem with Hafner as a player is that he requires frequent days off due to nagging elbow problems (only 118 games in 2010 and 94 in 2009). The real problem with Hafner as an asset is his massive contract, which still has two years and $26 million to go (one could argue that his platoon splits make him a liability against southpaws, too, I suppose). However, the typical Tribe fan carries on about Hafner the hitter as if he's completely useless, unable to separate judgment of the contract and the memory of the hitter he was from a fair assessment of the hitter he is.

Nick Johnson was a late addition to the first base/DH mix on a minor league deal. Usually I'd be very excited about Johnson joining my team, but with the Tribe not going anywhere there's really no reason to throw obstacles in the path of letting LaPorta take 600 PA. Johnson can also fill in at DH, and gives the Indians the potential to have a number of Secondary Average beasts (joining Sizemore, Choo, and Santana); of course, concerns about his effect on opportunities for other players have a high probability of being rendered moot given Nick the Stick's injury history.

The Indians' starting rotation is pretty well set, barring injury; this can be a good thing if you're the Phillies or the Giants, and a bad thing if you have Mitch Talbot and Carlos Carrasco locked into starting jobs. Fausto Carmona will take the ball on opening day; there has been so much written about him that I feel completely incapable of providing any analytical insight. Carmona stands out from other pitchers that have had flukish Cy Young type seasons (Joe Mays and Esteban Loaiza come to mind in the last decade) because he does have the stuff that makes you want to overlook the low strikeout rates and believe that he could be an exceptional pitcher with an unusual profile. But believing doesn't make it so, and Carmona is a groundball pitcher typecast as an ace by a team desperate for an ace that doesn't have very good infield defense.

Left-handed batters have remained the scourge of Justin Masterson, and as such he might well be best suited for a relief role. However, of all teams Cleveland needs to try to resist that temptation as long as possible. While as a rule I'd usually support not giving up on a pitcher's rotation potential until absolutely necessary, it is even more imperative in the case of Masterson and the Indians. The team is thin in starters, and three of the team's top pitching prospects (Alex White, Jason Knapp, and Nick Hagadone) are considered to be potential future relievers.

Mitch Talbot is a perfectly acceptable back of the rotation filler type who'll likely slot third in this club's rotation because his 159 innings and 14 RAR in 2010 constitute a track record relatively. Carlos Carrasco's stuff has always outranked his results, but he pitched well in September and will thus be given a rotation spot with little resistance this spring.

Fifth starter options are numerous, but most lack potential to ever be much more. Josh Tomlin and Jeanmar Gomez are forgettable righties, David Huff is the last man standing of the Indians once prodigious collection of left-handed soft-tossers with the rade of Aaron Laffey.. Hector Rondon was one of the team's top prospects but has been stopped cold by injuries, while deadline trade swag Zach McAllister and Corey Kluber figure to be in the mix to fill in during the summer, but not break camp with the club. The aforementioned White has more upside and will also be a possibility late in the campaign.

The wildcard in the fifth starter competition is Anthony Reyes, who will be given every opportunity to win the job. Reyes was acquired in 2008 and started 2009 in the rotation before requiring Tommy John. The Indians would love to see him physically able to pitch thanks to his experience if nothing else, but it is pretty clear that he will not be ready for Opening Day. The team was linked to veteran free agents Kevin Millwood, Jeremy Bonderman, and Bartolo Colon; the latter signed with the Yankees, sadly denying Tribe fans of seeing a former contributor return home and perhaps fall flat on his face with a flair not seen in these parts since Juan Gonzalez' one-game appearance in 2005. The former two remain on the market but each day diminishes the likelihood that they will turn up in Cleveland.

Recent developments have made the bullpen picture clearer than one might expect under the circumstances. Chris Perez will be the closer, and is a good bet to disappoint; his .234 BABIP should go up, and even without using DIPS-inspired metrics, his peripheral RA was a good three-quarters of a run above the actual figure. None of this is to say that Perez will be bad, only that one should not expect a repeat performance of the second half, in which he was a lockdown closer.

Rafael Perez and Tony Sipp give the bullpen a pair of left-handers who tease their potential to be more than specialists while often proving combustible on the mound. Chad Durbin, briefly an Indian in 2003-04 (~ 60 innings), has been signed to a major league contract and thus will be the team's primary middle innings reliever. The Durbin signing may seem unnecessary given the club's outlook, but it appears as if giving Manny Acta some hope of a stable, experienced right-handed middle reliever outweighed other considerations.

Those four are locks; two others, Jensen Lewis and Joe Smith, are strong possibilities. Both were signed to contracts rather than being non-tendered, which leads one to believe that they will be pitching in Jacobs Field this year. Smith is a pleasure to watch if nothing else, and Lewis' childhood Indians fandom allows the fans a degree of warm fuzzies.

The final spot appears to be reserved for a long reliever; if that is the case, two pitchers jump to the front: Justin Germano and Joe Martinez. Both have started and relieved in their careers; Germano has the upper hand as his BABIP gave the impression of effectiveness in 35 innings with the Tribe in 2010.

