I have written a short piece for the Spring Training 2008 website hosted by Blogs by Fans about the Astros. You can check it out here, and also click on any of the team logos for a preview of rosters, rotations, and key spring training battles. Spend a few minutes there if you have a chance.

Also, check out any of the previous five posts on offseason MLB transactions from the American League and two of the three NL divisions. The NL West will round out the series later this week.

It seems quite hard to believe, but we are only three weeks from February 2008. And since February is still the month when pitchers and catchers report, we are drawing very close to a new baseball season.

After the first of year, many, MANY websites and media outlets will begin posting predictions and projections for the 2008 season; who will win the divisions, win the big awards, have the best fantasy seasons, etc. And while most of those are fun to read at a slow work day, they are just the guesses of the writer or team of writers that put the information together, and are very rarely based on anything quantitative or conclusive. You will get a lot of people saying A-Rod or Ortiz or Miguel Cabrera will win the AL MVP next year. Wow. Was that hard to come up with? My wife could tell you that much. It’s the projections that are actually based on something other than gut feelings and conjecture that are truly interesting to look at.

And that’s what I want to explore today. Most of what you will read below is still very much unknown by John and Jane Baseball Fan, who rely on their local paper and ESPN for projections of a new season. But in the past few years, a few dedicated people and ambitious websites have taken on the goal of trying to come up with the most accurate projections possible. Whether the goal is winning a fantasy title, creating an accurate formulaic projection, or just the desire to be right, all the examples you will see here want the title of the most accurate season forecaster.

And while it may seem intimidating to many (including myself) to stop thinking of projections in terms of, “well this player is a little older, he won’t do as well this year,” or “this team added some great hitters, they will definitely score more runs (ahem, Astros),” and start thinking of things like park effects and team run differential and pitcher LD/FB ratios, in the end we will come up with a much better product.

So let’s get started with the most familiar of the bunch first:

The Bill James Handbook 2008 & BIS Pitcher Projections

Every year, Bill James and his partnering organization, Baseball Info Solutions, release a set of projections for the upcoming season. These are usually the first to arrive, and if you search the player pages on www.fangraphs.com, you can find the simple projections for most players next season (more on that in a minute).

What these projections offer is pretty simple. For hitters, you will find your basic projections for stats like average, RBI, HR, plate appearances, hits, walks, OBP, SLG, OPS, etc. But, there is also valuable information found in projections for less popular stats like BB%, ISO, BABIP, Runs Created, and RC/27. Lance Berkman, for example, is projected to have a .954 OPS and create 124 runs in 2008. And those are numbers not based on Miguel Tejada in the lineup. Your pitching stats will encompass the normal wins, losses, ERA, innings, strikeouts, etc. But also available are K/9, HR/9, WHIP, and pitcher BABIP numbers amongst others.

Without the exact numbers and formula, all I can say is that the projections for players in the Handbook are based on past performance, then three things are factored in, age, projected playing time, and park effects. The only downside to the Bill James projections is that they are the first projections out, usually by the first of December, and therefore can not account for things like recent trades that have just happened, injuries during spring training, or anything that might affect where a player plays or how much he plays. And some numbers are not available for rookies of the previous year. So if you want to know how Troy Patton will perform in 2008, you will have to look elsewhere.

You can pick up the Bill James Handbook at the publisher’s site here for $21.95.

PECOTA - Baseball Prospectus

PECOTA, which stands for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, is the creation of Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus and is possibly the most comprehensive projection system out there. It covers not only every major league player, but also projections for team records for the upcoming season.

Using a vast series of computations and algorithms including the not-so-well-known reliever leverage, BatDelta, PitDelta, and others that are incomprehensible to a run-of-the-mill numbskull like me, every player currently in a major league uniform is given a projection for the next season. Trying to simplify it all, the process works like this:

Using some of the same methods such as projected playing time, age, park index, risk for injury, past performance, etc., a projection is made for each hitter and pitcher.

The team totals for hitters in stats like Avg, OBP, SLG, are used and plugged into David Tate’s Marginal Lineup Value Formula, and an estimate of runs scored for each team is then spit out taking all of the factors for each hitter into account. So, an estimate for a team is based on the 650 PAs the everyday leadoff hitter might have, plus the 75 PAs a bench player might have who rarely gets in a game, and everyone in-between. Even forecasts for stolen bases are included.

For pitchers, the exercise is simpler, as they just total up the projections for runs allowed from each pitcher on the staff and tally those together for a team. You now have a team where you guess the number of runs they will score and the number of runs they will allow.

