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Post 04 Jan 2012, 9:56 pm

WAR = Wins Above Replacement, which at this point I feel like everyone in our league ought to know.

Pythag = Pythagorean record, which is calculated from Runs Scored and Runs Allowed. In other words, expected W/L. Basically a more luck neutral winning percentage. I figure everyone's heard of that, too.

As far as the math goes, the rest is just basic arithmetic.

The reason I said 2*Wilson + Pujols - Darvish is because we're comparing the Angels and Rangers, so Wilson is both added to the Angels and subtracted from the Rangers.

The only other thing I can see in there that might be confusing is FAN. That's just one of the projection systems Fangraphs uses (and the only one that was readily available with WAR totals, which is why I used it). The way they calculate it is by doing a (possibly weighted?) average of reader projections for players for the coming year.

It wasn't that bad, guys, come on. And as for whether it's necessary... if you want to answer the question, you've gotta use the data! You said you thought Wilson + Pujols + return of Morales made up a 10 game difference. My initial inclination was to think that that would at least not more then make up the gap between the Angels & Rangers (and thus make the Angels clear favorites), but I figured it made more sense to actually run the numbers then to just say it.
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Post 05 Jan 2012, 10:07 am

Remember fellas, Todd did win last year.
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Post 05 Jan 2012, 1:01 pm

SLOTerp wrote:Remember fellas, Todd did win last year.


No doubt.

I did understand WAR.

I think he's wrong about the AL West. Frankly, the Angels have had some very bad luck over the past few years. That alone makes me think they are due for a division title. Sure, it's a gut thing. Call it "intangibles."

I'd be surprised if Beltre maintains that level of hitting. One of the consistent features of his career is inconsistency.
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Post 05 Jan 2012, 5:52 pm

As a Mariners fan, I can vouch for Beltre's inconsistency. :no: :no: :no:
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Post 05 Jan 2012, 8:23 pm

Doctor Fate wrote:I think he's wrong about the AL West. Frankly, the Angels have had some very bad luck over the past few years. That alone makes me think they are due for a division title. Sure, it's a gut thing. Call it "intangibles."

I'd be surprised if Beltre maintains that level of hitting. One of the consistent features of his career is inconsistency.


The Angels have been one of the luckiest teams in baseball with respect to record vs. performance since 2005. Probably the luckiest, but I'm not sure where I could find that information at-a-glance, and don't want to do that much data mining. Anyway, whether that's because they're doing something clever in close games is up for debate, but I'm not inclined toward that position. You may have something different in mind (injuries or whatever), but I'm pretty skeptical that you could establish anything like that based on data.

The Angels' Wins, expected Wins, and differential (actual - expected), going back from last year:

2011: 86, 85, +1
2010: 80, 79, +1
2009: 97, 92, +5
2008: 100, 88, +12
2007: 94, 90, +4
2006: 89, 84, +5
2005: 95, 93, +2

As for Beltre, keep in mind that Safeco was doing him no favors. He was better in 2010 for Boston then in 2011 for Texas. Of course, any team that makes the World Series probably has some overachievers, and Beltre might be one of them. But the fact that Texas was so good in both 2010 and 2011 suggests that it wasn't just a lucky confluence of career years that put them over the top (whereas, say, in the case of the 2010 Giants, arguably it was- see Aubrey Huff and Andres Torres, for example).
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Post 05 Jan 2012, 8:32 pm

For comparison/what it's worth, the same info for the Rangers:

2011: 96, 98, -2
2010: 90, 91, -1
2009: 87, 85, +2
2008: 79, 76, +3
2007: 75, 79, -4
2006: 80, 86, -6
2005: 79, 82, -3
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Post 06 Jan 2012, 9:22 am

Sharur wrote:
Doctor Fate wrote:I think he's wrong about the AL West. Frankly, the Angels have had some very bad luck over the past few years. That alone makes me think they are due for a division title. Sure, it's a gut thing. Call it "intangibles."

I'd be surprised if Beltre maintains that level of hitting. One of the consistent features of his career is inconsistency.


