Is This All There Is?

Take a look at the standings 70 games into the season. Could it really be that there is almost nothing left to learn?

By a combination of poor prospects entering the season and predictably poor performance, the following teams are essentially eliminated from the playoffs:
San Diego
Cincinnati
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Anaheim
Oakland
White Sox
Royals
Tigers

Thank you for playing. You get the home version of our game as a parting gift.

The Giants appear to be felled by a 26-44 start. They border on mathematical elimination in the NL West and sit 17.5 games out of the Wild Card.

So there is one-third of MLB that can cash it in for the season -- in mid-June.

On the other hand, the Nationals and Astros are on the verge of clinching. The Dodgers too, though theirs is conceivably a Wild Card.

The NL Central is a dumpster fire, but it seems inevitable that the Cubs will cobble together enough pitching to win that flaccid division.

That doesn't leave us much drama in the Senior Circuit. 

Colorado and Arizona have performed surprisingly well, and it's hard to believe they can maintain a .634 and .623 level of play (respectively), but who is going to run them down? The Marlins, Mets, Cardinals or Pirates, 11 or 12 games behind? Even if the Mets got the gang back together for an extended period and played .600 ball the rest of the way, that would get them to 87 wins, a number the Rockies and Dbacks will surpass even if they lose more games than they win going forward.

It appears we have our National League playoff teams mapped out already. By Father's Day.

In the AL, anyone can win the East or snag a Wild Card and maybe Texas or Seattle can challenge them. The Twins will eventually wake up and discover they are the Twins, probably around the time Cleveland blows by them for the AL Central lead.

And that will be that. The Yankees and Red Sox look strong; add the Indians and Astros and you have a five-way battle for the play-in game.

We're 70 games in and so much has been decided. Can that be all there is?

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!

The Standings

One of the great beauties of baseball is that it's so unpredictable. Every year, a team or two that appear moribund make play0ff runs. The Rays and Cards of '08 come to mind. Conversely, some squad that's stacked, tanks. 2008's Detroit and Cleveland are exemplars.

Paradoxically, that makes pre-season projections so much fun. The one below is from Baseball Projection, which uses a system called CHONE (named facetiously for creator Sean Smith) to project the most likely performance from each player in the league, estimate his playing time, and then aggregate all that for each team. It calculates the resulting runs scored versus runs allowed and then uses the Pythagorean formula to project the team's record.

The shortcomings of this method (or any projection made prior to Opening Day) are so transparent as to belie comment. But the projections do give us a guide as to which teams appear stonger or weaker than you might have thought at first glance. Keep in mind that these projections don't include Manny Ramirez's signing or any trades/signings/injuries after February 24.

American
East	W	L		Central	W	L		West	W	L
Yankees	97	65		Indians	90	72		Angels	85	77
Red Sox	96	66		Tigers	85	77		A's	81	81
Rays	89	73		Twins	79	83		Mariners	78	84
Blue Jays	75	87		White Sox	73	89		Rangers	72	90
Orioles	74	88		Royals	72	90
National
East	W	L		Central	W	L		West	W	L
Phillies	87	75		Cubs	88	74		Dodgers	82	80
Braves	86	76		Cardinals	83	79		Padres	80	82
Mets	86	76		Reds	82	80		D-Backs	79	83
Marlins	75	87		Brewers	81	81		Rockies	78	84
Nationals	74	88		Pirates	73	89		Giants	77	85
				Astros	72	90

Remember that these are "average" projections; i.e., there is an equal chance according to this system that each team will win either more or fewer than the number of games listed. So, for example, the Rays may have more upside than the Yanks and Sox, but more downside as well. 89 wins is the midpoint.

I personally believe that the Mets should be a narrow favorite in the NL East and that the Indians and Mariners are vastly overrated by this system. I think the Royals are improving and would bet real American legal tender that they don't have the worst record in baseball. I'm surprised by the lack of respect for the Cubs in a weak NL Central, but not surprised at all by the tossup nature of the NL West.

Take it for what it's worth.