2009 Pre-season Picks Revisited

Since the baseball season is by now long over, I figured it was about time to revisit my preseason predictions, and see if I had any ability to predict the future. And without further ado, here goes

AL East:

Well, I was dead on about the Jays and O’s, and feel like I characterized the Red Sox team pretty accurately, but I didn’t give the Yankees enough credit. I got the wild card team right (the Sox), but swapped the Rays and Yanks at 1^st and 3^rd. Contrary to my hopes, the Yankees did not implode, and they ran away with this season.

AL Central

Well, I knew the Royals weren’t going to be any good, and I was right about the Tigers and White Sox, but underestimated the Twins, as per usual. Though, in my defense, who could have predicted that season from Mauer? Ridiculous. And well, I was just miserably wrong about the Indians. Carmona? Ugh, I’m embarrassed to say I wrote that he would pitch well last year. Anyway, nothing special about this division, I was close, and definitely too optimistic about the Indians. And in addition, it was not Gordon’s year…

AL West

I got the division winner right! But, of course, screwed up the rest of the division. I’m going to plead ignorance, as I really had no idea what the Rangers, A’s, or M’s did last offseason. Next year will be a different story.

NL East

Well, apparently I was wrong about the Mets. Not only did they find a new way to implode, but they went all out, and exposed the New York market to the wonders of a replacement level team! The Marlins and Braves were only a game apart, so I feel justified in putting the Braves ahead, especially since the Braves had a better Pythag by 7 games. If not for the Mets historical meltdown, then I would’ve nailed this division, but, I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

NL Central

In retrospect, the Brewers were not that good at all last year, so, that was another bad pick. Basically, I was just completely wrong about everything except the Pirates. Embarrassing.

NL West

Yay for the resurrection of the NL West, now the only NL division with an average Pythag over .500! Actually, I was pretty spot on here, except for the Diamondbacks. I had everyone else in the right order, but Arizona decided to screw it all up. Two 90 win teams in the NL West? What is this world coming to?

So, all in all, I picked two division winners, and one of the Wild Cards. Not good, but looking at the context of the picks, they don’t seem that bad. I think my process was solid (in most cases), and this year it’s going to be soo much better, I swear. I’ll predict at least four playoff teams next year, I guarantee. Neither of my World Series teams won more than 84 games, nor was I close on either my Cy Young or Rookie of the Year picks. But, I did correctly pick Pujols as MVP, an yes, I know, that one was really hard to see coming. Overall, I could have done much worse, but at least I set the bar nice and low for the upcoming season. I’ve got nowhere to go but up (as do the Rays! World Series 2010! Woo!)!

Fabulously Interesting Read

No real post, but I wanted to post a link to Joe Poz's newest blog piece on PEDs, which I think holds the ideal attitude about the situation, which I hope the mainstream will come around to in due course.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/08/13/when-the-moment-is-right/

The Rays and the 2009 Postseason

Back in June, when the Rays were still floundering a little bit, and just dropped below the .500 mark again, I did some simple math to see how good the Rays would have to play for the rest of the season to get to the playoffs. At the time (6/9), they were 29-30, and had 103 games left. Here’s the math

90 wins

61-42 (.592)

91

62-41 (.602)

92

63-40 (.612)

93

64-39 (.621)

94

65-38 (.631)

95

66-37 (.640)

97

68-35 (.660)

Simply, the Rays were going to have to play some very good baseball to make the playoffs, since 90 or 91 wins will almost surely not guarantee a playoff spot this season. By my guess, between 95-100 wins will win the division, and between 92-95 will win the wild card. Since June 9^th, the Rays have gone 31-18 (.633), at their current pace, from the work I did back in June, the Rays will end up with either 93 or 94 wins.

According to Baseball Prospectus, the Rays currently have a 46% chance to make the playoffs (although it drops to 14% when PECOTA gets involved), which is probably about right. Either they keep playing the way they have been recently, and sneak into the playoffs, or they stumble a bit, and can’t quite make up the games they need to. Currently, the Rays have 54 games left, and 60 wins. The ideal situation would be 95 wins at the end of the season, which means the Rays need to go 35-19 (.648) over the final 54 games. In the end, the Rays certainly need a little bit of luck to get into the postseason, but if they keep playing like they’re capable, they’ve got a shot.

Insanity on the Diamond

Albert Pujols is officially a machine- 10 PA's with the bases loaded, and five grand slams? Are you kidding me? I can't really comprehend how someone can do that against major league pitching, but, I suppose, a robot from the future can do whatever it wants.

On another Pujols note, he currently holds a wOBA of .454 (via StatCorner), and yet his regressed wOBA (wOBA*), is even higher! At .466! That's not right! He's been that good, and yet has been unlucky?! Thank Velociraptor Jesus that the Rays are in the AL, and don't have to pitch to him.

