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February 19, 2009

PECOTA Projected Standings

Pegging the 2009 Season

by Clay Davenport

Now that the depth charts are out, we have a chance to do a first run of the Playoff Odds chart. The Playoff Odds chart—and I am aware that, strictly speaking, they aren't presented as odds—is a system that we run during the season. We use the team's record and the actual schedule to play out the rest of the season.

In this case, we're playing the entire season from day one, and we're using the depth-chart projections to set the team's strength (though since the depth charts also use a strength-of-schedule adjustment to calculate the records you see, I had to temporarily undo that). We can set a win percentage for each game, and by essentially rolling dice in the computer, we can determine who wins or loses each game. We can do that for an entire season, or a dozen seasons, or a million seasons—and yes, our usual number is a cool million. We can and do play around with the team's strength, knowing that it's ultimately just an estimate, and that the real team may turn out to be better (or worse) than we think.

It turns out that everyone has a chance. The odds for some of them are very long—four of the teams have only a single-digit chance of making the postseason—but nobody starts from zero:

                        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

The Mets are once again the favorites in the NL East... and how has that worked out the past two years? We all know the answer, but hey, now Francisco Rodriguez is here to save the day! It's no surprise that the defending World Champion Phillies would be a solid contender, but the Braves? Even with an unsettled outfield, the Braves do quite well—but then PECOTA always seems to have a mostly unrequited man-crush on Javier Vazquez. We're looking at a huge improvement for the Nationals (59-102 last season), but there's just too much in front of them.

Last year the PECOTA starting standings came out with the same order as this—with win totals of 94, 86, 85, 72, and 71. The Mets and Phils were fairly close, with the Mets at 89 and Philly at 92; the other three teams all missed by 13 (the Braves and Nationals down 13, the Marlins up).

                        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