The Angels have been one of the luckiest teams in baseball with respect to record vs. performance since 2005. Probably the luckiest, but I'm not sure where I could find that information at-a-glance, and don't want to do that much data mining. Anyway, whether that's because they're doing something clever in close games is up for debate, but I'm not inclined toward that position. You may have something different in mind (injuries or whatever), . . .


Injuries are exactly what I have in mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwmcDe-Ni4

I think they win a bit more than they should because I think their manager is a bit smarter than most. I think Sciosia is worth a net of 2 or 3 games.
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Post 06 Jan 2012, 4:16 pm

Doctor Fate wrote:Injuries are exactly what I have in mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwmcDe-Ni4

I think they win a bit more than they should because I think their manager is a bit smarter than most. I think Sciosia is worth a net of 2 or 3 games.


Every team suffers injuries. Sure, that's a freak injury. But it's just one data point. Here's a chart showing DL days from 2010: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.ph ... tion-data/ (unfortunately I'm not aware of a similar chart for 2011). LAA is pretty high there, but TEX is one slot higher. There's a possibility that LAA has been unluckier then most in that regard, or specifically in comparison to TEX, over the last few years, but in the absence of further data I don't see anything to support the idea. Of course, it's possible that even if they have, it's their own fault (i.e. poor training staff), and that as such you'd expect the trend to continue.

The Sciosia thing is a possibility. I definitely wouldn't credit him with being smarter then most managers. See: Mike Napoli/Jeff Mathis. But he may be a better leader, motivator, etc. I suspect not (at least, not enough to consistently make that big a difference in the standings), but it's really hard to prove one way or another.
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Post 12 Jan 2012, 6:55 am

Doctor Fate wrote:It's probably good that I can't get back in the league yet. I need to get my geek on.

You'll have at least another year to work on your 'geek'. Expansion failed... again. They fear you, Steve.
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Post 12 Jan 2012, 7:16 am

SLOTerp wrote:
Doctor Fate wrote:It's probably good that I can't get back in the league yet. I need to get my geek on.

You'll have at least another year to work on your 'geek'. Expansion failed... again. They fear you, Steve.


For no reason whatsoever as Todd ably demonstrated.
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Post 12 Jan 2012, 7:34 pm

I'd be happy to have you back in the league, Steve, but I haven't seen anybody make a good case that expansion is the right thing to do for the league itself (and its balance). That doesn't mean I think 14 is the perfect number, it's just that we've got a good thing balance going and I don't want to fix what isn't broken. Feel free to convince me, though!
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Post 13 Jan 2012, 10:17 am

Sharur wrote:I'd be happy to have you back in the league, Steve, but I haven't seen anybody make a good case that expansion is the right thing to do for the league itself (and its balance). That doesn't mean I think 14 is the perfect number, it's just that we've got a good thing balance going and I don't want to fix what isn't broken. Feel free to convince me, though!


I'll give you Belgium!

I'm going to have to organize my own league, I think. However, it's more than I can handle this year. I'm managing too many things atm. I feel like a CEO of a start-up.
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Post 14 Jan 2012, 4:37 pm

I look at expansion this way. We have an interested owner, who shows maturity, decorum and skill. Why would we NOT want him in? Whether it is 14 or 15 teams will have but one player from each team that would be taken from the draft. We would not see much of an impact on available players.

Besides, he offered Belgium!
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Post 14 Jan 2012, 7:50 pm

bbauska wrote:I look at expansion this way. We have an interested owner, who shows maturity, decorum and skill. Why would we NOT want him in? Whether it is 14 or 15 teams will have but one player from each team that would be taken from the draft. We would not see much of an impact on available players.

Besides, he offered Belgium!


As far as I know, there would be no expansion draft.

If we had 20 interested owners who showed maturity, decorum, and skill, would we invite all of them to join? No (at least I'd certainly hope not). The question, in my opinion, is whether a 16 team league (being h2h, 15 isn't an option) would work better or be more fun then a 14 team league. Ryan made some persuasive arguments in favor of 14; I've yet to hear any of note in favor of 16 that I can recall.
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Post 14 Jan 2012, 7:59 pm

I took the 15 team idea as a chance to revolutionize the genre: head-to-head-to-head.

No?