And as another aside, do you realize that Ted Williams had 6 consecutive seasons with a wOBA over .500! And that's with the war taking away three seasons in the middle of that run! All of us think Pujols is unstoppable, and yet the Splendid Splinter was sooo far above where even Prince Albert is, its simply ridiculous. To compare, Barry Bonds had only four +.500 wOBA seasons in a row, and all of those are most likely tainted by PEDs and the like. Anyway, these numbers just boggle my mind, and make me appreciate the sluggers of old, and honestly, they give me more reason to dismiss any "steroid inflation" argument garbage, since historically, the type of numbers Bonds put up were not unheard of.

P.S.

Babe Ruth's career wOBA is .510

I think we need to ban hot dogs and beer, because they're obviously quite performance enhancing

2003 Revisited- Did Steroids have an Effect?

Recently, as I’m sure everyone out there is aware, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were leaked as testing positive for PEDs during the 2003 season. First of all, this post is not speculating about whether or not what they did was illegal, or talking about what drugs they took; there is no way to answer either question at this point. What I’m trying to do is to compare that “tainted” 2003 season to the current one, and see if there is any statistical difference between the two seasons. Then, I can take a fairly objective view over whether or not the PEDs had any relative effect on their performance.

Manny Ramirez	2003	2009
OBA	0.427	0.437
OPS	1.014	1.029
wOBA	0.421	0.427
ISO	0.262	0.282

For Manny, his numbers are only better in this PED-less season, and in fact, he’s hitting for more power, as his ISO has jumped from .262 to .282. Take what you will from a fairly small sample size this year, but he did not seem to achieve any sort of large spike in performance from taking whatever PED he took.

David Ortiz	2003	2009	Jun-09
OBA	0.369	0.316	0.409
OPS	0.961	0.748	1.062
wOBA	0.400	0.320
ISO	0.304	0.202	0.333

David Ortiz is a much more interesting case. Overall, he has definitely seen a precipitous drop in his performance. But, if he truly had lost all his ability since stopping taking steroids before this year, how would he have produced a month such as June? His overall decline could easily be attributed to the aging slugger factor (not a scientific term), and his hot streak would not be out of place if he is simply aging in a more typical way than say, Manny Ramirez. For Ortiz, PED use is more plausible, but still is not the only explanation. Two months of poor play is, in my opinion, not enough to prove that steroids are the reason why Ortiz, Ramirez, and countless others played awesome baseball starting in the late 90s.

Alex Rodriguez	2003	2009
OBA	0.396	0.393
OPS	0.995	0.912
wOBA	0.420	0.395
ISO	0.301	0.258
BABIP	0.309	0.263
Career BABIP		0.325

The other big name recently nailed to the 2003 list is Alex Rodriguez, who has had a very interesting year this year. His power has been slightly down, but that is most likely due to his taking more walks, and hitting slightly more ground balls than in years past (16.7% walks to career avg of 11.3%, 44.2% GB to career avg 41.8% GB). The reason why his OPS and BA are so down is because of his quite unlucky BABIP (batting avg on balls in play), which is about 60 points below his career average, and is not something that Alex Rodriguez can control. He is very much the same hitter he was in 2003, even though in 2003, he was 28, and in his supposed prime. Once again, as in the Manny case, I see no evidence to suggest that steroids taint his accomplishments.

Obviously, this is only three players, two of whom are indisputably among the best hitters of this generation, and one who is hanging out on the level below. And, as my analysis shows, Manny and A-Rod are no different on steroids than off them, which leads to my point: there should not be an asterisk placed next to any record that anyone from the “Steroid” Era achieves. There certainly may be outliers that make you scratch your head, such as Brady Anderson’s 50 HR season, but, in my opinion, steroids have had a much smaller effect on the game than those from ESPN and the like would have you believe.

The Latest A-Fraud

Not to beat a dead horse at all, but I do want to bring up the latest issue that people seem to have come up with to attack A-Rod, the idea that he was tipping pitches to opposing players. 

Now, many people out there seem to have it in for Alex Rodriguez at this point (if they didn't before the steroids issue), and this is definitely an iffy topic for A-Rod at best. But once again, this delves into the famous issue of A-Rod padding his stats in "non-clutch" situations, which I just am so tired of. The numbers have been crunched, and A-Rod actually performs slightly better in close games, though he basically is an excellent hitter in every situation. So, he obviously wasn't benefiting from this supposed scenario, and, as Econ 101 will tell you, there is no free lunch. Basically, why would A-Rod help out friends on other teams at the expense of his teammates, if he wasn't getting a bonus from it? 

There are those who have spoken out on both sides of the story, but there is ultimately no way to know what actually happened, since it is in the past, and the numbers can't tell you anything (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/05/02/tip-sheet/). You either have to believe him, hate him, or just dismiss the issue. I personally will not take a side, as there is no way to prove this happened, and either way, A-Rod is a pretty darned good ballplayer, and in my mind nothing will change that. His talent will always be there, no matter how many smear campaigns are run against him. 