These runs scored and runs allowed totals for each team are then plugged into the Pythagenport formula, which translates those numbers into a win-loss total for every team in the Majors. Once you have those, it is easy to see who the formula thinks will have the most wins, losses, etc. for a season. and you can rank them by division, which BP does before every season.

PECOTA usually goes as far as to project up to five seasons for all players that are input in the calculations. But, because of the variance of numbers from year to year, players changing teams, and schedules that shift from year to year, the team won-loss records are typically done a year at a time.

The criticism I hear about PECOTA is that is very often seems to be too conservative. But some of that criticism tends to be unfounded. Using Berkman as an example again, he had that monster 2006 season, but PECOTA projected him at 32 HR and 100 RBI. This was laughed at more than once, but sure enough, Berkman finished the season at 34/102.

Every player has a PECOTA page on Baseball Prospectus, but you have to pay for a membership to be able to view them. But I can vouch that it can be very helpful for fantasy purposes. Team record projections are usually posted in an article on the front page, but also can only be fully viewed by members. A one-year subscription is $34.95 for the site.

Ron Shandler & Baseball Forecaster

Ron Shandler is the fantasy guru and stats projectionist made famous in the book Fantasyland by Sam Walker (a great read by the way) and the famed experts fantasy league, Tout Wars. Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster website (www.baseballhq.com) claims that it is “Since 1986, the industry’s leading resource for creating fantasy baseball winners.”

Shandler claims to be the first to acclimate sabermetrics, including some stats of his own creation, into fantasy baseball projections and predictions. And his numerous expert league titles and awards won by his website and projections definitely show that he is one of, if not the best in the business.

The mantra that Shandler uses to lure people to his product is that winning in fantasy is NOT, in fact, all about luck. Any fantasy player will try and tell you that he was lucky to pick up Magglio Ordonez in the 11th round last year or something similar, but Shandler doesn’t see it that way. He believes luck can be managed and even predicted.

In a world of fantasy- and real-life-based projections that are clouded by simple and non-descriptive stats, he takes what he calls a “components-based approach” to player projections. While a lot of times on this site, we talk about the numbers beneath the numbers and how certain things lead to more common stats we see like batting average, RBI, ERA, etc, Shandler really gets into the numbers beneath the numbers beneath the numbers of the common Fantasy stats out there.

It can sometimes seem like a daunting task to try and grapple with some of Shandler’s stats like qERA, the RIMA plan, and reliability score, but fortunately with each purchase of his book or online projections, a comprehensive glossary with explanations is included. The final outcome is very comprehensive in its format, showing all stats, rates, and formulas used to pull together the numbers for a specific player, culminating in the final projections for that player for the upcoming season.

This book is also now on sale and can be purchased here for $24.95. And of you order the book directly from Shandler Enterprises, he will also send the book in an online format, complete with PDF and excel files for all charts; a handy tool for draft day.

There also is some valuable information that can be had for free on the website, beginning with an option to sign up for a free e-newsletter that comes every Friday from January to September with projections, trends, FAQs, etc. Also check out Shandler’s essay on projective accuracy located here.

Marcels and Tangotiger

This set of projections is hot off the presses for 2008 and is available on the incredibly helpful website www.hardballtimes.com. Marcel projections are comically named for Ross Gellar’s monkey on the show Friends, as in they are so simple that even a monkey could do them.

Worked out by the famous sabermetric/projectionist blogger Tangotiger, Marcel projections (fromTHT website) “simply consist of averaging a player’s previous experience (with greatest weight on the most recent years) and regressing to the major league average depending on the number of years the player has been in the majors. This is done for each component (home runs, doubles, walks, etc.) A simple aging factor is applied, but no park factor.”

Easily laid out into projections for hitters and pitchers Marcels are laid out on The Hardball Times by default to rank hitters by GPA (gross production average, a stat developed by THT that is in the same family as OPS, but more accurate. GPA is laid out like batting average when determining good and bad. The formula for GPA is (OBP*1.8+SLG)/4, adjusted for ballpark factor), and pitchers by ERA. But each chart also has at least a dozen stat projections that are sortable for the upcoming predictions in 2008.

This link specifically lays out how Tangotiger determines Marcels, with numerous helpful comments attached that provide more insight into specifics below the essay. He does not use GPA in his projections, that is done after the fact by THT.

Essentially, Marcels counts on a baseline average for all major leaguers and uses that as a starting point for comparing hitters and pitchers and then relies on Tango’s 5/4/3 method of weighting the three previous seasons of data for a player and using that compared to projected plate appearances to come to the final conclusion. One downside is that all rookies with no MLB experience will be rated as being league average, which is not always the case.

