2018 Standings and Playoff Race Discussion

[JohnBriggs12]

Have to say visually the best teams the Brewers have faced are all in their own division. Arizona without Lamb and now Pollock frankly isn't very good. Colorado looks like they should win that division but they're no juggernaut.

[brewerswinNLcentral]

we basically just have to play .500 or a few games over to be a buyer by all star break. i had us at 87 89 wins

..still do. we have a ton of help coming in late june

[Baldkin]

Have to say visually the best teams the Brewers have faced are all in their own division. Arizona without Lamb and now Pollock frankly isn't very good. Colorado looks like they should win that division but they're no juggernaut.

 

How are the Dodgers 10 games under .500?

I mean.... wow.

[pacopete4]

The Dodgers have to think about blowing it up, don't they? I mean, they'll never be in rebuild but their roster is full of holes.

[tmwiese55]

I don't think so, their team is very good. Just rampaged by injuries this year. Their only clear weak spot would be OF and 2B. Have deep pitching depth, killed by injuries this year. and the best pitcher in baseball on the DL. Great closer over several years, who struggled so far this year due to resting spring training. All stars at 3B and SS both hurt. As long as they resigh Kershaw I'm sure they're just going to run it back next year and hope for better luck on the injuries.

[DocLuna7]

The Dodgers have to think about blowing it up, don't they? I mean, they'll never be in rebuild but their roster is full of holes.

 

I tend to think that you don't go from winning as many games as they did last year to being completely terrible overnight. If I am the Dodgers front office I am chalking this up to injuries and bad luck and hoping for a big second half to re-enforce that idea.

[Eye Black]

As of May 17th...

 

[dlk9s]

Mod edit - Post removed due to violation of site guidelines regarding use of swearing. If you try to circumvent the cuss filter your post will be removed.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Cubs-Braves game last night postponed and rescheduled for August 30, one of the few remaining Cub offdays down the stretch. They catch a small break now by not needing to find a spot starter for a doubleheader Saturday in Cincy due to the rainout, but their schedule after the AS Break is brutal in terms of limited time off.

 

Following the break they get 12 games in 11 days (DH against the Cards), then their 1 July off day. They'll have two off days surrounding a series against Washington in mid August, then a third August off day just 6 games later. After that stretch, they'll have 23 consecutive days with a game, including an 11 game, 4 city road trip (includes 3 against Milwaukee) and ending with a 3 game home set against the Brewers. 2 more offdays in mid september will then lead to 10 straight games to wrap up the season. That's only 6 offdays over 2.5 months of baseball. For comparison, the Brewers have 9 even though they open the 2nd half with 17 straight days of games - 9 offdays between Aug 6 and the end of the season - and no scheduled doubleheaders. September callups may provide some relief during this stretch, but the Cubs' problem is they really don't have any September callups that'd be worth a damn.

 

Conversely, imagine what an expanded September roster could look like for the Brewers with all the starting pitcher and pH options who have already figured prominently in the majors this season, not to mention guys like Burnes.

[YelichPosse]

I have tempered excitement... but... as has been stated over and over... we have played good ball overall while getting minus production from a few main guys.... with not even half a starting rotation.... Knebel was out ... black holes on the bench.... just think if they "turn it on" against the division at all... we will be in a great position to make a postseason run.

 

But look at the NL right now... the Phillies... the Braves... the Pirates... crazy. Who would have thought? (its only a quarter of the year, but thats starting to get to a decent sample size)

[NYChez]

Eric Hosmer helps out the Brewers as the Padres beat the Pirates. Hosmer has gotten hot, and his contract doesn't look as bad as it did a few weeks ago. He's on pace for 5-6 WAR.

[JohnBriggs12]

DeJong joins Molina and Carlos Martinez on the Cardinal DL with a broken hand. He's out indefinitely. Dexter Fowler is still hitting .150. Could he be done at 32?

[Ennder]

The Dodgers have to think about blowing it up, don't they? I mean, they'll never be in rebuild but their roster is full of holes.

 

No. They are still clearly in the race to win the division. They have played awful baseball and had tons of injuries. The Diamondbacks are a flawed offense and their rotation has been injured. The Rockies are not a good team at all and are just sort of getting lucky. The Giants are old and bad and completely failed this offseason by adding even more old. The Padres are a fun team but not a good one.

 

I still think the Dodgers are like 55% likely to win the division even with the bad start. If I had to set odds today I'd set the Dodgers odds higher to win the NL West than the Brewers to win the NL Central or the Braves to win the NL East.

 

To be fair it is the NL and about 25% of the NL playoff races are decided by which teams pitchers get hurt while batting. Just have to hope we get lucky in that department for once.

[Patrick425]

This might be the year that they decide to make changes to the 1 game wildcard format. If the season were to end today, the team with the 2nd best record in baseball (Boston) would face possible elimination from the playoffs based on one game.

[KeithStone53151]

This might be the year that they decide to make changes to the 1 game wildcard format. If the season were to end today, the team with the 2nd best record in baseball (Boston) would face possible elimination from the playoffs based on one game.

 

We'll see how long that lasts. The AL is pretty bad, they have 4 good teams and the rest dreadful teams for the most part. The Yankees and Red Sox have barely faced any real opponents aside from each other...especially the red sox. At least one of these teams is bound to regress a bit, I don't think both teams win 100 games.