To slightly ramble about something I would like to mention, this whole situation all depends on your take on "cheating" in baseball (and I suppose for sports in general as well). Personally, having played competitive baseball since I was eight, and having watched countless hours of other sports, I feel like I can give a pretty fair assessment of cheating in sports (I'll focus on baseball specifically for simplicity). First of, cheating is a part of baseball, get used to it. I don't care how goody-two-shoes you want to pretend the game is, if you're not taking an edge whenever you can, you're not trying (that's the gist of some famous quote, but I can't place it). Catchers disguise signs because they know runners on second are trying to tell the hitter what's coming, hitters try to steal a look at the catchers signals, any close call that goes your way was absolutely right, even if you know it was the wrong call, players pop painkillers and greenies to keep playing every day, etc. I really don't have a problem with "cheating" in baseball morally, because I think it's as much a part of the game as balls and strikes. Now, there is a level beyond this that is definitely cheating (Danny Almonte, anyone?), and not to say that baseball should be a free-for-all, but getting all worked up about most "cheating" is absurd. 

This is something for everyone to form their own opinion on, but that's mine, plain and simple. I don't want to get myself wrapped up in the discussions about the asterisk years, but I would like to bring up the importance of those years for the sport. Many argue that the McGwire-Sosa race, as well as the offensive explosion, helped save baseball from the strike aftermath, and so I say, is that so bad in retrospect? I wouldn't want to be the person who took the steroids, and caused who knows what damage to myself, but the era was crucial for the sport, and I know that I enjoyed the heck out of watching those two duke it out in '98. Historical records are important to everyone, but with the amount of statistical power that we have now, we can compare years better than ever before. I want to ask, is the stigma that has already been placed on the "steroid era" necessary?

 

I think not

So, since it's six AM, and I am now officially done with my freshman year of college, I figured its time to get back on the horse, as I no longer have any excuse not to, and since its six in the morning, its too late to bother sleeping.

 

And so with no further ado, here are a couple thoughts on the season thus far

 

Man, do I regret picking Josh Beckett to win the Cy Young, I mean, its only one month, but he hasn’t shown any real signs of dominance, especially compared to say, Zack Greinke? Jeez, he’s been ridiculous, enough words have already been written about him (I highly recommend the SI cover story Joe Posnanski wrote), but check out what the people over at baseballanalysts.com have to say about him, they compare his streak to Drysdale’s from a neutral statistical standpoint, and it makes Greinke look that much more disgusting. I don’t think the Royals will keep up the pace they’re setting, but if Greinke keeps pitching like this, I guess you never know.

Moving on, looking at the standings so far, I think the National League has been playing in comparably to how it should end up, with not too many odd hot or cold starts. Obviously the Dodgers starting 13-0 at home is unexpected, and pretty much unsustainable, but they are the best team in that division, so no surprises in that regard. Meanwhile, the AL has been all over the place, with the Royals, Blue Jays, and Rangers currently heading the standings. WTF? Exactly, but don’t expect it to last long, as teams like the Rays have (seemingly) shaken off a rough start, and are ready to reassert their dominance. Also, you can bank on Aaron Hill not hitting .366 for the rest of the year (not to mention Adam Lind at .336, and Rod Barajas (Rod Barajas!!) at .333)). The Jays have been helped out by some unsustainable performances, and their record will correct itself through the season, though their hot start could certainly help make the AL East race that much tighter. Meanwhile, absurdly good pitching has helped the Royals, which should also correct over the course of the season. One thing to remember is to not panic at this point in the season; even if your team is off to a subpar start, there’s a lot of season left.

Now, about the Rays in particular, they’ve been quite frustrating to watch so far. Their starters have been all over the place, with some real gems (mainly Garza), and a bunch of stinkers from every slot in the rotation. Kazmir has been the biggest disappointment to me as of late, giving up 6 earned in 3 of his last 4 outings, while walking the ballpark. Also, Jeff Niemann has been quite successful, at least from my expectations. I don’t think we could ever ask for more out of a rookie #5 starter. Once again, its too early to panic, and the last weekend seems to have turned a corner for the Rays, so lets hope they keep it up. Also, Evan Longoria! Smashing everything in sight, and showing no signs of slowing, even though his .358 average is a tad high, I can’t say anything bad about his performance so far. And Carlos Pena! Once again, certain things about his stats are unsustainable, but lets not let reality get in the way of enjoying his power surge. And Crawford! He’s stolen at least one base in each of the last ten games, in addition to the six steal game. The power isn’t there yet at all, but his speed is definitely back. As depressing as the start of the season has been for us Rays fans, I’m finally starting to feel good about how they’re playing, and am looking forward to them cracking .500 in the very near future.

 

We’ll see how the season turns out, and isn’t it a glorious thing to have baseball back in full swing?!