ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS pick Cubs

[Ennder]

I think the team that wins the division does 89 or 90 wins. The rest of the division is pretty weak other than maybe the Reds and that will pump up the win total. Both teams are better than last year and last year they averaged 84 wins. I think this year they average 87 wins or so.

[Thurston Fluff]

I don't really se where the Cubs are noticably better than they were last year. Where did they actually improve their club? Fukadome, Wood as a closer, what exactly makes them better than last year? The Brewers OTH on paper have a much better pen than they did last year and have upgraded their defense. I'm not sure why the changes the Brewers made wouldn't give them a better chance to improve by more games than the Cubs do.

[rluzinski]

Using the aggregate odds from here:

 

http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/comments/the_2008_diamond_mind_projection_blowout_pt_2

 

Yankees Make Playoffs: 70%

Mets Make Playoffs: 84%

 

Both Make Playoffs: 59%

One Makes Playoffs: 36%

Neither Makes Playoffs: 5%

 

These projections don't consider everything, obviously but it's hard to put the odds of both teams missing out very high.

[TooLiveBrew]

Wang is the only sure thing pitcher they have right now, the rest is a mess. It might work out it might not but I could easily see that rotation missing the playoffs given the division they play in

Sure, but Pettitte had similar back/injury problems last year and was still solid. I get your reservations about 3 pitch-count SPs, but to call it a mess is off-base imo. A mess would be what's happening in StL. Moose should be a decent innings-eater for them even though you're 100% right on him declining.

[Klements Bratwurst]

Does anyone have a feeling that Derek Lee will significantly regress? I don't know what it is but he is on the wrong side of 30, hasn't hit a lick in Spring (not a big deal), and he really has seen his power numbers drop after that broken wrist.

 

The Cubs fans just think that Lee and Ramirez will be back to their norms next year, but again even Ramirez had a barking back (last year) and couldn't throw for part of this camp. I'm just saying, that their big "guns" might have less pop than everyone might realize. Of course Pie and Soto could pick up the slack, but who knows? The just got Reed Johnson to take at bats away from Pie.

[Ennder]

Fukudome is a defensive upgrade in RF, not really an offensive one since their RF did a good job last year. Pie/Johnson are probably an upgrade over what they got out of CF last year. Soto is overrated but is still an upgrade over their C from last year. Lee's wrist is healthy so I expect slightly better numbers than last year. If Wood is healthy that most certainly does improve the team. They still could potentially end up with a Crisp or Roberts which improves the team too.

 

I'm not saying they have had huge upgrades but they should win a couple more than they did last year. They also underperformed their expected record last year so they have a little extra wiggle room.

 

The Brewers upgrades are harder to gauge since the bullpen changes could go either way. Cameron is a pretty big upgrade over Menchkins in my opinion though we'll probably blow a lot of that upgrade by starting Gwynn in CF for 25 games, Kendall is about the same as Estrada. I'm not sure the rotation will be much better overall than last year though the defensive improvements should lower their ERA a little.

[TooLiveBrew]

Does anyone have a feeling that Derek Lee will significantly regress? I don't know what it is but he is on the wrong side of 30, hasn't hit a lick in Spring (not a big deal), and he really has seen his power numbers drop after that broken wrist.

 

I actually agree with Ennder, and to (I think) a stronger degree. Lee's now past the one-year general recovery time for a wrist injury. I'm concerned that his power might spike back up into the 25-35 HR range, as opposed to the 15-25 range that last year might hint he'd slipped into. I don't think Ramirez's production will decline much, but I also don't think it's very reasonable to expect anything more than what they got from Aramis in 2007.

[Ennder]

Yeah I expect 30-35 HR out of Lee, but I think his AVG will dip some so overall the loss in OBP will make the gains in SLG only a small upgrade. He has had such flukish BABIP numbers it is pretty hard to get a good read on where his AVG should be.

[TooLiveBrew]

Good point, Ennder. If I have to guess on Lee, it'd be .290/.375/.525/.900. I could see him lower, but also higher.

[brewjihad]

I could see him lower, but also higher.

 

Me too. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Thurston Fluff]

The Brewers upgrades are harder to gauge since the bullpen changes could go either way.

The same can be said for any bullpen. I think the pen has enough major league experience that there should be enough of them having a average year that the pen is likely to be better. The Cubs pen very well could regress a lot more than ours in part because ours was so bad last year and partly because the Cubs have to rely on Wood being capable of playing regularly and Marmol being Marmol of 07 and not 06 to be as good as last season. Without Wood and Marmol being as good as he was they have about the same type of pen as we do a bunch of average major league veterans. The only differance is last year we didn't have even an average pen and they did. We certainly closed the gap on the number of sevicable bullpen arms over last year.

They also underperformed their expected record last year so they have a little extra wiggle room.

when it comes to determining how good a team is I think the actual record is a better indicator than any predictive one. But that's just me.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Ennder]

when it comes to determining how good a team is I think the actual record is a better indicator than any predictive one. But that's just me

It is to a degree, but the predicted one isn't completely useless either.

 

If a team won 83 games last year with a predicted record of 100 wins I'd certainly expect more out of them than a team won won 83 games with a predicted record of 70. Sometimes teams just get lucky or unlucky and you can't fully quantify that. I didn't increase my wins prediction because of the expected record but if I think they will improve by about 2-4 wins the fact that their expected record was 87 wins instead of 85 does give them a little extra wiggle room to play with.

[Fear The Chorizo]

How many of the "experts" picked the Rockies to win the National League last season?

 

The Cardinals were supposedly the "experts" pick to win the division last season - Milwaukee was the default 2nd place team, because they showed the most potential...it wasn't until the season was a month old that the "experts" jumped on the bandwagon.

 

Baseball predictions are pointless in March - writers and "experts" basically take a look at last season's standings and put whichever team won its division in first for the following season, unless some major acquisitions were made. I for one think Cameron, the new bullpen arms, and a full season of Gallardo/Braun are MAJOR helps to the Brewers.

[Ennder]

Then all predictions are useless because they aren't 100% correct, that is a horrible way to look at it. It took an epic winning streak for the Rockies to make the playoffs with an extra game that they probably didn't really win(Holliday was out). Many experts picked the Brewers to be in 1st last year and a lot of sources didn't like the Cardinals.

 

Injuries are obviously the big issue with predictions, that and the rookies who are just hard to project.

[Gopher74]

I actually think the odds are pretty good that both NY teams miss the playoffs. The Mets offense just isn't going to be that great so the pitching needs to step up which it could. The Yankees starting pitching is a complete mess.

I'm a little surprised. I thought you were on the side that thought the Mets were the clear cut NL favorites.

 

I agree though. I think that Perez needs to have some tempered expectations based on his up and down career thus far. I'm not convinced that Maine can be a number 2, and I certainly don't think Pedro is at this point. Perez is truly the key in my opinion. Everything else falls into line if he can prove that last years resurrection was legit and not a fluke, but if he's a 5-6 ERA pitcher that staff's in real trouble. Then they're a staff with an ace, and then a lot of backend type guys. Of course, I probably don't have the proper amount of respect for Maine, but that's one of those "stats be damned, I just don't like him" pitchers.

 

This is also why looking ahead I see them being the eventual destination for one Jeff Suppan. It's working against us that this upcoming FA class as it stands now is the strongest that I can ever remember, but I think that they're going to desire a stabilizing force in that rotation after Johan with Perez and Pedro possibly gone.