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March 30, 2008

Prospectus Today

AL Preview

by Joe Sheehan

I'm not sure what we consider Opening Day any longer. With Tuesday at 6 a.m., Sunday at 8 p.m., and Monday at 1 p.m. all vying for the honor, I figure if you average it out, the season started Thursday at about 5:30 in the afternoon. So Happy Belated Opening Day, everyone!

The following are my rankings of the American League's teams, 1-14, based on how I think they'll perform this season. The AL has definitely cleaved itself into two tiers, with seven teams vying for four playoff spots, and the other seven in various stages of building. Moreover, the gap between the #6 and #7 teams in the AL is wide enough to fit about half of the NL, maybe more. Other than the Orioles, though, there are no really bad teams in the AL.

The records below are based strictly on runs scored and runs allowed projections; I have made no attempt to figure which teams might deviate based on having particularly good or bad bullpens. Obviously, I have no way of knowing which teams will catch a good year on stuff like hitting late in games. What we can predict with some certainty is runs; how those runs fall is, well, why they play the games.

1. Boston Red Sox (96-66, 847 RS, 701 RA). Two months ago, this prediction might have been a bit rosier. The loss of Curt Schilling dings the runs allowed figure a bit, although it's complicated by the fact that Clay Buchholz will pick up some of the innings. The decline in offense is predicated on bounces from J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo not offsetting slips by David Ortiz—who was amazing last year—Jason Varitek, and Mike Lowell. Even with all that, this is the best team in baseball.

2. New York Yankees (95-67, 891 RS, 744 RA). The Yankees' offense is going to be much less impressive this season, as neither Alex Rodriguez nor Jorge Posada can be expected to reprise their team-carrying '07 lines, and there's no way the rest of the team makes up for the falloff. However, an upgraded back end of the rotation is going to make a big difference in the number of runs they allow overall. Ian Kennedy and Philip Hughes don't have to be stars; just solid league-average innings will be fine. The bullpen is a bit shaky before the eighth inning, and that fact will make it hard to execute the “Joba Chamberlain to the rotation in midseason” plan. He might not start five times this year.

3. Detroit Tigers (93-69, 921 RS, 796 RA). I was surprised at how unimpressive the Tigers looked when I started running the numbers. They could give up a lot more runs than the 796 I have them at, depending on when they get Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney back, and how healthy key players stay. They will score, but again, team age and injury risk mean wide error bars on that figure. The gap between the Tigers and the Indians is much smaller than I expected it to be.

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