MLB Playoff Predictions Posted by Nate Kreichman (08/23/2012 @ 2:56 pm) This may well be my last post for a while on The Scores Report, so I figured what better way to go out than with some way-too-early playoff predictions? I’ll forecast each of Major League Baseball’s six division winners as well as each league’s two wild card teams. You know, so all my readers can come back and mock my wild inaccuracy in two months time. Below, you’ll find the name of my predicted champion with their current record and place in the standings in parentheses. Also inside the parentheses is the percent chance that team will win their division (DIV) as well as make the playoffs in some fashion (POFF) as calculated by coolstandings.com and showcased on ESPN’s Hunt for October. AL East: New York Yankees (72-52, First Place, DIV: 74.9, POFF: 96.5) This is one of the easier predictions to make, as despite losing three straight to the White Sox, the Yankees hold the American League’s best record. As good as the Rays are, they’re simply not going to catch up with the boys from the Bronx, especially with ace C.C. Sabathia returning to start on Friday. AL Central: Detroit Tigers (66-57, Second Place, DIV: 31.0, POFF: 55.7) This one’s a real toss-up between Detroit and the first place Chicago White Sox. The way I see it, the Tigers have been seriously underperforming. They should have been on top of the division all year, instead the AL Central race has turned into a competition to see who can be the most above average. Although Chicago’s being given a 69 percent chance to win the division (83.3 percent to make the playoffs), for me, that’s the Tigers. They’re only two games back in, and 16 of the 39 contests left on their schedule are against teams with winning records. Detroit will play nearly a quarter of their remaining games, nine, against the Kansas City Royals, against whom they’re 7-1 so far. The Tigers and White Sox will face off seven more times this year, and those games will be the key to the division. Both teams have a bit of extra incentive: there’s a solid chance that the one that comes in second place won’t make the playoffs at all, what with the Rays, Orioles, and A’s playing as they have. AL West: Texas Rangers (72-51, First Place, DIV: 84.9, POFF: 96.2) This may be the lone lock among these predictions. The Rangers are looking to return to the World Series for the third straight season, and I’d bet they’d like to win one after losing to the Cardinals and Giants in the past two championships. Will the third time be a charm? We’ll see, right now we’re just talking about winning the division, and as of now, the Rangers have an AL-high 84.9 percent chance to do that. The Rangers have without a doubt the league’s best offense. They lead the league in runs scored (627), average (.277), and on-base percentage (.340), while trailing only the Yankees in slugging percentage (.444). Lucky for Texas, the Angels have fallen off hard of late, and while the A’s have been quite a surprise, it’s unlikely they’ll close their five-game gap. AL Wild-Cards: Tampa Bay Rays (69-55, Second Place AL East, DIV: 23.3, POFF: 79.1), Oakland Athletics (65-56, Second Place AL West, DIV: 13.2, POFF: 55.0) The Rays will ride into the first AL wild-card spot with relative ease on the backs of their pitching staff. They’re tied for the best team WHIP (1.20) and batting average against (.232) in the majors and rank second in ERA (3.27). Plus, they’ve been one of baseball’s hottest teams as of late, winning seven of their last ten. The second spot is much tricker. The O’s have been perhaps the season’s biggest surprises, but I just don’t seem them making it given the strength of the AL East. Instead, it will be another team with a vowel-based nickname, the Oakland A’s, who have games with Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore, Detroit, New York and Texas remaining on their schedule. Ironically, they’ve only got losing records against the worst two teams on that list, Minnesota and Seattle, so they’ll just have to keep doing what they have been. Having recently acquired shortstop Stephen Drew from Arizona, the A’s aren’t going to just lay down and die. NL East: Washington Nationals (77-47, First Place, DIV: 87.7, POFF: 99.7) I’ve been saying it all year, the Nationals are doing it right. It’s been rumored that the team would shut down Stephen Strasburg after he reached around 160 innings, although GM Mike Rizzo has consistently said there is no set limit and that he alone would make the decision. Strasburg has 145.1 under his belt thus far, and the team recently announced that he’ll be sitting for two or three starts. We’ll see what the 24 year-old ace is able to do in the playoffs with all that rest. For now, John Lannan will take his spot in the rotation. With the team six games ahead of the Atlanta Braves and holding the best DIV and POFF scores in the majors, they’re unlikely to miss Strasburg too much.The fact is they’ve got the league’s best pitching staff with or without him. Sure, Strasburg is a huge part of their league highs in ERA (3.23), quality