If the team is willing to eschew a long man requirement, Frank Herrmann and Vinnie Pestano will be very much in the mix. Herrmann is a 27 year old righty without good stuff; his performance over 45 big league innings was average but he lived on a low walk rate (1.8 per nine) and a low strikeout rate (4.8). The fall off the high wire could be ugly. Pestano throws hard and impressed in his September callup; his AA and AAA performance was impressive as well (1.81 ERA, 77/16 K/W in 59 innings). It would be nice to see the team go with Pestano, as there really aren't any right-handers with power arms to set up Perez (I don't want to give the impression I have a fetish for power arms--”effective” arms would have worked too).

Other relievers who could appear as the season progresses include Josh Judy, Jess Todd (definitely stuck in neutral at this point), Nick Hagadone (if moved to the pen), Bryce Stowell and Zach Putnam (who'll immediately become my least favorite Indian of all-time). There are a number of arms with potential in that group, and so it's possible that the Tribe bullpen could be a lot more exciting by September and perhaps positioned to be more effective in 2012.

Last year I predicted a 74-88 season, which was five wins too many; I've learned my lesson and will go with 72-90 this year. It's dangerous to attempt to project further down the road, but I could see 2012 as a similar season to 2011 with some more young players breaking in, with 2013 as a season in which to make a push. But by that point the contract status of players like Sizemore and Choo will be an issue, and so it's best to keep an even keel and say that it's not at all clear when Cleveland's next contender will take the field.

A best case scenario (really more like 90th percentile)? Let's say 81-81. The starting pitching makes it tough to go much higher even if one assumes favorable health for the offense and an effective bullpen.

Worst case? Any time you expect to win 72 games, you could lose 100 if things don't go your way. I don't think this is the worst team in the majors, but only a homer could argue that median expectation wouldn't put them in the bottom third or quarter of the league.

Sadly, this is an organization that needs a break from a public relations standpoint. The performance of the organization has been a disappointment over the last three seasons without question, but the fickleness of the fanbase has been a disproportionate response. Indians fans have every right to demand better from the organization, but when just four years ago your team was one win away from the World Series, it is unbecoming to act as fans of a club that has spent a generation planted in the second division. Perhaps more than any other fanbase, Indians rooters have swallowed the vision of baseball as hopeless for small markets hook, line, and sinker--even when they could simply look to the city's other major league franchises and see that salary caps can neither compel “homegrown” players to stay home (even when the team wins a lot of games and the player is actually from the area) or ensure that an organization will put a decent team on the field even once in a decade. The pathetic, feeble whining about a ballclub by denizens of a declining, corrupt city is a bit much for me.

C: Carlos Santana, Luke Carlin
IF: Matt LaPorta, Orlando Cabrera, Jayson Nix, Adsrubal Cabrera, Jason Donald (Shelley Duncan in lieu of Johnson)
OF: Michael Brantley, Grady Sizemore, Shin Soo-Choo, Austin Kearns, Shelley Duncan (Travis Buck in lieu of Sizemore)
DH: Travis Hafner
SP: Fausto Carmona, Justin Masterson, Mitch Talbot, Carlos Carrasco, Josh Tomlin
RP: Chris Perez, Rafael Perez, Tony Sipp, Chad Durbin, Jensen Lewis, Joe Smith, Vinnie Pestano

Comments on Bill James Gold Mine 2010, pt. 2

2. Defensive Win Shares and Loss Shares

James has revamped Win Shares over the last couple of years to include Loss Shares. I think this is a very good thing, although I look forward to when (if?) the entire methodology is published. Without the full explanation, it's dangerous to comment about isolated details, but James' essay on "Explaining Defensive Win Shares to a Dead Sportswriter" is tough to ignore. My Twitter-friendly take on it: He's going to have trouble explaining it to a lot of people, not just dead sportswriters.

Again, it's impossible to evaluate the method while knowing so little about it, but James makes this extraordinary statement:

Making outs increases the team's responsibility to play defense. When you make more outs, that increases the team's responsibility to play defense. Therefore, if two players are the same in the field but of them makes more outs, the one who makes fewer outs has to come out ahead when you compare the player's defense contribution to his defensive responsibility.

Lest you think that was just a slip, he doubles down:

While we are in the habit of thinking of offense and defense in baseball as un-connected, they are in fact not un-connected. There is a very important connect between them, which is the rule that for every out you make on offense, you must record an out on defense.

Bill James is obviously a very intelligent man, and you a very intelligent reader, so I am hesitant to respond to this--the response should write itself. Limiting myself to a paragraph or less, I suppose it is technically true that each out on offense is matched by a defensive out, barring walkoffs and rainouts and the like. But there is no causation between the two. The rules of the game require three outs per inning and nine innings per team. Each team makes 27 outs regardless of the rate at which they use them (think OBA) or any other factor.