[tmwiese55]

That was actually part of the reason they put it in to begin with so this won't change their mindset. They wanted extreme value on the division so that in a situation like this Bos/NY still have something to play for down the stretch instead of not caring whether they won the division or not. Of course though, how will they hold up with the media pressure from the two biggest markets we'll see.

[Eye Black]

Brewers are the first National League team to 30 wins, and are now on pace for 99 wins.

[brewerswinNLcentral]

lets say 96 and call it a day

[Eye Black]

The projected playoff odds are updated daily at these two links:

 

Baseball Prospectus playoff odds

 

Fangraphs playoff odds

 

As we sit here on May 3rd BP now projects the Brewers for 86 wins and a 49.4% chance to make the playoffs.

Just three weeks later and Baseball Prospectus now has the Brewers projected for 88 wins with 60.7% odds to make the playoffs which is the third highest among all NL teams behind only the Cubs (69.2%) and Nationals (64.5%).

[BuckyBrewer61]

The projected playoff odds are updated daily at these two links:

 

Baseball Prospectus playoff odds

 

Fangraphs playoff odds

 

As we sit here on May 3rd BP now projects the Brewers for 86 wins and a 49.4% chance to make the playoffs.

Just three weeks later and Baseball Prospectus now has the Brewers projected for 88 wins with 60.7% odds to make the playoffs which is the third highest among all NL teams behind only the Cubs (69.2%) and Nationals (64.5%).

 

 

How does Fangraphs get to their projections? We are currently at 31-19, and they project us to finish 84-77. I get there is some regression expected...but how do you project a team winning 62% of their games through almost a third of the season to finish the rest of the season 53-58? Is it just based on their preseason projections and not taking 50 games of data into account?

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The projected playoff odds are updated daily at these two links:

 

Baseball Prospectus playoff odds

 

Fangraphs playoff odds

 

As we sit here on May 3rd BP now projects the Brewers for 86 wins and a 49.4% chance to make the playoffs.

Just three weeks later and Baseball Prospectus now has the Brewers projected for 88 wins with 60.7% odds to make the playoffs which is the third highest among all NL teams behind only the Cubs (69.2%) and Nationals (64.5%).

 

 

How does Fangraphs get to their projections? We are currently at 31-19, and they project us to finish 84-77. I get there is some regression expected...but how do you project a team winning 62% of their games through almost a third of the season to finish the rest of the season 53-58? Is it just based on their preseason projections and not taking 50 games of data into account?

 

Maybe they are all Cub fans?

[Fear The Chorizo]

Maybe the Fangraphs staff read too much of this board over the offseason...

 

I think they are just slower than other outlets to adjust their preseason projections so it seems like they are less volatile/more reliable. As others have noted, the Brewers' team as currently constructed isn't a friendly one for projection outlets to forecast, because they have alot of depth and positional flexibility that doesn't include huge dropoffs in production. Throw in the fact that they are managing their bullpen/pitching staff differently than how projection systems have been developed to try and quantify, mainly due to Hader being a unicorn thus far, and projections for this team are about as reliable as just throwing a dart at a board.

 

Think about it - This team's best starter likely won't be heard from until around the AS Break, their #2 and #3 starters from last season have already spent time on the DL, their closer from last season already missed a month, their supposed starting 1B has been out 4+ weeks, their most expensive player can't stay on the field and is scuffling, and they've had periods of the season where a projected quality offensive team has really scuffled a the plate. If Fangraphs knew all of this preseason, their initial projection for the Brewers likely would've been at 65 wins.

[SoCalBrewfan]

It's risky to adjust your projection of a player or team based on partial season of statistics. This time last year, the Twins, Brewers, and Rockies were all leading their divisions, but projections would still have had the Tribe, Cubs, and Dodgers as division favorites. After several years of 900+ ops, do you believe Paul Goldschmidt's true talent level is now a 200/324/371 hitter? Do you believe that the true talent level for the Brewers is a .620 winning percentage? Could be that fundamental changes in performance have occured, of course, but history and probability suggest that we should expect regression to the mean (improvement in the case of Goldschmidt and decline for the Brewers).

 

It would be better to include error bars on all these projections, which would start out huge and then decrease as more of the season plays out...

[YelichPosse]

I like being the underdog. It's much more fun that way. However, if you look at our record vs. the NL Central, you will see we have lots of work to do still - and you can see why projections are not on our side still even with the good start. Our losses have been against the teams we will play most our games against.

[sveumrules]

Fangraphs projections are a 50/50 split of the Steamer & ZIPS models, I believe. The projections do update as the season progresses. Aguilar for instance was projected for an 87 wRC+ before the season per ZIPS & is now projected at 97wRC+ rest of season.

 

It should also be noted that we got 7 votes to win the division & 12 wild card votes in their 2018 staff predictions, which would have placed us in a tie for the WC2 spot with Arizona, so while the projections they host may not have caught up yet many of their writers are buying in ahead of the computers & ultimately I think that gets to what's most important...

 

Everything should be considered. The projection systems are one way to go. Watching as many games yourself as you can is another way to go. Relying solely on one or the other will leave you lacking in important information you wouldn't have otherwise.

 

Also, just saw on MLB Network that in each of the last 17 World Series at least one of the teams was not in the postseason the season prior. Hopefully this year that team is us.