For What It's Worth

As I was saying yesterday, it's fun and futile to make pre-season predictions. Here we go again.

This is the work of Baseball Prospectus, which uses a slightly different method than Fangraphs to make its projections. After projecting individual player performances and aggregating them by team, BP runs a million simulated seasons to give us a range of possibilities. So while the averages say the Pirates will win just 65 games, a sufficient number of things break right for them in about two percent of cases that would get them into the playoffs.

                       Div.     Wild    Total
NL East      W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
Mets       92.2   69.8   39.1    11.8    50.9
Phillies   87.1   74.9   23.9    10.7    34.7
Braves     87.0   75.0   23.7    10.7    34.4
Nationals  78.5   83.5    9.5     5.5    15.0
Marlins    71.6   90.4    3.8     2.5     6.3

                        Div.     Wild    Total
NL Central   W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
Cubs       95.3   66.7   52.0    10.0    62.0
Brewers    86.4   75.6   22.9    10.4    33.3
Cardinals  80.1   81.9   11.6     6.5    18.1
Reds       79.4   82.6   10.4     6.1    16.4
Astros     66.6   95.4    1.9     1.2     3.1
Pirates    64.5   97.5    1.3     0.8     2.1

                        Div.     Wild    Total
NL West      W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
D'backs    91.6   70.4   46.7     6.9    53.6
Dodgers    83.7   78.3   22.5     6.4    28.9
Giants     77.9   84.1   12.1     4.1    16.3
Rockies    77.1   84.9   11.0     3.7    14.7
Padres     74.0   88.0    7.6     2.6    10.3

                        Div.     Wild    Total
AL East      W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
Red Sox    98.0   64.0   38.9    24.0    62.0
Yankees    95.9   66.1   32.1    24.5    56.5
Rays       91.3   70.7   20.3    21.1    41.4
Blue Jays  81.2   80.8    6.4    10.1    16.5
Orioles    73.9   88.1    2.3     4.5     6.8

                        Div.     Wild    Total
AL Central   W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
Indians    83.0   79.0   32.3     2.6    34.8
Twins      79.4   82.6   22.6     2.2    24.8
Tigers     78.3   83.7   20.2     2.1    22.2
Royals     74.7   87.3   13.8     1.5    15.3
White Sox  73.0   89.0   11.2     1.2    12.4

                        Div.     Wild    Total
AL West      W      L   Title %  Card %  Postseason %
Angels     84.3   77.7   42.1     2.2    44.3
Athletics  82.3   79.7   35.4     2.3    37.6
Rangers    71.9   90.1   12.5     1.0    13.5
Mariners   70.0   92.0   10.1     0.8    10.9

Again, this is as of Feb.19 when Manny and others remained unsigned. Should the Dodgers ink him, that would close the gap some with the Diamondbacks, who seem awfully well-regarded for a team lacking a power bat. BP has little faith in the White Sox, who last year vastly outperformed their projections.

This whole thing will be settled with two words: Play ball!