starts (79), WHIP (1.20), and batting average against (.232), but baseball is a team sport, and the Nats aren’t going to fall off the map without him on the hill every fifth day. NL Central: Cincinatti Reds (76-49, First Place, DIV: 87.5, POFF: 98.1) Even without Joey Votto, the Reds have won seven of their last ten. Only the Nationals have a better record than Cincinatti, and that’s why only the Nats have a higher probability of winning their division or making the playoffs. But the Reds have a bigger lead in their division (8 games over St. Louis and 8.5 over Pittsburgh) than any other team in baseball, and nothing’s going to stop that train from rolling. NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers (67-58, Second Place, DIV: 23.7, POFF: 30.6) Much like the AL Central race, this one is going to be impacted in large part by the six games the Giants and Dodgers play against each other. Sure, L.A. is a game behind the Giants. And yes, they just got finished losing three straight to San Francisco. But losing Melky Cabrera is going to take a toll on the Giants over their next 38 games, although the effects may not have manifested quite yet, so I’m still picking the Dodgers to take the NL West crown. NL Wild-Cards: Atlanta Braves (71-53, Second Place NL East, DIV: 12.3, POFF: 89.4), Pittsburgh Pirates (67-57, Third Place NL Central, DIV: 3.7, POFF: 35.7) Much like the Rays, the Braves are going to have a relatively easy time taking the first NL wild-card spot. Atlanta is better than the record, if that even makes sense considering only four teams have better records. Unfortunately for the Braves, one of them is the Washington Nationals. The second NL wild-card spot and final pick on my list is the Pittsburgh Pirates. Although they’ve got a fairly tough schedule moving forward, the Bucs will also play Milwaukee, Houston, and Chicago. Pittsburgh is going to have tough time moving ahead of division rival St. Louis and contending with the rest of the pushing and shoving going on for the last NL playoff spot. To be honest, this one is more of a hope than a prediction. I mean, the last time the Pirates made the playoffs was 1992. When else should the Bucs get their luck back, if not exactly twenty years later? If nothing else, their fans deserve it. So does Andrew McCutchen, who’s likely to be the NL’s most valuable player. Follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman Posted in: MLB Tags: AL East, Andrew McCutchen, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, baseball, C.C. Sabathia, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Melky Cabrera, MLB, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, Stephen Drew, Stephen Strasburg, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, World Series
Baseball’s Two Biggest Surprises Posted by Nate Kreichman (05/22/2012 @ 6:12 pm)
Every team in Major League Baseball has now played over 40 games. That’s more than a quarter of the season, which means we can no longer say Albert Pujols is having a slow start or the Orioles are just getting lucky. Let’s take a look at the two most surprising team performances so far, one bad, one good. Along the way, we’ll have a little fun at the expense of ESPN’s absolutely expert preseason predictions. Hell’s Angels I’ve tallied the expert predictions and made all sorts of charts. The most surprising thing to the team over at ESPN has got to be the performance of the Los Angeles Angels, and more specifically that of Albert Pujols, their $240 million man. Jayson Stark said as much in his own quarter-season roundup, and the charts don’t lie. Of the 49 ESPN experts, 24 picked the Angels to win their division and 45 said they’d make the playoffs. As if that wasn’t enough, 18 of those savvy professionals picked them to win the World Series. That’s more than any other team by 10, in second place with eight picks were the division rival Texas Rangers. Obviously, things are not going as well as was expected for the Angels. I mean, it’s not really going well by any means of calculation. They’re in last place with an 18-25 record, eight games behind the AL West leading Rangers, and to top it all off they’ve lost three straight. If there’s one thing that’ll rile up a fan base, it’s the underperformance of a big money off-season signing. Just ask a Giants fan what they think of Barry Zito. Zito was one of my favorite players during his time on the A’s, and I wanted the Mets to get him, bad. Luckily I’m not the team’s GM, so we dodged a major bullet. For any Giants fans reading, I’m sorry to have brought that up. If you want I can riff about Mo Vaughn a while to make you feel better. No? Alright, moving on. The trouble with Pujols is not that he’s underperforming, but that he doesn’t seem to be performing at all. The three-time NL MVP is hitting .212 with 3 home runs and just 18 RBI. His Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is at -0.1 according to baseball-reference, meaning he’s only a little bit worse than your average Triple-A shmo. He’s on pace to hit 12 total homers this year, or one for every million