Friday, February 15, 2013

Projecting the 2013 National League Standings

Last year I did a project for a former blog of mine in which I tried to predict the NL Central standings based on the projected stats for each team.  I used the projections of BaseballHQ.com for each team, removed the worst hitters and pitchers to get down to around 5500 at bats and 1450 IP, which are the team averages for the NL.  These are then plugged into the Pythagorean win expectation formula 




to get that team's projected winning percentage, which, when applied to 162 games, gives that teams projected wins (and losses) for the year.

This year, I took it one step further and have tried to predict the standings for the entire NL.  Below are the results:


RunsRunsProjectedProjected
NL EastScoredAllowedWinsLossesWin %
Washington7166049567     0.586
Atlanta7176169369     0.574
Philadelphia6806258874     0.543
New York6496677983     0.488
Miami6227107092     0.432









Runs

Runs

Projected

Projected

NL CentralScoredAllowedWinsLossesWin %
Cincinnati7436059765     0.599
Milwaukee7796839270     0.567
St. Louis7336539072     0.556
Pittsburgh6967038082     0.494
Chicago6436887689     0.469









Runs

Runs

Projected

Projected

NL WestScoredAllowedWinsLossesWin %
LA Dodgers7416199567     0.586
SF Giants6976199171     0.562
Arizona7296688874     0.543
SD Padres7307158379     0.512
Colorado7607747983     0.488






This is not an exact science, as you cannot account for injuries, breakout stars, etc.  But it should give you a feel for who are the best teams (and worst teams) on paper.  For those of you wondering (and for a bit of perspective), here is what I came up with last year for the projected NL Central standings, with the actual results shown below.

2012 Projected
Results

Projected
Runs

Projected
Runs


Projected


Projected

NL WestScoredAllowedWinsLossesWin %
Milwaukee7616539369     0.574
Cincinnati7546759072     0.556
St. Louis7166578874     0.543
Pittsburgh6627227488     0.457
Chicago6667327389     0.451
Houston6297217090     0.432 

2012 Actual
Results

Actual
Runs

Actual
Runs


Actual


Actual

NL WestScoredAllowedWinsLossesWin %
Cincinnati6695889765     0.599
St. Louis7656488874     0.543
Milwaukee7767338379     0.512
Pittsburgh6516747983     0.488
Chicago61375961101     0.377
Houston58379455107     0.340
 
As you can see, only the Cardinals record was predicted accurately and even then, if you use their actual runs scored and given up, the Pythagorean wins would have been 93. However, other than Milwaukee, this methodology got the standings pretty much in the correct order.  So, take this for what its worth, but its a fun exercise to try (if you've got the time). 

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