An individual who makes outs at a higher rate than some comparison player does not increase the number of outs that his defense must record. The defense must record 27 outs regardless of what an individual does at bat. What does happen is that by consuming excess outs, the individual batter leaves less outs to be consumed by the other eight members of his lineup, and fails to generate additional plate appearances for them.

James later seems to suggest that the revamped DWS-LS system assigns the same responsibility to field to each position, regardless of where it stands on the defensive spectrum. He then states his objection to offensive-based positional adjustments, and so it seems as if the stuff about making outs might be a backdoor way of applying positional adjustments. It's unclear, though, and still doesn't follow logically.

James’ discussion of positional adjustments also seems to gloss over the use of defense-based positional adjustments or the fact that most of us who still use offensive positional adjustments do so because we believe they provide a ballpark estimate of the defensive differences between the positions. When I use an offensive positional adjustment, I'm not saying that I think a shortstop with a 5 RG is a better hitter than a first baseman with a 5 RG. What I am saying is that the difference between aggregate offensive performance between shortstops and first baseman (when considered carefully and over a long period of time) approximates the inherent difference in defensive value.

You are certainly free to reject that argument (and many sabermetricians that I respect very much do just that), but please recognize that the sabermetrician using an OPADJ is likely not making the claim that a player's offensive contribution is altered by his fielding position.

More important than my own positional adjustment folly is an apparent failure by James to recognize that the positional adjustments that are now used most prominently in the community (generally Tango's, which have made their mark on the PADJs used in WAR figures from both Chone and Fangraphs) are based on estimates of the defensive difference between positions, sometimes informed by offensive averages. Furthermore, the sources do not lump the positional adjustment into the offensive ranking--they break everything (offense, fielding, baserunning, position, etc.) into smaller components, which are then summed to produce RAA, WAR, or some other total value metric.

Again, it is possible that I have misunderstood James' point, or that he has done a poor job of expressing himself, and that DWS is completely logical. However, I think it is going to take a much more thorough explanation of the system to give people that read the Gold Mine piece a lot of confidence in his methodology.

3. Strikeout rate

One of the most thought-provoking essays is "Whiff 7", which discusses the phenomenon of strikeout rates continuing to reach all-time highs. James argues that there is no end to this in sight under current conditions, as teams have an incentive to find power pitchers but no disincentive to find batters that avoid striking out. James argues that the standard deviation of power (he doesn't use that terminology) has decreased over time, and so league homer rates have gone up while the top individual performers hit about as many homers as they did in previous eras.

James then offers some suggestions of rule changes that would slow or reverse the trend. It's an interesting piece, and it didn't prod me to respond to it directly, but rather to make a tangential and mostly unrelated point about how we measure strikeout rates--a wholly unoriginal and stale one at that.

I have for a long time advocated using K/PA rather than K/IP as the measure of pitcher strikeout proficiency (I’m not claiming this is unique, as others have carried that banner with much more vigor and coherent arguments than I have offered). Through no effort of mine, the use of K/PA has increased in the sabermetric community, with sites like The Hardball Times and Fangraphs prominently utilizing K/PA.

As an example of how the different denominators can change perception, consider the point that most long-term successful pitchers have at least average strikeout rates. This is a point that the average fan still mystifyingly misses a great deal of the time. Take Greg Maddux for example. Maddux is apparently seen by some as a non-strikeout pitcher. Here is a table with his K/9 versus the league average, with KAA being strikeouts above average per inning:



For his career, Maddux struck out 6.1 per nine, while the league average was 6.4. He struck out 206 less batters than an average pitcher would have in the same number of innings. Without seeing the same figure for a lot of pitchers, it's hard to contextualize that, admittedly.

Suppose that instead you look at Maddux through K/PA:



Now Maddux' strikeout rate is essentially average--he struck out 17% of opposing batters, the same as the league average. Maddux' career rate is lower (it's actually 16.5% to 16.6%), but just barely so, and by this metric he only recorded 22 less strikeouts than average.

In Maddux' peak years (I think 1992-98 stand out), he was above-average even by K/9--+90 KAA, while he was an even more robust +196 when K/PA is the standard.

This is not intended to recast Maddux as a strikeout fiend--certainly he was not, even at his best. Still, Maddux' strikeout rate is more impressive when viewed in light of the number of opposing batters he actually faced rather than in terms of innings pitched, which really is just a measure of the percentage of outs a pitcher gets via the K rather (this is obscured by displaying strikeouts per 9 innings rather than strikeouts per 27 outs).

In addition to K/9, there are several other per-inning pitching ratios in common usage--H/9, W/9, HR/9, WHIP. What all of those have in common is that they are ratios of bad things (offensive successes) to good things (outs recorded). K/9 is a ratio of really good things (outs recorded by strikeout) to another set of plain old good things that includes the really good things (total outs recorded). As such, it's best viewed as a measure of a pitcher's reliance on strikeouts.