dollars he’s being paid. Fear not Angels fans, it’s far from a lost season, and I do believe Pujols will turn it around once he’s adjusted to all the AL pitchers he’s almost never seen. That said, I’m not sure I’d put any money on seeing him in the playoffs this year. The Unbelievable Orioles When I say unbelievable, I mean it. I don’t think anyone expected this kind of performance out of the O’s. If we look back at those preseason predictions, not one of the ESPN wunderkinds predicted the Orioles would grab a wildcard spot, let alone win the highly competitive AL East. But look at them now. Forty-three games into the season, the O’s are at a cool 27-16, two games ahead of the Rays and five and a half in front of the tied-for-last Red Sox and Yankees (whom 37 of the analysts predicted would win the division). Like I said, a quarter of a season is far too long to call this a hot streak, lucky, or anything else of the sort. If the fans in Baltimore have one man to thank, it’s manager Buck Showalter, who’s led his team to a 15-6 record while on the road. The Braves are the only team in the bigs with more wins on the road (16), but they’ve also got four more road losses (10). Furthermore, Showalter has helped Adam Jones develop into the star we’ve been told he is for oh so long, as well as getting fantastic performances from his starting rotation. Perhaps most importantly however is what Showalter has gotten out of his bullpen. Those of you who read my column last week know how I feel about closers. Showalter may not feel quite as strongly as I do, but he uses his pen with more logic than just about any other manager. It’s working too, the bullpen has converted 19 of 24 save opportunities and includes five different pitchers (Jim Johnson, Pedro Strop, Darren O’Day, Matt Lindstrom, Luis Ayala) with ERA’s of 1.75 or under in more than 13 appearances. Just don’t tell anyone who likes what I had to say about closers that the 5 blown saves have come from pitchers other than Johnson. All that said, just as the Angels have plenty of time to turn things around, the Orioles have plenty of time to regress. Some statisticians see the team’s dominance as unsustainable. The team has relied fairly heavily on home runs to score, their league-leading 65 jacks has helped them score more runs (199) than just five other teams. Home runs, of course, are the fossil fuel of baseball energy, and you never know when the O’s will pass peak oil. If the team hopes to maintain its success they’re going to have to get a little more eco-friendly, meaning upping their team batting average (.249, or twelfth in the league) and OBP (.310, 21st). If these preseason predictions tell us anything, it’s that preseason predictions are worthless. But hey, that’s what makes baseball great. Any team can get hot and come out of nowhere (or go into a total nose dive) at any time. Then again, it’s a long season and the baseball gods still have more than enough time to correct themselves if they see fit. Posted in: MLB Tags: Adam Jones, Albert Pujols, Baltimore Orioles, Barry Zito, Boston Red Sox, Buck Showalter, Darren O’Day, Jayson Stark, Jim Johnson, Los Angeles Angels, Luis Ayala, Matt Lindstrom, New York Yankees, Pedro Strop, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers
TV ratings booming for MLB teams – does baseball have NFL lockout to thank? Posted by Anthony Stalter (04/05/2011 @ 4:50 pm) Players from the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles line up during the U.S. National Anthem during ceremonies before the Orioles’ home opening day MLB American League baseball game in Baltimore, Maryland, April 4, 2011. REUTERS/Joe Giza (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT BASEBALL) A couple of weeks ago a buddy and I were talking about the NFL lockout and then we immediately shifted the conversation to our upcoming fantasy baseball drafts. For whatever reason it didn’t hit me until then (probably because I’m not that smart) but I realized just how much Major League Baseball stands to gain if the players and owners continue to ruin the NFL. It hasn’t even been a week, but already several MLB teams have set local TV ratings records. According to SportsBuinessDaily.com, the Orioles’ 4-0 start has translated to booming ratings for MASN. The network posted a 12.2 rating and 135,000 HHs in the Baltimore market for Monday’s home opener against the Tigers. For sake of comparison, the team averaged a 3.4 rating in Baltimore last season. The site also mentions that last Friday’s game between the Astros and Phillies set an opening-day rating record and Sunday’s matchup broke the record for a regular-season telecast. The Rangers, Blue Jays, FOX and ESPN all did very well over the weekend, too. Granted, it was opening weekend and the cold weather certainly encouraged people to stay indoors and flip on the tube. I’d like to see what the numbers look like in a couple of weeks when fans realize that there are still 140-plus games left to be played this season. Will the interest still be high in Baltimore if the Orioles go on a six-game losing streak? Will