BtB Poor Man's Projected Season Standings

by Dan Turkenkopf on Jun 5, 2009 6:00 AM EDT

Well, projected isn't really the right term.

I'm basing these end of season standings on Justin's Power Rankings. He calculates what a team's likely record would be if everyone had the same performance and we replayed the season.

So if a team has had a bunch of people outperform their realistic projections so far, I assume that's going to continue. If a team has lost a lot of time to injuries, I assume that will continue. Basically I'm using the past to predict the future, which is always a somewhat futile exercise.

Still, I thought it would be interesting to see what the standings would look like in October if everyone continued to perform as they had to this date.

AL East

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Yankees	31	32	0.605	97	65	0.599
Blue Jays	30	25	0.608	95	67	0.586
Rays	27	28	0.614	93	69	0.574
Red Sox	31	22	0.572	93	69	0.574
Orioles	24	30	0.461	74	88	0.457

AL Central

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Tigers	28	23	0.576	92	70	0.568
Royals	23	29	0.530	81	81	0.500
Twins	26	28	0.507	81	81	0.500
White Sox	25	27	0.499	80	82	0.494
Indians	23	32	0.521	79	83	0.488

AL West

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Rangers	31	21	0.571	94	68	0.580
Angels	26	25	0.501	82	80	0.506
Mariners	26	28	0.444	74	88	0.457
Athletics	21	30	0.416	67	95	0.414

NL East

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Phillies	31	20	0.515	88	74	0.543
Mets	28	23	0.533	87	75	0.537
Braves	26	26	0.492	80	82	0.494
Marlins	25	29	0.378	66	96	0.407
Nationals	14	36	0.421	61	101	0.377

NL Central

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Cardinals	30	23	0.506	85	77	0.525
Brewers	31	22	0.494	85	77	0.525
Cubs	26	25	0.486	80	82	0.494
Reds	28	24	0.456	78	84	0.481
Pirates	24	28	0.464	75	87	0.463
Astros	23	31	0.415	69	93	0.426

NL West

Team	Current Wins	Current Losses	eW%	Season Wins	Season Losses	Season W%
Dodgers	37	18	0.607	102	60	0.630
Padres	25	28	0.424	71	91	0.438
Rockies	20	32	0.454	70	92	0.432
Diamondbacks	23	31	0.425	69	93	0.426
Giants	25	25	0.375	67	95	0.414

A little bit of commentary after the jump...

These standings don't exactly equal a .500 record (the league is 30 games under overall), due to rounding errors. Just in case anyone took the time to add things up and realized they didn't match exactly.
Also, this was purely a mathematical exercise and doesn't take into consideration schedules going forward. So it doesn't consider the likelihood of the AL East teams beating up on each other, and the NL West games where someone actually does have to win.
Wow, the AL East is good. They have 4 of the top 7 projected teams - all with at least 93 wins.
On the other hand, the NL West is really bad. The Dodgers are projected to win the division by 31 games. That's just crazy.
Right now it looks like we're in for some good races in three divisions, with four teams from the NL East and Central battling for three spots.
Interesting battle at the bottom of the standings. The Marlins have played well above their performance to this point and the Nationals have been well below theirs. Going forward the 11 game difference should shrink, but not enough for the Marlins to steal the first pick from the Nats.

So what do you guys think? Is this a worthwhile exercise even though they aren't really projections? Should I keep doing this?

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Comments

Fun

I like it, and if you want to keep doing it I’ll enjoy following it.

One note: you should probably use eW%lg instead of eW%. The latter uses a league adjustment, and therefore projects that the “average” NL team is below-average, and the average AL team is above-average. Changing to the within-league winning percentage will pull the AL East down a bit, and will make the NL Central not look so putrid. :)
-j

My blog: Basement-Dwellers.com

by JinAZ on Jun 5, 2009 9:34 AM EDT reply actions

Good advice

I’ll do that next week. Should make all you NL Central fans happy.

by Dan Turkenkopf on Jun 5, 2009 6:02 PM EDT up reply actions

I agree, although, the AL will get some added games from interleague play.

Maybe build that in somehow?

I’m surprised there haven’t been more negative responses to these “projected” standings. I was ready to explain to hordes of people that you’ve asked a very specific question and answered it, but the answer isn’t applicable to many similar questions people like to ask.

And yes, I like seeing these. Makes me wonder the possibility of building SoS into Justin’s rankings and your “projections”… Eh, probably stuff higher on the list.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Jun 5, 2009 7:48 PM EDT up reply actions

For the Blue Jays...

this means: PLAYOFFS!!!!1

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PLAYOFFS!!!!1

by eyebleaf on Jun 5, 2009 11:51 AM EDT reply actions

So this is basically taking the current records, and adding in the rest of their season’s wins at their expected win percentage?

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by WalrusMan on Jun 5, 2009 9:00 PM EDT reply actions