Also in an interesting piece, Tango looks at Marcels related to other prognosticators (circa 2007) and compares them mathematically to the actual stats and each other, so it’s proves helpful to see how these different systems rated to at least one of their peers. Specifically look at comment number five by Nate Silver.

And while Marcels are free, THT also sells The Hardball Times Season Preview 2008, which includes newly developed player projections by The Hardball Times as well as projections for each team and also for players’ careers. The book is available here and sells for $17.95.

ZiPS and Dan Szymborksi

Right now, on the website www.baseballthinkfactory.org, Dan Szymborski is a little more than halfway through his yearly set of team by team articles complete with their ZiPS projections for 2008. ZiPS is a computer-based projection system that stands for sZymborskI Projection System.

Like many others, ZiPS relies on weighted yearly stats (four years for this system). But a difference in this projections system from many others is that Szymborski doesn’t try to compare his numbers and averages to individual players with similar past performances or results, but rather large groups with similar characteristics where he can concentrate on comparing larger sets of data against a more balanced field.

Stats such as BABIP, K-rate, and Speed Score and relied upon heavily in these projections for hitters and pitchers. And like the others, playing time and PAs are based on most recent playing time and PAs for specific players.

Szymborski also projects league offensive totals for upcoming seasons by weighing recent years for the separate leagues and looking at trends in offense, defense and pitching to determine new numbers. Projections for hitters can then be compared to these offensive totals or averages to see how they will compare. He also breaks them down by position in each league to truly compare apples to apples.

ZiPS projections are done for a very large number of players, some of which realistically have no shot at much playing time in the major leagues, but should they get that chance, Szymborski takes all of their factors into account as well and predicts performance should they get a shot. If using these for fantasy purposes, he leaves it up to the reader to determine whether they feel like they should take a shot on someone who may or may not have that playing time.

For now, the ZiPS projections are completely free and accessible through Baseball Think Factory. The articles on each team are a very good read and can easily be found on the front page. Most recently completed are the 2008 White Sox.

So there you have it, 2500 words about some of the most well-known and accurate projections out there. The question I hear the most is “well yeah, but how accurate were they in their projections? Which one should I use?” Well, find out for yourself. Pick up a couple of the books or check out a couple of the websites and look at predictions from last year and compare to the real numbers we now have. You will find a favorite eventually; one that peaks your interest based on what you really want to use them for.

If you know of any others that you would like me to research and get some info (like CHONE, Rotowire, etc.), let me know and I will see what I can do.

In the spring of 1994, I was a skinny 8th grader living in Brussels where I wrote for the school paper for the first time. Being a school with mostly Americans, the paper had a sports section dedicated mainly to American sports, so when I was asked where I wanted to spend my time learning how to write, of course that is what I picked. More specifically, baseball.

I was asked to write a preview of the upcoming baseball season - and I gladly accepted. I wrote until my fingers hurt, only to have my article cut in half because I had made it “way too long” for the upcoming edition. Not knowing or understanding anything about a pending strike or labor stoppage or salary cap, I wrote about some of my favorite players like Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey, Jr. Little did I know what kind of season those three respective players would have, two of them winning the MVP award before the season ended on August 11. And while Bagwell, Thomas and others were downright god-like that season, it was two other men that had their chance at history ripped out from under them after their evening games ended that Thursday night in August.

Matt Williams and Tony Gwynn were both on pace for phenomenal, record-breaking numbers in 1994, despite the fact that both played for losing teams a mere 500 miles apart.

Through 115 team games, Matt Williams had played in 112 and already had 43 homeruns, leading all of Major League Baseball. At this pace, Williams would have played in 158 games, and with his pace of one homerun every 10.35 at-bats, he was on track for exactly 61 homeruns - which would have tied the current record of 61 homeruns by Roger Maris. Bagwell was the closest to Williams with 39 homeruns. Unfortunately, if Williams had hit 61 or 62 or 63, his record would have only stood for four years before McGwire and Sosa battled in their epic summer.

So we turn our attention to Tony Gwynn. In 117 San Diego games, Gwynn had missed seven and was on pace for 152 for the season. With 165 hits through 419 at-bats, Gwynn ended August 11 with a .394 average, the highest since Ted Williams’ .406 in 1941. With 45 team games left, Gwynn had approximately 180 plate appearances left to raise his average six points. To put his average in perspective, Gwynn could have gone hitless for his next 131 at-bats and his average would still be .300. If Gwynn had played a full season and had reached .400, he would accomplish something no one had done for 53 years, and something no one has come close to since.

Lately, I have been wondering what would have really happened? Just saying Gwynn was on pace for a .394 AVG is too easy and no fun - with no strike he would actually have had to play those games. What if he did? After exhaustive research by my pal Jeremy Gibson (including calling the Padres’ archive departments), we were able to track down a schedule of games that were not played in 1994 - the rest of the canceled season (45 games) for San Diego.

