Overthinking It: Secon... (07/05)
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July 5, 2012 What the Contenders NeedAL EastWith a little less than a month to go until the non-waiver trading deadline, talks between teams are heating up. In a seven-part series, several BP authors will be covering the needs, potential fits, and more for the contenders in each division, as well as a rundown of the top 10 player trade targets. Today, we take a look at the AL East.
Playoff Odds
Payroll picture In May, the Orioles locked up Adam Jones with an $85 million extension through 2018, the largest deal in club history. Going forward, Baltimore has eight players under contract for 2013 at a cost of about $53 million. And the Orioles hold 2013 options on Mark Reynolds ($11 million), Kevin Gregg ($6 million), Matt Lindstrom ($4 million) and Luis Ayala ($1 million). —Jeff Euston
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Surprise Me!
There is a team in the AL East that resides up here in Canada. Eh?!!
I'm assuming that, being however many games back now, with eleventy-three starters broken, they aren't regarded as contenders any more.
Here's how I see it: Pecota systematically underestimates the Blue Jays, and has for years. BP takes the Pecota team ratings (and resultant playoff odds) seriously, and as a result you get foolishness like this.
Or: they're the fifth-best (health considered) team in the most competitive division in baseball.
Looking at the chart, there is little difference between the Jays and Orioles. They currently have the same record as the Red Sox and are only 2.5 games out of a playoff spot. Projections and ratings are nice, but what is more relevant is what Jays management thinks. Right now, I think its safe to assume they see themselves as still in contention.
I concur. The Jays have the most glaring weakness of any team (i.e. lack of pitchers with functional UCLs) but if they choose to pick up 1 or 2 starters, they are at a minimum on an equal footing with Baltimore. It would not have been that difficult to add them to the mix and note that they need starters and a healthy Travis D'Arnaud.
Also, according to the chart, Boston's playoff odds appear to be about 37%. The article suggests the odds are 51%. Was this a typo, or am I missing something?
Yes, but the health woes weren't there at the beginning of the season. And according to your chart, the Jays' chances have IMPROVED since the three starters were injured.
Go back over the past 5 years and you'll see that PECOTA systematically underestimates the Jays (and a couple of other teams). It is a long-term problem with the logic behind the calculations.
Well, they haven't made the playoffs so I don't know that I would call it a "problem" with PECOTA.
Yeah yeah. Compare the Pecota projected standings with actual standing for each season. For most teams, they are reasonably accurate. For a few teams, Pecota always expects them to do far worse (or better) than they actually do. And the bias is always the same year after year, so it isn't random error.
I haven't looked back at previous seasons' standings to see whether there's any truth to this, but I guess I have a hard time understanding why there would be. PECOTA doesn't have some sort of variable that tells it whether a team is or isn't the Blue Jays and adjusts from there. Its team projections are derived from its player projections, and the composition of every team (including Toronto) changes each year. Even if there has been some sort of annual over or under-estimation in our Toronto projections that appears to be consistent, I think it could be more likely to be random than anything else.
There are always going to be players PECOTA (or any other system) has problems with. As I am sure you are aware, Jose Bautista is a very good example of this and the difference between his PECOTA projects and his actuals can easily explain an under-projection of Jays wins.
It is quite possible that some teams have more PECOTA outliers than others and this shows up in the aggregated team projections. I doubt this would persist for a single team over a number of season, but it certainly happens.
Sure, it's the persisting part that I question. Even if it were to persist, I wouldn't go so far as to call it "a long-term problem with the logic behind the calculations." (I know you didn't call it this, I'm responding to another commenter.) I'd say the occasional miss on an outlier is an unavoidable byproduct of otherwise sound logic behind the calculations.
I was just being an ass before I left for work this morning when I posted the first comment. That's why I ended it with the Canadian "Eh!!". Just being sarcastic. Didn't think it would get anything near a serious reaction. And now I have to track down the Jay's team doctor. Strained my elbow typing this!!!