Comments on Bill James Gold Mine 2010, pt. 1

I quite enjoyed the third edition of the Bill James Gold Mine, even though I didn't get around to reading it until a few months after it was published. It jogged some thoughts, which lead to this post, which is not fully based on James' essays but on the semi-related paths they sent my mind down. To me, that is one of the tests of a really good sabermetric work--does it get you thinking, even if not about the exact topics covered? James' book passed that test for me.

However, I do think that the book would be stronger if it contained more of James' essays and less "statistical nuggets". The nuggets were of less interest to me, and seemed to be present in lesser quantity than they were in the first two editions of the book. The reverse was true for the essays, and those are what compel me to buy the book. Not being a subscriber to Bill James Online, I'm not positive about this, but I believe that James writes a number of additional essays in each year that are not included in the book.

If that is indeed the case, I believe that they'd be much better off to collect all of Bill's essays in the Gold Mine, and leave the nuggets for the individual to drudge up themselves online. Not only does the website lend itself more to the statistics (the data there is much more extensive than what can be printed in the book even if the book were the size of one of the old Great American Baseball Stat Books) and the essays to the printed page, but if there are any folks out there who still refuse to use the Internet and are interested in James, I'd think they'd be more enticed by the essays. A book of just the essays, with some other filler of some sort, would have a character not unlike that of the 1990-1992 Baseball Books, which I liked very much.

Of course, since it appears that the book is not even being published in 2011, those suggestions are for naught.

I have three subjects to touch on, two of which could be considered critiques and one of which is just a good old-fashioned tangent. This post went a lot longer than I originally intended so it's been broken up into two portions:

1. Starting pitcher rankings

The longest essay in the book deals with a system to rate starting pitchers based on where they place among other starters in each of their league seasons. James first ranks pitchers by Season Score (*), and then assigns points based on the pitcher's standing in the league. Each league season has 5.5 points per team available. In a fourteen team league, the top ranked pitcher gets 12 points, the #2 ranked pitcher gets 11 points, and so on down to the #11 pitcher who gets 2 points. There are also three-point bonuses, up to nine points per season, available for truly historic seasons. The resulting metric is called Strong Season points.

(*) James does not give the formula for Season Score in the article, but explains that is based on W, L, IP, ERA, K, W, and SV. "The point of the system is to evaluate a pitcher's record without context"..."This was a way of trying to say 'How good are the numbers themselves?', rather than 'How good was the pitcher who compiled these numbers?'".

Personally, I'm not sure that I have a whole lot of interest in rankings of pitchers based on a method that deliberately ignores context (and James certainly does not deny the importance of context). Setting my objection aside, though, it seems to me as if the Season Score is yet another result of a process that James has repeated over the course of his career: the re-invention of Approximate Value. Of all of his methods, my impression is that there is none that James personally likes more than AV. Even Win Shares is in some respects a return to AV--while it attempts to adjust for everything, it still expresses the result in an integer. The scale is higher than that of AV (a 20 AV would be an extraordinary season, while 20 WS is good but ordinary).

And so after attempting to adjust for everything, it seems James still had a void in his own toolkit, and so he filled it with the Season Score.

Digression aside, James found that a career total of 43 strong season points marks a fairly clear line for the Hall of Fame in retrospect. Only five pitchers retired for a significant length of time have more than 44 points and are not in the Hall--Vida Blue, Bert Blyleven, Ron Guidry, Carl Mays and Billy Pierce. James says that Blyleven and Guidry (60 points) are the only two pitchers that were far above 43 yet are excluded from Cooperstown. (Blyleven has been elected since James wrote the book and I wrote this post, obviously).

Since Guidry's is the most surprising result of James' survey, I'll take a closer look at him. I do not intend the discussion about Guidry to be a commentary on his Hall worthiness or even his value, but rather as a means of discussing the issue I have with the strong season method. It is important to note that James does not in any claim that the strong season method must be used in ranking pitchers, that it is better than any methods X, Y, and Z, or any such thing. James does not argue that Guidry should be in the Hall of Fame because of his showing in the system.

Guidry earned points for six seasons in James' analysis--1977-79, 1982-83, and 1985. Suppose we apply James' method, but use a different metric--a simple Runs Above Replacement, figured using total runs allowed and adjusted for park. How many points would Guidry earn under such a system?

* James ranked Guidry #6 in the AL in 1977, which is worth seven points. I have him #7, worth six points.

* James and I both have Guidry #1 in 1978 with an extraordinary season for 12 points (James awards the 9 point bonus, and I'll do so as well to keep things comparable). Guidry turned in 101 RAR, seventeen more than the next closest pitcher and nine more than any other AL pitcher in any of these six years.

* James had Guidry #3 in 1979 for ten points. I have him second, for eleven points.

* James ranks Guidry #11 in 1982 for two points. I have him all the way down at #26. His RA was 4.22 in a league in which 4.5 runs were scored per game, and he pitched in a moderate pitchers' park (.97 PF). At 34 RAR, he is eleven runs behind the eleventh-place pitcher (Geoff Zahn, 45). Presumably Season Score gives Guidry a boost because of his 14-8 record, one of the most impressive in the league (seventh in the league in Win Points).