Using Gwynn’s past numbers against the teams and pitchers with whom they had games remaining, I think we can get a better idea of how he might have performed (with a STRONG emphasis on “might”), and if he would have come close to .400. But since this is just for fun, and we’ll never really know, we might as well try.

Here is the portion of the Padres’ schedule that was canceled in 1994:

August-
12-14 vs SF
15-17 vs STL
19-21 @ ATL
23-25 @ FLA
26-28 vs ATL
29-31 vs FLA

September-
2-4 vs PIT
5-7 @ STL
9-11 @ PIT
12-14 @ SF
16-18 vs CHI
19-21 vs HOU
23-25 vs LAD
27-29 @ CIN
30-Oct.2 @ COL

In order to do this, there are a number of factors that have to be considered first. To begin, we will keep Gwynn on the same number of games played schedule. So if he was sitting out once every 20 games, we will do the same thing with the remaining 45 games. Also, Gwynn was averaging 4.32 plate appearances per game, so since every series left is three games, we will assume 13 plate appearances per series, or 195 left before we take away PA for games he sits and walks. We will also keep the same walk rate he accumulated versus these remaining teams for the 1994 season. So if he was averaging a walk per game against the Pirates, we will grant him that to try not to inflate or deflate his number of at-bats too much. We will also have to assume that the teams he is facing keep the same starting pitchers all season, and the batting averages he accumulated through the first 117 games against those pitchers will remain constant when he faces them again.** Gwynn had only two HBP and one sacrifice hit all season to that point, so those are statistically irrelevant to what we are going to do. So let’s get to it.

First, the games he will miss. Gwynn only missed one game all season after April 12, and that was on July 6. The other six games he missed were from April 5-April 11 because of injury. So, only missing one of the team’s final 109 games during the regular season tells us he probably was not going to be sitting at all in those final months. Especially if he is chasing .400.

Walk rate: here is a list of Gwynn’s BB/G rates for the teams on his schedule from Aug. 12 to Oct. 2. Next to that is how many walks we will take away from Gwynn’s plate appearances for three or six games against those teams, and how many plate appearances he has left in a three or six games series after we subtract those walks:

SFG - .286 - 2 walks - 24 at bats left
STL - .50 - 3 walks - 23 at bats left
ATL - .25 - 2 walks - 24 at bats left
FLA - 0 - 0 walks - 26 at bats left
PIT - .50 - 3 walks - 23 at bats left
CHI - .111 - 0 walks - 13 at bats left
HOU - .40 - 1 walk - 12 at bats left
LAD - .70 - 2 walks - 11 at bats left
CIN - .30 - 1 walk - 12 at bats left
COL - 1.20 - 4 walks - 9 at bats left

Now we have our best guess that Gwynn has 177 at bats left to add to his 419 up to this point in the schedule to equal 596 for the season. The next step is to translate the number of at bats Gwynn has left against each team into the number of hits, using his 1994 average against that team, and extrapolate his total average from these numbers.

Below is the average Gwynn totaled against each team remaining on his schedule in 1994 before the strike. Listed after that is the number of at bats and therefore hits he should have accumulated against each team in that series rounded to the nearest hundredth.

SFG - .429 avg - 24 at bats - 10.30 hits
STL - .391 avg - 23 at bats - 8.99 hits
ATL - .273 avg - 24 at bats - 6.55 hits
FLA - .231 avg - 26 at bats - 6.00 hits
PIT - .364 avg - 23 at bats - 8.37
CHI - .324 avg - 13 at bats - 4.21 hits
HOU - .417 avg - 12 at bats - 5.00 hits
LAD - .514 AVG - 11 at bats - 5.65 hits
CIN - .333 avg - 12 at bats - 4.00 hits
COL - .378 avg - 9 at bats - 3.40 hits

The total comes to 62.47 hits over his final 177 at bats or a .353 average. Even if we bump him up to 63, it is only a .356 average.

Therefore, adding 63 hits to his total of 165 and adding 177 at bats to his total of 419, we get 228 hits in 596 at bats, or an average in 1994 of .383. So, while it’s not .400 or even .394, Gwynn would still have had the highest batting average in the National League since Arky Vaughan all the way back with the 1935 Pirates when he hit .385.

