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:

	Runs	Runs	Projected	Projected
NL East	Scored	Allowed	Wins	Losses	Win %
Washington	716	604	95	67	0.586
Atlanta	717	616	93	69	0.574
Philadelphia	680	625	88	74	0.543
New York	649	667	79	83	0.488
Miami	622	710	70	92	0.432

	Runs	Runs	Projected	Projected
NL Central	Scored	Allowed	Wins	Losses	Win %
Cincinnati	743	605	97	65	0.599
Milwaukee	779	683	92	70	0.567
St. Louis	733	653	90	72	0.556
Pittsburgh	696	703	80	82	0.494
Chicago	643	688	76	89	0.469

	Runs	Runs	Projected	Projected
NL West	Scored	Allowed	Wins	Losses	Win %
LA Dodgers	741	619	95	67	0.586
SF Giants	697	619	91	71	0.562
Arizona	729	668	88	74	0.543
SD Padres	730	715	83	79	0.512
Colorado	760	774	79	83	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 West	Scored	Allowed	Wins	Losses	Win %
Milwaukee	761	653	93	69	0.574
Cincinnati	754	675	90	72	0.556
St. Louis	716	657	88	74	0.543
Pittsburgh	662	722	74	88	0.457
Chicago	666	732	73	89	0.451
Houston	629	721	70	90	0.432

2012 Actual Results	Actual Runs	Actual Runs	Actual	Actual
NL West	Scored	Allowed	Wins	Losses	Win %
Cincinnati	669	588	97	65	0.599
St. Louis	765	648	88	74	0.543
Milwaukee	776	733	83	79	0.512
Pittsburgh	651	674	79	83	0.488
Chicago	613	759	61	101	0.377
Houston	583	794	55	107	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).