* James ranks Guidry #4 in 1983 for nine points; I have him #6 for seven points.

* James ranks Guidry #2 in 1985 for eleven points; I have him #11 for two points. This is another season in which Guidry's W-L record seems to give him a huge season score boost (22-6).

Add it all up, and I have Guidry at 47 points--suddenly not that far above the Hall of Fame line James observed. I followed his scoring method exactly, but the results changed significantly simply by changing ranking methods.

More interesting, IMO, is how the use of in-season rank elevates the importance of very small performance differences. In 1979, Guidry ranked second in RAR at 71. However, Tommy John (71) and Jerry Koosman (70) were right behind him. Given that Guidry relied much less on his fielders, I strongly support the notion that he had a better season than the other lefties. Still, negligible differences in actual performance are given much greater impact when one uses a points system like James'.

Another example is 1985, in which Guidry ranks eleventh on my list at 61. Jimmy Key ranks sixth at 62--there are six pitchers within two RAR of each other. Guidry could very easily rank sixth in this season, which would be worth an additional five points. That would vault him from 47 points to 52 points, and give him a great deal more clearance over the HOF line.

This is not to say that James' ranking system is without its strong points with respect to its aims--it values peak performance and it sets an equal total value relative to the size of the league, which depending on one's perspective might be very good properties. My contention is that such a system is very sensitive to small changes in statistics, ones that would have no impact on a career-based evaluation. If Guidry had been evaluated at 62 RAR and thus sixth in 1985, the extra run saved would have zero impact on your evaluation of his career RAR total--and rightfully so. Allowing one run to exert a significant difference in a player's rank on an all-time list strikes me as utterly illogical and unsatisfactory.

You may object and say that I am using RAR rather than Season Score, and that Season Score is not subject to minute differences in performance having a large effect on rank order as is the case for RAR. While it is true that RAR and Season Score are very different methods, and that their application to Guidry might be very different as well, any metric is going to be subject to the same concerns when making a rank order over one season. There is always the potential that a very small margin could be the difference between a batting title and third place, between fifth in the league on a list and out of the top ten. That is true for any metric you want to pick, from BA to home runs to ERA to Season Score to RAR.

Into the Great Wide Open

For as long as I have been writing this blog, I have done an annual preview of the OSU baseball team. I have never before been at such a loss for words or offered so little insight about the team that will appear on the field in the upcoming season. While I have never possessed nor claimed any sort of insider status, any sort of knowledge about the thinking of the coaching staff and the player’s performance in off-season drills and the like, I’ve always felt that I had a pretty good handle on what to expect the lineup to look like. The tiny scraps of information available through the media about the team, coupled with my knowledge of the personnel from the previous season and years of observation of Bob Todd’s decision-making made it a relatively simple guessing game.

The 2011 Ohio State team is anything but a simple guessing game. There has been massive roster turnover, with the team’s two best players (ace Alex Wimmers and catcher Dan Burkhart) now playing professionally, and, worst of all from a prognostication standpoint, the fact that Coach Todd has retired, and Greg Beals is now in charge of the program. Beals had moderate success at Ball State, but his Ohio roots and purported recruiting skill landed him what is likely the most attractive coaching position in Midwest baseball. He has filled out his staff with Chris Holick, his pitching coach from Ball State (and former OSU pitcher) Mike Stafford, and volunteer coach Josh Newman (another former Buckeye hurler and briefly a major leaguer with the Rockies and Royals).

Holick returns to coaching after spending two years in private industry that came on the heels of a seven-year assistant coaching career (Kent State, Arizona State, and Florida International). Stafford served as pitching coach under Beals at Ball State since 2003; prior to that he had been a bullpen catcher for the Columbus Clippers and pitched four years in the minors after ending his OSU closing career in 1998. Newman is entering his first season as a collegiate coach.

The talent they have to work with does not inspire a great deal of confidence for 2011, as there is very little in the way of proven performers. My fears about this were enhanced when Beals, speaking on the radio halftime show of an OSU football game this fall, answered a question about expectations for the season with vapid generalities about “playing hard”, “playing the game the right way”, “learning how to win”…the sort of talk you hear from a coach that knows he’s building for the future. At a recent meet the team event, Beals said that due to new NCAA rules on bats “It's going to be a faster paced game, but a safer game with less runs scored," Beals said. "Our game is going to become a game of the finer skills - defense...throwing strikes...aggressive on the base paths - and we want to be ahead of this curve." Uh-oh.

Even if the entire roster from 2010 was back, it would be difficult to get a good read on the team’s prospects. 2009 was a great season for the Buckeyes, with a Big Ten regular season title and a second-place regional finish, but 2010 was a disaster despite high expectations. OSU was in first place (although by a very slim margin in a very tight conference race) in late April when Wimmers went down with a hamstring injury. The few starts he missed might have been enough to mark the difference between finishing near the top of the conference and failing to finish in the top six to qualify for the Big Ten Tournament--the first time that fate had befallen an OSU club since 1996. Ohio’s 11-13 conference record was the first and only sub-.500 record in Big Ten play in Coach Todd’s twenty-two year career.