A couple of things worked against Gwynn if you are using 1994 performance as a measurement for the rest of the unplayed season. First, he didn’t have any games left against the Phillies, whom Gwynn batted .571 against for the season. Second, he had too many games left against the Marlins, who held Gwynn to his lowest batting average against any team at .231; plus he did not draw a single walk against them all season. Third, Gwynn only hit over .400 in one month the whole 1994 season, and that was August where he only played in 10 games. For six weeks, he would have had to keep up a pace he had only been able to accomplish for 11 days throughout the season.

I, for one, would have loved to see the rest of that season played out so we could definitively know what would have happened. But since those 45 games are lost forever, we are left to hope for what might have been - and the greatness we might have missed.

___________

** And as a disclaimer, yes, I have read “What Does Mike Redmond Know about Tom Glavine” from Baseball Between the Numbers by the Baseball Prospectus team. So I know that just because Gwynn performs a certain way against pitcher in the past, it has no relevance on how he will perform in the future. But there really is no other way to effectively guess, so we will leave it this way for now.

A book I received for Christmas and that I often consult and reference is The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers. If you can imagine such a volume, it lists every pitcher on record who has thrown a ball in a Major League game. Beyond that, it lists their relevant statistics, their tendencies, what pitches they threw, and in what part of their career they threw those pitches. It also includes a history of every type of pitch ever recorded from fastballs to eephus to foshballs.

In addition to the stats and lists and commentaries, my favorite part of the book are the articles at the end written by Bill James, Rob Neyer and others on a variety of different projects and experiments they undertook for the book or for their own interests. One of the more interesting and provoking pieces is one about Bill James’ Cy Young Predictor that he developed and tweaked for the book and explains in a chapter entitled E = M Cy Squared. James claims that after years of working on it, he has developed one of the most accurate formulas for predicting Cy Young winners. The formula, explained in more detail in the book and in a link I will provide later, is simply:

Wins times 6
minus Losses times 2
plus Strikeouts divided by 12
plus Saves times 2.5
plus Shutouts
plus Runs Saved
plus 12 points for pitching for a first-place team

What James claims, and there is data to back it up, is that his formula has predicted the Cy Young winner accurately almost 81% of the time. In the book you will see formula results compared to Cy Young voting for each league dating back to 1990. For example:

1990 American League
Formula:
1. Bob Welch
2. Roger Clemens
3. Dave Stewart

Voting:
1. Bob Welch
2. Dave Stewart
3. Roger Clemens

The only complaint I can come up with about the formula is that it can tend to overvalue closers somewhat. The formula predicted Cy Youngs for Eric Gagne and Billy Wagner in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Roger Clemens and Brandon Webb were the eventual winners in those years. But overall you can’t complain about 81%

So what about this year. Fortunately, EPSN runs the formula continuously on its website, and can be found at this link. For the 2007 season, the formula presently predicts the top three this way:

NL
Jake Peavy
Brad Penny
Brandon Webb

AL
John Lackey
Dan Haren
JJ Putz

After looking at the numbers, I have to say I really don’t have a problem with Lackey and Peavy winning the award this year, if that is what ends up happening. Lackey is tied for the MLB lead in wins with 15, with an ERA of just 3.07 and an ERA+ of 140, easily the highest of his career. Plus, whether you feel it is deserved or not, the Angels are in first place, which will count in voter’s minds, and why James gives this factor an additional 12 points on the scale. Peavy is 13-5 and leads the NL in strikeouts with 164. His ERA+ of 184 is off the charts as well and is also the highest of his career.

One funny thing about the NL race is that I wonder where Chris Young would be if his team had won him more decisions and if he had not spent two weeks on the DL. Young’s ERA, WHIP, ERA+, HR/9, and LOB% are all better than Peavy’s. Young has four starts this season where he has allowed one or zero runs but has recorded either a loss or no decision. Turn those games into wins (and a 13-4 record) and you are probably looking at Young in the top three of NL in the formula.

One more thing before I finish here. What the heck is going on in the West division to have all of these great pitchers?! All six pitchers listed above are in the West in their leagues, and there are also two more from each Western division in each league’s top ten. So five out of the ten in the NL and AL are from the West. Not listed above are Francisco Rodriguez, Kelvim Escobar, Jose Valverde, and Takashi Saito.

That just struck me as odd, is all. Who gets your vote for Cy Young in each league this year? Do you dare disagree with the mighty Bill James?!

Here on this 31st day of July, in the year 2007, there are two long months left in the season. For some teams (like my favorite), the end can’t come soon enough; for others, today was a day spent bolstering the roster and upgrading to get ready for the playoff push. At this date and time, the only thing we know is exactly how each team has performed through the first four months and with their “old” rosters.

So I thought it might be a good time to look deeper into the records of each MLB team a little bit before they begin play with their new rosters intact and see if we can peer into the future. We can look not only at what teams current records are, but what their expected records should be at this point, as well as the playoff odds for each team, using a couple of handy tools.