ESPN start to lose viewers when they begin showing only the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and Mets on a weekly basis like they have over the past couple of years? (Furthermore, how long before people start to pass on the ESPN Sunday Night broadcast because they can’t stand Bobby Valentine and Orel Hershier, both of whom are atrocious in the booth.) That said, without daily NFL free agent news, I wouldn’t be shocked if people had a renewed sense of focus on baseball. The CBA mess has sucked most of the fun out of the NFL draft this year, so maybe fans (who are no doubt tired of the constant negative commentary surrounding the lockout) will stick with baseball long after the excitement from opening weekend fades away. Either way, Bud Selig and Co. have to love the early TV numbers and probably wouldn’t mind seeing the lockout go well into August or September. Not having to compete with the NFL (even its offseason) has to be a plus for Selig’s league. Five things we learned about opening weekend in MLB Posted by Anthony Stalter (04/04/2011 @ 1:35 pm) The Baltimore Orioles’ Brian Roberts (1), Mark Reynolds (12) and Derrek Lee (25) celebrate with teammates and third base coach John Russell (77) following their 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays during their MLB American League baseball game in St. Petersburg, Florida, April 1, 2011. REUTERS/Brian Blanco (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT BASEBALL) There’s a good chance that this post will be irrelevant in the next couple of weeks but I’m going to write it anyway. You can’t tell me what to do. Here are five things we learned about opening weekend in MLB. 1. The Orioles are for real. I’m kidding – relax. The Orioles are for real after just three games? That’s an over exaggeration on my part, although who can blame the Baltimore faithful for being excited about the start of the season? Their team just swept the Rays on the road and did so in rather convincing fashion, limiting Tampa to just three runs in three games. Considering how brash Buck Showalter was this offseason in his comments about Theo Epstein and Derek Jeter, it has to be refreshing for fans that the O’s came out of the gates hot. It’s also nice to see Brian Roberts (4-for-13, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 3 runs) get off to a good start after injuries limited his production last year, and guys like Nick Markakis make plays both offensive and defensively (what a catch he had over the weekend when he crashed into the wall). Given the young talent that this club has, it’s not a stretch to think that they could surprise this year in the AL. But if nothing else, at least there’s a little excitement in Baltimore again. 2. The Red Sox’ pitching is still a concern. Again, again, again: It’s early. Just because the Rangers swept the Red Sox over the weekend doesn’t mean that the BoSox won’t make the playoffs or that they’re overrated. That said, this was about as bad of a start for the Red Sox as Yankee fans could ask for. They dropped three consecutive games to open a season for the first time since 1996, they were outscored 26-11 and their pitchers surrendered a whopping 11 home runs in just three games. Jon Lester gave up a career-high three home runs, while John Lackey served up two and Clay Buchholz gave up four solo shots. Granted, pitchers know that when they travel to Texas their chances of serving up a long ball are great. But 11 home runs in three days? Yikes. This was an ass kicking to say the least and one that brings Boston’s pitching concerns back into focus. Read the rest of this entry » Report: Orioles to hire Showalter as manager Posted by Anthony Stalter (07/13/2010 @ 10:00 am) Ed Price of AOL Fanhouse reports that Buck Showalter will take over as the next manager of the Orioles by this weekend. Showalter is 882-833 in his career as a manager, a winning percentage of .514. But he inherits a monumental challenge in Baltimore. The Orioles haven’t had a winning season since 1997, and despite a strong core of young talent that features Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Brian Matusz and others, they must deal with life in baseball’s toughest division, the AL East. Eric Wedge, Rick Dempsey and Bobby Valentine are among the other candidates reportedly to have interviewed for Baltimore’s managing vacancy.
Assuming he is hired, Showalter has his work cut out for him in Baltimore, which went into the All-Star break with baseball’s worst record at 29-59. As the article indicates, the O’s have a solid young core in Jones, Wieters, Matusz and Nick Markakis. But they’ve under performed (even for the Orioles) the entire year and it appears as though the younger players need a fire lit under their asses. We’ll see if Showalter can bring the strong, reputable presence that the club has desperately needed for years. Update: The Baltimore Sun is now reporting that while Showalter is still the leading candidate to take over as the next manager of the Orioles, the club is not set to hire him by this weekend as Price suggests. |