Usually I write my preview and lineup expectation a month or so before the season starts; this time I’m doing it less than a week prior to Opening Day. As such, the ensuing discussion is based largely on the preview posted at the official athletic website; I’ve had to rely on such accounts to get any sort of feeling for how the lineup would shake out

Burkhart’s successor behind the plate will be Greg Solomon, a sophomore-eligible transfer from Paradise Valley Community College in Arizona. Solomon missed most of last season with a knee injury and did not hit particularly well in his 2009 freshman season, so this position is a huge question mark (you’ll note questions as a recurring theme). Beals’ comments on him praise his defensive skill with little to say about his bat. Burkhart was such an ironman for the past three seasons that none of the other catchers on the roster have any experience. Redshirt freshman Steel Russell, son of former Pittsburgh skipper John, would seem to be the logical choice as backup. True freshman Josh Bokor, junior-eligible JUCO transfer Brad Hutton, and his brother Blake, a true freshman, could also be options. The Hutton brothers are both listed as C/IF on the roster, so it is possible they could see time at the corners as well.

For the past two seasons, first base belonged to senior Matt Streng, but he has flipped corners with sophomore Brad Hallberg. I was quite surprised to learn of this move, as Streng has never struck me as particularly athletic, but he will man the hot corner in 2011 after a very disappointing 2010 campaign that saw him hit just one home run (coincidentally, it came in the only game I was able to attend) and turn in a -13 RAA performance. Hallberg was -4 runs in 112 PA in his debut season.

Hallberg will split first base and DH duties with true freshman Josh Dezse, the most impressive member of the OSU recruiting class and a 28th round pick of the Yankees. Given the fact that Dezse is also expected to be a key part of OSU’s bullpen, it would probably make more sense to have him at first base more often than not, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Second base is another position where the Bucks have to fill a big whole as one of my favorite players, Cory Kovanda, completed his eligibility. Kovanda was a consistent on base threat, slapping infield hits, drawing walks, and getting plunked. His replacement will be redshirt sophomore Ryan Cypret, whose father was a member of the previous coaching staff. Cypret served something of a utility infield role last season, but had just one extra base hit in 51 PA and thus has much to prove with the stick.

Shortstop is the field position with the most continuity, as Tyler Engle has spent most of his three years in Columbus playing good defense but producing little at the plate. Last year he posted an ugly .224/.342/.376 line; his 28 walks were second on the team and the only thing that made him playable. If Engle could regain something approaching his 2009 form (.285/.411/.423), it would be a huge help as the infield looks as if it will struggle to create runs. Two true freshmen Indiana natives, Derek Hannahs and Jacob Hayes, and local product Phil Jaskot figure to provide depth, with Hayes also being trained for left field.

The outfield features one returning starter, as senior Brian DeLucia will play right field. DeLucia is easily OSU’s top returning hitter, with a .320/.395/.503 line in 2011, and he’s a very good outfielder as well. The rest of the Buckeye outfield will have big shoes to fill, as left fielder Zach Hurley (.385/.438/.602) and center fielder Michael Stephens (.360/.395/.556) were the team’s two most potent hitters outside of Burkhart in 2010. Also gone to graduation is DH Ryan Dew (.348/.420/.498), leaving OSU short six of its top seven offensive performers--this from a team that averaged 6.6 runs to the Big Ten’s 6.8.

It was expected that sophomore Hunter Mayfield would get one of the open positions, but he transferred to Rollins College (a Division II school that managed to beat the Bucks last year, perhaps costing them more than just the game), so there is no returning experience of which to speak outside of DeLucia. Left field will be a platoon between junior David Corna and sophomore Joe Ciamocco. Despite having burned three years of eligibility combined, they have a total of one collegiate at bat between them, so it’s impossible to count on much offense out of them. Center field will belong to true freshman Tim Wetzel, described by the web account as having--you guessed it--"speed and defensive prowess”.

One can only hope that the unproven players will be better batters than the advance billing would suggest, because otherwise it seems as if Ohio will have significant trouble putting runs on the scoreboard. This is particularly unfortunate since the 2010 pitching staff was Wimmers and anyone who could stay healthy, and Wimmers, perhaps the best pitcher at OSU since Steve Arlin, is now a Twins farmhand.

The Friday starter should be senior Drew Rucinski, who had been constantly shuttled back and forth between the bullpen and the rotation by the previous staff. Rucinski was a good complement to Wimmers, but does not figure to match up well with the other top starters in the conference. Another senior, Dean Wolosiansky, has been a rotation stalwart throughout his career and should get the Saturday starts. Wolosiansky has always fit the profile of a league-average innings muncher, which is a good thing to have, but in a perfect world he would be the Sunday starter. That role apparently will go to true freshman Greg Greve, a 45th round pick by San Francisco in last year’s draft.