Baseball Prospectus uses some well-known ideas and formulas to calculate adjusted records based around a team’s runs scored and runs allowed. The theory that runs scored versus runs allowed works in determining adjusted records was an idea thought up by Bill James to determine what a team’s true winning percentage would be based upon those two totals. His original formula was simply W% = RS^2/(RS^2 + RA^2), or the Pythagorean expectation. Eventually, he changed the exponent to 1.83 and found that the winning percentage more accurately reflected how a team actually performed.

In the following years, Clay Davenport more accurately modified the formula (in what he called Pythagenport), to reflect the run environment per game for every one of a team’s games. Instead of a fixed exponent of 2 or 1.83, he declared the best way to calculate winning percentage is to determine an exponent using data each team’s games with the formula for the exponent being X=.45 + 1.5 * log10 ((RS+RA)/g). So, in calculating W% for each team now looks like this: W%=(RS^x)/(RS^x + RA^x). While others have modified Pythagenport (read here and here for more explanation), Baseball Prospectus uses this theory to determine its adjusted standings for a given year.

And through these adjusted standings, BP has a program that runs every game for the rest of the season one million times, and plots the outcomes and assigns each team odds (or a percentage chance) that they will reach the postseason in that year. For example, the Astros adjusted record is 46-59 (they are where they should be), and they have a 0.09% chance of making the playoffs after running the simulation one million times for 2007 (wild card included).

So, before the last third of the season starts, here are the records, adjusted standings, run differentials, and postseason odds for each MLB team, according to Baseball Prospectus.

All of these stats are as of 3:00 PM on July 31, and the postseason odds includes winning the division or being the wild-card leader.

You start to notice some interesting things heres, particularly relating to teams with run differentials that don’t accurately reflect their current records.

Seattle - despite scoring only nine more runs than their opponents, the Mariners are 12 games over .500, and definitely in the wild card hunt. Pythaganport catches up to them in this exercise and shows that they truthfully only have a 33% chance of making the playoffs.

Arizona - the Diamondbacks own a half game lead in their division, and they are nine games over .500, but they are being outscored by 30 runs this season! This is the reason why they lose eight games in their adjusted standings and have only a 19% chance to make the playoffs.

NY Yankees - by outscoring their opponents by about 120 runs, the Yankees should have a record that is closer to the Red Sox than the Blue Jays. Part of this though, could be attributed to the fact that when the Yankees win, it can often be a blowout, skewing the run differential. Still, they only have a 29% chance of the postseason.

Kansas City -  despite playing in the toughest division in baseball, the Royals actually should be better than they actually are. With a 50-55 adjusted record, I imagine the only reason their postseason odds are so low is because they play in the same division as the Tigers, Indians, and Twins.

And according to the playoff odds report, your four AL representatives would be Boston, Detroit, LA, and Cleveland. The NL checks in with New York, Milwaukee, LA, and Chicago by a hair.

Of course, the reason I do this now is to be able to compare it to Sept. 30 when we can look back and see what kind of impact Teixeira and Dotel have on the Braves, or Castillo has on the Mets, or Gagne has on the Red Sox. We don’t know how the balance of power will shift over the next 60 days (especially in the NL East), but looking at a team’s performance in run differential, all things being equal, should give us a best guess as to how things will shake out with their records over the next two months.

We could also label this post “Who can eventually break Barry Bonds’ career HR record?” or “Up with hope, down with dope,” or something like that, based on what I am going to try to examine. Sometime in June, unless pitchers just start walking him, Barry Lamar Bonds will break Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record of 755. A lot has already been made all over the place about how the record isn’t legit, how Aaron won’t be there, Bonds should have an asterisk, and all sorts of other stuff I honestly don’t care about for this post. I care about numbers.

Bonds will break a record that has stood for more than 33 years, which was a record that stood for 54 years ever since Babe Ruth hit his 139th homerun in 1921 to pass Roger Conner for the most all-time. So the question becomes: inevitably, someone will break Bonds’ record, but are they playing now? Will we see it in this generation? In our lifetime?

Since we don’t know what 12-year-old on his Little League team will become the next great power hitter one day, we will just have to look at what we’ve got. And we’ve got a lot to look at.

So let’s set some parameters. For this study, we will look at every active major-leaguer who has at least 250 career homeruns. This should give us a good sample to work from and we won’t have to make guesses based on a rookie’s strong first season or anything like that.

