Extremely Early Projected Standings

[kramnoj]

Here is one of my favorite offseason toys: http://www.replacementlev...early_projected_standings.

 

SG has been doing this a few years now. I don't know how accurate they have been, but it's a fun topic to discuss. He admits that it's too early to take much from these, with so many impact FA out there and will do a 1000 run simulation with 7 different projection systems in March when teams are more settled.

 

My thoughts. 83 wins I think is fair. It has the Brewers making the playoffs 24% of the time. Some things I think are off. I don't see the Astros as equal to the Brewers. I didn't expect to see the Rockies project that well, but I think they are getting easy wins against the Padres. I didn't see the Angels fall to a losing record. Anyway, fun stuff to ponder and dissect.

[Ennder]

Wonder if that includes Hoffman or not. Seems pretty close to accurate though. If we sign a 2 win pitcher and a 4th OF it puts us at about 85-86 wins which is probably what we will be.

 

It obviously is being pretty harsh on the Angels, I wonder if that is just because projections probably don't like their rotation. Lackey missed time last year, Escobar missed a ton of time, Santana has had such an up and down career so far, Weaver missed time

[valpocrewsader]

Surprised to see San Francisco with a better projected record than the Brewers.

[Ennder]

Surprised to see San Francisco with a better projected record than the Brewers.

 

Most projection systems regress towards the mean for young players so it is probably make the Giants look a good bit better than they really are since their young hitters are mostly below replacement level without a ton of upside.

[owbc]

I don't believe in projections. They only had the Rays at 89 last year.

[kramnoj]

Surprised to see San Francisco with a better projected record than the Brewers.

 

I made this general point with the Rockies, but it applies here too. The Giants benefit from playing the Padres and in this simulation a Dodgers team that doesn't have Manny. I would guess that the Brewers in that division would project a few wins better.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

83 wins at this point makes me happy. All we are is a couple players away from being a playoff team most likely and maybe we'll get lucky and get Hall back to 2005-06 form and get career years out of some players like the Cubs did last year. It can happen.

[zzzmanwitz]

At this point, it all comes down to health. Our SP rotation could be average if the current 5-6 guys stay healthy, but really how often does that happen with this team? I think we need to have one more guy, mainly for depth in order to keep ourselves in the playoff chase.

[RU Rah Rah]

That AL West looks like the AFC West this year.

[JohnBriggs12]

Wow, they must really like Mat Gamel. They have the Brewers scoring 62 more runs than last year with essentially the same lineup other than of course Gamel if he makes the team.

[Ennder]

Wow, they must really like Mat Gamel. They have the Brewers scoring 62 more runs than last year with essentially the same lineup other than of course Gamel if he makes the team.

The majority of our players underproduced compared to their 3 year averages while in their prime. We should expect to score a good bit more runs than last year assuming Hardy, Fielder and Braun stay healthy.

[strawbossisevil]

Or it could be a few extra months of Cameron, improvements by Prince and Hart that make a significant difference as well.

[kramnoj]

I didn't see where Gamel was mentioned, did I miss that? I think it is counting on bounce back seasons from Fielder, Braun, Hart, etc. The 2007 Brewers scored 801 Runs. A projection system is going to wiegh 2007 fairly heavily and then is going to give an uptick in performance for a young hitter.

[JohnBriggs12]

I didn't see where Gamel was mentioned, did I miss that? I think it is counting on bounce back seasons from Fielder, Braun, Hart, etc. The 2007 Brewers scored 801 Runs. A projection system is going to wiegh 2007 fairly heavily and then is going to give an uptick in performance for a young hitter.

 

Those guys all slumped in large part because the lineup was overloaded with righthanded hitters. The only time the offense took off last year was when Branyan was hot for a month. That helped everybody, especially Fielder. If they throw that all righthanded lineup out there day in and day out again, they'll get the same result, roughly 750 runs which isn't going to be enough without CC and Sheets.

[PeaveyFury]

Those guys all slumped in large part because the lineup was overloaded with righthanded hitters.

 

The handed-ness of the lineup causes guys to slump? Considering that the only additional lefty that was in the lineup in 2007 that wasn't in 2008 was a mediocre-at-best Geoff Jenkins, I don't buy that at all.

[TheCrew07]

A wise man once said to me why is it that RH hitters can hit RHP but LH hitters aren't able to the do the same with LHP? The answer is obvious, but I'm more interested in the quality of the player than their handedness. All things being equal with this current Brewer team I'd take a lefty, but generally all things are not equal so I just want the best player.

[rluzinski]

Those guys all slumped in large part because the lineup was overloaded with righthanded hitters.

 

I keep hearing how detrimental having a RH-heavy lineup was to the Brewers' offense last year but I've never seen anyone offer up any evidence to back up that claim. I assume the RH batters had to face more RH pitchers than average but let's look at the numbers:

 

% of PAs RH Batters faced RHP, 2008

 

MLB: 65.1%

Brewers: 69.6%

 

So, Brewer RH batters had 112 less PAs with the platoon advantage than an average RHB last year. That's about 2 PAs every 3 games. That's not insignificant but it doesn't sound all that large, either.

 

I also think this has little to do with the possbility of the offensive projection being inflated. A significant portion of that projection (~50%) is simply based the 2007 Brewers batters' performances. A large part of the larger than average platoon disadvantage for 2009 is already figured into the projection.

 

Any batter that is under 28 years old will have a projected increase in production due to their age. That's a large part of the projected uptick, I think.

[Ennder]

Apparently the Cubs lost in the playoffs because of how RH their lineup was as well. Of course they had almost even splits between RHP and LHP and they scored a ton of runs so it really isn't valid.

 

I highly doubt losing Jenkins LH presence is why the team slumped compared to 2008.