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February 13, 2009 Prospectus Hit and RunOutside Help, NL Central
Last week I cracked open the new PECOTA projections to examine the winter's comings and goings on a team-by-team basis, division by division, starting with the NL East. This week's release of the PECOTA-based depth charts and projected standings brings the sum of these transactions—the trades and free-agent signings (or departures) which will have an impact on each team's 2009 model—a bit more into focus. What's represented here is just one piece of the puzzle, with no attempt to account for longer-term concerns such as prospect trades or multi-year deals. This is a rough guide to who's new and who's gone, and how much impact they're projected to have on the division races this year. Teams are listed in order of 2008 finish; for each hitter, WARP and EqA are listed, while for each pitcher, the figures are WARP and EqERA. What's most interesting is that the NL Central finds teams feeling the pinch of hard economic times more acutely than those in the NL East. In the East, the Mets, Phillies, and Braves have all made at least two deals in which they committed more than $10 million to a single player this winter, while the Nationals stepped up to that tier with this week's signing of Adam Dunn. By contrast, the Cubs stand alone as the Central's only big spender. From Ryan Dempster's four-year, $52 million deal and Milton Bradley's three-year, $30 million pact, the next-largest outlay on an incoming player is the Reds' trade to add Ramon Hernandez at $9 million, and from there, things drop to the more modest $6-6.5 million range with the Cardinals' Khalil Greene, the Reds' Willy Taveras (a two-year deal), and the Brewers' Trevor Hoffman. While I haven't completed this series, a quick scan of the free-agent rolls suggests that only the AL Central might rival this one in its winter thriftiness.
IN: C Paul Bako (0.3, .221), RF Milton Bradley (3.9, .311), OF Joey Gathright (0.6, .247), RP Aaron Heilman (1.3, 4.46), RP Kevin Gregg (1.9, 4.26), 2B Aaron Miles (0.4, .238), 2B Luis Rivas (-0.4, .217), RP Jeffrey Stevens (0.8, 5.08), OF So Taguchi (-0.1, .229), RP Luis Vizcaino (1.2, 4.22) 9.9 The Cubs' impending sale has overshadowed their dealings this winter, preventing them from seriously pursuing a potential blockbuster to acquire Jake Peavy and forcing them to mind their payroll a bit more closely than usual. Then again, they did shell out to retain Dempster. Bradley is the biggest addition, and while he's an impact hitter, his production from the left side (.270/.362/.436 for his career) won't cover for the tilt of a lineup that offers only Mike Fontenot and Kosuke Fukudome as additional lefty bats. Add the fact that it's Fukudome's four-year, $48 million deal that's being papered over, that Bradley's arrival pushes him to center field, where he'll be stretched defensively (at least on those days that the fragile Bradley will be in the lineup), and that better center-field options like Edmonds and Pie have left the fold this winter, and suddenly the team's marquee acquisition has been somewhat neutralized. Departures like DeRosa and Wood only confirm the obvious talent drain in the face of rising payroll. Still, the initial PECOTA projections forecast the team with an NL-high 97 wins and an 11-game margin for error over the Brewers, testifying to the quality of the remaining talent on hand.
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Excuse the strength of this language, but it is positively idiotic to consider the Central weaker than the West. I can't imagine a credible projection system drawing this conclusion.
PECOTA's reputation for credibility can probably survive your strong dismissal, but that's an issue you'll have to take up with Nate. The Central is projected to have the league's best team and two of the top six, but it's also got the only two teams projected under 72 wins, with both well below that, and thus the most extreme spread of any division.
The overall numbers as of today's batch (division, wpct, run dif):
ALE .544 294
NLE .515 151
NLW .499 43
NLC .485 -79
ALC .478 -203
ALW .475 -198
As Clay noted in his latest U., there's still another step to be taken with regards to the team defensive impact on the pitchers, but that happens at the Nate level with regards to generating the individual forecasts.
Also keep in mind that the NL West is more likely to gain the impact of one M. Ramirez, hitter, given the likelihood that his potential destinations seem to have dwindled to the Dodgers or Giants.
Having said all that, it's worth looking back at last year's final projections (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7314), which also had the Central trailing the West, .495 to .492. The Central wound up with a .515 winning percentage, the West .463, so maybe the system just hates the flyover states ;-)
Or -- and this is a topic for further exploration -- perhaps the system just likes the youth of the West, where the Dodgers, D-Backs and Rockies have lots of good players who are under 27. I noted the Brewers and Reds but the rest of the division doesn't seem to have a lot of young impact talent and therefore sees a lot of regression up ahead. I don't know this to be true, but I'd guess some combo of that and the net talent emigration are what's driving what may seem like a counterintuitive projection.
In fact, it was last year's complete miss on the flyover states -- not for the first time -- that's the main reason behind my inability to grok this prediction. Nearly as important, however, is what I now see in your response: apparently the system actually LIKES the NL West, putting them well over break-even in run differential. That is completely incomprehensible to me. The division's run differential last year was something appalling, worse than -250 if I do my math correctly, and the "lots of good players who are under 27" aren't going to make *that* much difference.
I have the highest respect for the ability of PECOTA to predict individual performances, but something ain't right here when it's applied to the teams. And yes, I consider it credible that the system "hates" the flyover states, in the sense that there is something about their teams that it undervalues.
Actually, a simpler answer for the Central's low ranking may be the lack of high-upside pitching. The Cardinals lack a single pitcher projected for 20 VORP, as do the Pirates, while the Astros have one and the Reds two. The Cubs have four and the Brewers have two. Meanwhile, the Giants and D-backs have three apiece, the Dodgers four, the Padres two and the Rockies one (or two, if you count Cook's 19.9).
Last year's NL featured 48 pitchers with 20 VORP, three per team. By my quick count the West teams have the edge 13-8 (not including Cook) in this arbitrary cutoff, including four of the majors' top 10 in Webb, Haren, Lincecum and Peavy, with Billingsley and Scherzer in the top 15. Harden and Oswalt are the only two from the Central in the top 15.
We'll see what happens when the defensive adjustments get taken into account, but that's a pretty striking imbalance.
Well, that "last year's NL" figure kinda makes my point: despite >50% more of these "elite" pitchers in 2008, the NL West got whomped in comparison to the NL Central. You're saying that that elite-pitching imbalance looks about the same this year, right? In my opinion that's rather generous to the West -- I have a very hard time seeing Billingsley and Scherzer as top-15 performers in 2009, and I'll be quite stunned if Adam Wainwright, to name one, doesn't reach 20 VORP, unless he's injured again -- but even accepting it for the moment, are you saying that the West OFFENSES have improved so much as to close the gap? Because lacking that, I don't see what leads to the conclusion that 2009 will be different from 2008.
I look forward to seeing the PECOTA predictions, Jay.