As of May 17, there were 30 active players (excluding Bonds) with at least 250 career dingers:

Also, as a set of measurables, when we weed out the candidates who will obviously not be challenging the record, we can compare these active players to the three homerun kings and how many they had hit at certain ages; specifically age 25, 30, 35, and 40 (if applicable). Here are Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds at those ages:

Once we get down to a select few, we will look at individual homerun rates, attrition projections, etc.

Why don’t we start eliminating people now. First off, those that I am sure are too old and won’t play long enough to challenge the record (with their ages):

Thomas (39), Sheffield (38), Piazza (38), Edmonds (37), Kent (39), Gonzalez (39), Alou (40), Sanders (39), Finley (42), Biggio (41), Klesko (36), Giles (36).

Now we are left with 18 potential candidates.

Looking at the age chart above, and considering the decline a player typically experiences after age 35, let’s eliminate anyone who does not meet the qualification of matching Bonds’ number of 494 HR by age 35 (the lowest total of the three).

That eliminates Thome, Delgado, Jones, Giambi, and Ivan Rodriguez. While Man-Ram is currently 35, I am assuming he gets to at least 494 this year, so I will leave him on the the list for now.

So we are now left with 13 possible players.

This next one is going to be a judgment call on my part. I am going to cut the players who have either of two factors I call “decline contributors.” Those two factors are chronic injury problems or severe statistical decline that has been sustained for at least three years from their peak years. And I will leave Sosa and Griffey alone for now to make it interesting.

That eliminates Green, Rolen, Glaus, and Helton (if you don’t believe me on Helton, look at the decline in power numbers the past three years).

So now we have a manageable list of nine to work with. Those remaining:

Sammy Sosa
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Alex Rodriguez
Manny Ramirez
Andruw Jones
Vladimir Guerrero
Richie Sexson
Albert Pujols
Paul Konerko

Let’s look at our two closest competitors to the record, Sosa and Griffey, individually to determine their respective chances of reaching even 755, much less whatever number Bonds finishes with this year.

Sammy Sosa - Sosa has a number of factors working against him even as he closes in on being the 5th player ever with 600 homeruns. First of all, his age. Sosa will turn 39 next month and he is still more than 150 homers from catching Aaron’s number. Since the last time Sosa hit at least 40 homers, in 2003, his yearly homerun rates per at bat have been 7.3%, 3.7%, and 6.5% so far this year for an average of 5.8%. If Sosa averages 5.8% for 500 at bats per year, he will average 29 homeruns per year. That means he would need another five and a third seasons to reach just 755.

Interesting fact: Even if Sosa averaged a ridiculous 11.1% like he did when he hit 64 in 2001, he would still need three years at 500 at-bats to pass 755.

Attribute it to age, declining abilities, no longer being able to use steroids, or whatever you want, but I just don’t see Slammin’ Sammy playing until 2012. PECOTA at BP sees him out of baseball by 2009. So he’s out of the discussion.

Ken Griffey, Jr. - This is who I really want to have the all-time record; I just love that swing. And if we were having this conversation before the year 2001, I would have told you he was a shoo-in. By the time Griffey was 30 years old in 2000, he already had 438 homeruns! He would have broken the record long before he reached 40. But, the injuries started to set in.

Since 2001 (7 seasons), Griffey only has 133 homeruns, leaving him way off the pace to break the record. When he is healthy, Griffey’s average homerun rate since 2001 has been a respectable 6.4%. At that average rate, and with his current 571 homeruns, Junior would need almost six seasons to reach just 755. I also don’t think Griffey is going to play until 2012 or average the 32 homeruns a year it would take to get there.

PECOTA has him out of baseball after 2010. And that’s too bad - he should have had it.

So we are now left with seven.

From the “Interesting facts about the 500-HR club” file, did you know every member of that club has at least three seasons in which they hit 40 homeruns OR they played at least 20 seasons? In order to match one of those two criteria, Richie Sexson and Paul Konerko would each have to have another 40 homerun season, or each play at least nine more seasons. Personally, I don’t think either are happening; maybe the 40-HR seasons, but don’t bet the farm on it. And again, that is just to reach the 500 mark. So why are we even continuing this discussion? They’re not going to make it.

Down to five: A-Rod, Manny, Jones, Vladdy, and Pujols.

Manny Ramirez. I love him and hate him at the same time. BP’s PECOTA projections predict he will hit 139 more homeruns the rest of this year and the next four years combined. That would give Man-Ram 615 career HR’s by the time he is almost 40. PECOTA is sometimes criticized as being too conservative, so let’s ramp it up a little bit by bumping up their projections by 50%, or another 70 homeruns. This puts Ramirez at 685 homeruns at 40, at least 23 behind the pace of Ruth, Aaron, or Bonds.

