FANS Playoff Probabilities – NL Version
Last week I presented American League playoff probabilities based on a simulation I had created (which I came to find is similar to the one produced by xls sports if you want to play around with this yourself. They even have incorporated home field which I have not yet). If you are interested in the details of the simulation, give last weeks post a quick read. Remember, these are based off of standings generated from the FANS projections. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the National League results.
East Div Win % WC Win % Playoff % Braves 56% 9% 65% Phillies 23% 11% 34% Marlins 12% 7% 19% Mets 7% 4% 11% Nationals 2% 1% 3%
Central Cardinals 63% 6% 69% Cubs 12% 5% 17% Brewers 11% 5% 16% Reds 10% 5% 15% Astros 3% 1% 4% Pirates 1% 0% 1%
West Rockies 35% 12% 47% Diamondbacks 31% 13% 44% Dodgers 18% 10% 28% Giants 9% 6% 15% Padres 7% 5% 12%
and again some other useful data points compared to historical data
Division Avg. Wins 2002-2009 Avg Wins East 94 95 Central 93 93 West 94 91 Wild Card 91 91
The big surprise here is the Braves/Phillies flip-flopping in the East. It would be interesting to go back through the FANS projections for the two teams and see who the FANS are higher/lower on than other projection systems. In the Central, the Cardinals have the tightest hold on any division in baseball according to the FANS, while the West looks like it will be a dogfight.
Next on the simulation to-do list is to simulate some of the most probable playoff scenarios.
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Without actually looking into it, I’m guessing that the fans are more optimistic about Jurrjens and Hanson than other systems and less optimistic about Rollins, Happ, Moyer, Blanton, and Hamels.
They also seem to be forgetting they lost Vasquez and replaced him with… uhm…
Vasquez for the sake of these probabilities isn’t on the Braves, even if he’s still on the Braves projection page.
…Tim Hudson.
Its this brand new thing called having 5 good starters already.
Assuming you’re right, I think the fans would be wrong on Jurrjens, Rollins, and Hamels, bringing the Phillies a little closer to the Braves.
Neat to see another perspective that the Phillies aren’t runaway favorites at all.
Could be subjective bias creeping in, belief being that it is difficult for any team to win a division 4 years in a row.
The Braves showed how difficult that was for eleven consecutive years.
The Phillies won’t run out a starter (like Moyer) with a 5.00 ERA for over 120 innings. They have enough resources to have other options (via trade or an available free agent like Pedro Martinez). This would explain the pessimistic FANS projection, which is only the sum of the opening day parts.
I’m not sure I understand how the true team winning percentages were derived for the pupose of the simulations, i looked back at the prior posts but with all the adjustments I wasn’t sure I’d be able to reproduce the data. I looked at the FAN projected WAR for most of the Braves and Phils starting position players and starting pitching, I ignored the relief pitchers because I got tired of looking at individual pages. It looked like there weren’t any projections for Heyward. The other projections all seemed skewed too high as has been mentioned in the prior threads.
I was surprised the D’backs were projected to win their division that many times, I think those are some pretty optimistic fans out there. I would have placed them 4th in that division.
bobo,
For the purposes of the sim, I just used the FANS standings as produced by David Appelman to derive the true talent win %. He’d have to weigh in with how he derived those, as I took them at face value.
The Dodgers are just so underrated, and I’m not sure why. Is it because Padilla is the 4th starter? Because his value level is reflected in many staffs at the 4th starter spot. Is it because the 5th starter isnt known yet? Because there are a few people fighting for that spot that would make many team’s back end of the rotation.
I just don’t know.
Your site and all of the sims are new to me, but I’d have to question any system that gives the Phils only a 34% of making the playoffs and the Braves a 65% (virtual lock) on a spot. As a longtime Braves fan, I’m just hoping that they can make the divisional race interesting. While their pitching is solid, I wonder where their runs are going to come from. I also think they’ve picked up some injury prone players when their best hitter (Jones) can only be expected to be in the lineup (and healthy) about 70% of the time (at most).
Obviously, I hope these projections prove to be true, but they seem to defy basic baseball knowledge/common sense.