Greve’s spot in the rotation may not hold up if Brad Goldberg is granted a waiver to pitch in 2011. The Coastal Carolina transfer is a junior in eligibility, but may not be able to use it until 2012. He pitched just five innings for Coastal last year after pitching fourteen effective innings out of the pen as a freshman. If eligible, he figures to be a big boost to the Buckeye mound staff.

Josh Dezse, slated to start at 1B/DH, is also the favorite for the closer role. While two-way players are fairly common in the college game, especially as closer, the only prominent OSU two-way player of recent years was JB Shuck, now a solid prospect in the Astros organization. However, Shuck was used as a starting pitcher, not a reliever, and rarely was in the lineup when he pitched. It appears as if Beals is more comfortable with hybrid players than Todd was.

Senior Jared Strayer’s role and effectiveness increased as the season went on last year, and he figures to be the key middle reliever in 2011. Unfortunately, it seems as if the new staff has taught Strayer a more conventional delivery--last year he adopted a three-quarters/sidearm delivery that was a pleasure to watch and a rare sight on the Bill Davis Stadium mound.

Sophomore Brett McKinney showed some promise last year, but was way too wild and way too hittable (32 walks and 78 hits in 59 innings). He figures to be the Wednesday starter/weekend long man at this point, but he has a chance to be a quality contributor at some point during his career. Two left-handed pitchers--senior Theron Minium and junior Andrew Armstrong--figure to be the other candidates for Wednesday starts and weekend middle relief options. Armstrong showed much promise as a freshman in 2008, but was injured during the ’09 season and missed all of last season.

Junior Brian Bobinski and sophomore Cole Brown combined for eighteen ineffective innings last year and in a perfect world will be mopup pitchers this season, provided they have shown no improvement. Three other pitchers on the roster do not figure to see significant action: true freshman lefty Ben Bokor (twin brother of backup catcher Josh), junior walkon Paul Guey, and a freshman walkon who was unsuccessful in attempting to make Wake Forest’s roster last year, John Kuchno.

The OSU pre-conference schedule is significantly different than those of past years, showing a change in philosophy at the top. The schedule opens the weekend of February 18 with the Big Ten/Big East challenge in Florida, where the opponents will be Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. John’s--the latter two have both been problems for OSU in recent years, with Louisville burying the Bucks in five games over the past three seasons by a combined 62-32 score, and St. John’s having knocked Ohio out of the NCAA Tournament in 2005.

The weekend of February 25th sees the Bucks back in Florida four a four-game series with Western Michigan, a team with OSU has a rich tradition--the teams played ten times in the NCAA Tournament between 1951 and 1967. The weekend of March 3 will be a trip to North Carolina to face Army, Western Carolina, and Akron, and the weekend of March 10 is another Florida trip to play Illinois State, Bradley, and Army.

The annual spring break trip, which this year will run from March 18-26, is the one in which the philosophical differences emerge. Coach Todd used the spring break trip as a week of tuneup for conference play, going to Florida to face mostly northern teams that OSU should expect to go 6-2 or so against. He had not taken his team to the West Coast since a 2002 trip to Albuquerque that featured a crazy 38-15 game against Toledo, and the last trip to California came around twenty years ago. In his first season, Beals will take his charges to play a three game series in Berkeley (in what sadly appears to be the final campaign for Golden Bear baseball), two games at Fresno State, and three at Cal St.-Bakersfield.

The home opener will be Tuesday, March 29 against Xavier. Other standard one game mid-week home opponents will be Miami, Akron, Bowling Green, and Toledo. The Buckeyes will travel to play at Ohio University on one Wednesday, and have two out-of-region opponents coming in for two game series: North Florida and Oklahoma State.

Big Ten play begins April 1 against Northwestern; in subsequent weeks, OSU goes to Indiana, hosts Michigan State, travels to Penn State, hosts the forces of evil, goes to Illinois, hosts Iowa, and goes to Minnesota. If OSU is able to make the top six, they’ll be able to stay home and play downtown at Huntington Park; the Big Ten Tournament will be held there May 25 - 28.

Sadly, if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that for the second straight season six other Big Ten teams will be playing in Columbus that weekend. While I thought that Todd’s program was healthy enough, 2011 would have loomed as a possible rebuilding year in any case. Coaching changes often excite fans at the outset, but first seasons tend to be rough.

Crude Team Ratings 2010

In a previous post I explained the methodology behind these rankings, and acknowledged a fairly decent number of shortcomings they possess. I will not harp on either of those topics again here, but that is simply to avoid being repetitive--these rankings are far from perfect and should be taken in that spirit.

I have will present four different sets of rankings based on four different inputs. The manner of calculating the rankings is identical for all four; the only difference is which initial win ratio is used. I tend to believe the final set based on Runs Created/Runs Created Allowed is the most indicative of true talent, but any season aggregate metric is going to have obvious deficiencies when it comes to estimating true talent, and in reality some combination would probably be superior for that purpose.

The first ranking is what I call actual CTR, since it is based on the actual W/L ratio of each team. This is an attempt to evaluate teams based on their actual game outcomes, just adjusted for strength of schedule. Some might argue that even if actual record is used for the team, some component-estimated record should be used to gauge SOS, and they have a point, but this approach equates team strength to W/L ratio.

In the chart below, aW% is adjusted W%, and "s rk" is the rank of the team's SOS (#1 = toughest schedule):



You can see from the chart that a 100 CTR does not correspond to a .500 aW%. This is because the rankings are designed to give the average team a 100 CTR; since the properties of W/L ratio ensure that the average W/L will be > 1, an average W/L ratio is not the same time as the W/L ratio of an average team (which is 1, of course). If this scale distortion bothers you, use aW%--and stop using ERA+, because the distortion is similar. I am unconcerned about the issue because I want the average rating (but not necessarily the median) to be 100.

The three toughest schedules are the bottom three in the AL East (BAL, TOR, BOS, although it's hardly fair to refer the latter two teams as being at the bottom of anything). Of course, this is a consequence of playing in the stronger league and having to play a bunch of games against the two highest-rated teams. What I don't like about this definition of SOS is that one can make the case that Tampa Bay's schedule was equally as tough on paper as Toronto's (assuming an equal distribution of games against non-AL East opponents)--but Tampa Bay's success in winning games makes Toronto's harder in practice. It would be difficult to devise a SOS technique that took that point of view, however.

The more notable weakness of the schedule-adjustment (and thus the ratings themselves) is they make no correction for the influence that a team has upon the win-loss record of its opponents, and thus might be acting in a distortive manner at the extremes.

I also have some division/league ratings; these are simply the average CTR of all of the teams in the division:



Four of the six divisions were relatively equal, with an average CTR in the 96-102 range. However, one extremely good division and one extremely bad division result in the AL having a 108 ranking to the NL's 93. Those overall league rankings imply that the average AL team would be expected to have a .537 W% against the average NL team. The 2010 interleague record for the AL was .532, which of course was not generated through balanced schedule, neutral-field meetings and covers a sample of 252 games.

While I developed the rankings this year, I ran 2009 through the spreadsheet and the AL/NL disparity was estimated to be greater (113/89, .559). The AL West was the top-rated division (126), and the NL Central fared a tick worse than they would in 2010 (80).

The weak NL Central allowed the Reds to have the worst CTR of any playoff team (108) in 2010, although that figure was also better than the Cardinals' 2009 low of 103.

Switching gears, here are the gCTR figures. These are based on gEW% (described in this post), which takes into account the distribution of team runs scored and allowed per game (but does so independently of the other):



I'm not going to have a lot to say about the charts for each input, since they track the differences between their inputs and actual W%, which I have already written about in one form or another. Next is eCTR, which uses standard Pythagenpat W-L record as its starting point:




Finally, pCTR, based on Runs Created/Runs Created Allowed used to fuel Pythagenpat:




Here the AL East really looks good, with the top four teams in baseball. The potential for this type of clustering of strong teams (and, in the case of the NL Central, lousy teams) in one division is one of the reasons I oppose treating winners of small divisions playing with unbalanced schedules as sacrosanct.

pCTR and the associated aW% are the closest in construction to other popular ratings that account for strength of schedule and use component rather than actual W-L inputs, namely the third-order records published by Baseball Prospectus and the TPI rankings figured by Justin at Beyond the Box Score. Here are the most comparable winning percentages for each methodology--my aW% based on pCTR, the third-order winning percentage from BP, and the TPI from Justin:



You can see that there is general agreement between all of the methods, which is a good sign. The best correlation is between CTR and BP (+.983); the worst between CTR and Justin (+.942), with the BP/Justin correlation falling in the middle (+.965). The methods are all in general agreement about the proper spread of the teams--the standard deviation of the BP and Justin figures is .059 compared to .060 for the CTR-based figures, .060 for my estimate of PW% without any schedule adjustments, and .068 for actual W%.

The BP approach and my own to generating the underlying W% estimate are essentially the same, except for the use of different run estimators (BP uses EqR and I use Base Runs). Justin’s approach is a little different, and I’m personally not wild about it--it breaks defense down into pitching and fielding, making use of FIP and defensive metrics like UZR and Dewan’s Runs Saved. The approach used by BP and myself looks at the actual total component statistics surrendered by the defense. This does not allow one to split defense into pitching and fielding, but it also makes use of the actual observed interaction between the two on the field rather than using estimates that might make sense in isolation but leave something missing when the two are considered as one unit.

In any event, it is encouraging to see that CTR is able to produce similar results to systems developed by others that have been around a little or a lot longer as the case may be. If CTR returned very different results, I would probably conclude that it had a serious methodological error rather than the minor though not insignificant flaws that I am already aware of.

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