Since 1995, Manny has averaged 38 homeruns per year. If he hits 38 this year, and averages 38 a year, he would need 6.5 more years after 2007 to reach just 755, when he would be almost 42 years old.

I don’t put it past Manny to try and go for this, but realistically I put the chances at very slim that he reaches it. His bad knees and just general lack of caring sometimes also don’t work in his favor.

Four more to go. Definitely our four best candidates. My odds of them breaking the record will be after each analysis.

Guerrero is an interesting player. Think about how long he has been around….or how long it seems he has been around - he started in 1996!. For as long as he has played, and for how many homeruns he has hit, he is still not even halfway to 700! Since 2002, Guerrero’s homerun rate is a remarkably repetitive 6.3, 6.3, 6.3, 6.2, and 5.4 in 2006. We will hypothetically give him the benefit of the doubt and bump him up to 6.3 last year since he had absolutely no protection in that Angel’s lineup. If we do that, he now has 343 homeruns coming into this season. At 6.3% of at bats being homeruns, and at even 550 at bats per season, Guerrero would need 11.8 more seasons to get to 755. He would be almost 43.

After two years of over 40 homeruns, Guerrero has settled into a 33-39 homers per year guy, concentrating more on average, on base percentage, and contact than on hitting 50 bombs a year. This approach, while giving him MVP-like numbers every year (including a career .325 average), probably killed his chances at the record. Another pure guess of mine is that after age 35 or so, those golf club and eye-level swings he uses to hit pitches out won’t be quite as effective anymore. When Guerrero loses his bat speed, expect a quick decline.

ODDS: 25 t0 1

Andruw Jones is, in a lot of ways, the same player as Vladimir Guerrero. They came up the same year, they have the same number of homers and roughly the same number of RBI. Vladimir has a serious cushion in the Avg. and OBP department, while Jones kills Guerrero on defense and with the Gold Gloves.

Jones is one year younger, coming up at age 19, so he does have that going for him. He has never shown any signs of slowing down and has never been hurt for an extended period of time. Here are the dates Jones would reach 755 if you used some of his current numbers and cumulative averages:

Average homeruns per year = 34
Date and age to reach 755 averaging 34 a year = 2019 and 42 years old

Average at bats that are hit as homeruns = 5.8%
Date and age to reach 755 assuming 550 at bats per year = 2020 and 43 years old

Andruw is already in the top 100 all-time for number of strikeouts, and he will probably be in the top 60 or so (right there with Jim Rice and others) by the end of this season. While Jones’ average K% for his career is 21.7%, the highest single percentage Ruth, Aaron, or Bonds ever had in one full season was 19.7% (1922 by Ruth). Too many strikeouts equals not enough contact to get the needed homeruns.

Still, he has youth and no injury history on his side, so he is not eliminated.

ODDS: 20 to 1

By the young age of 25, Fat Albert Pujols already had hit 201 homeruns, seventh most by anyone in history at that age, only losing out to the likes of Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson amongst others. 201 homeruns leaves the numbers of Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds in the dust. No one is within 22 of Pujols at that point when considering those three. By the age of 26, he had moved up to fourth on that same list with 250 HR. At the end of this year, we will just have to see where he ends up.

Just for the sake of knowing, at Albert’s current pace of 42 homers a year, he would break 755 in just 12 seasons or at age 39. Amazing.

But, when looking into Pujols’ future, there are two factors that must be considered before you just declare that he will eventually be the all-time homerun king:

The first of those is age and injury. In that list of top HR hitters at 25, why did guys like Jimmie Foxx, Eddie Matthews, Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson (all ahead of Pujols) fall off? Because they were unable to sustain a high level of power and health in their last years. I don’t know if Pujols’ nagging injuries will ever lead to anything more serious, but it is at least something to consider.

The second reason just has to do with his circumstances. It is my opinion that when Pujols is chasing an all-time homerun record, it will not be Aaron’s 755 or Bonds’ 770-780 or whatever he ends up with, but a bigger number. Rather, barring something unexpected happen, it will be a number of someone who has already broken both of those…..

ODDS: 13 to 1

….and that would be the record of Alex Rodriguez. You see, at Alex’s current pace of 42 homers per full season played, if he plays until he is 40, he will have collected around 884 homeruns.

Even if you say that once he reaches 35, he will drop that down to only 25 homeruns a season instead of 42, A-Rod still approaches 800 homeruns by age 40. Both Aaron and Bonds would barely be visible in his rear view mirror at that point.

Rodriguez has all the factors working for him I can think of: he started early at age 18, the power came at 20 and never left, he plays in a hitter’s park, he has great lineup protection, he has no injury history, over 40% of his total hits are fly balls, and his HR/FB ratio is 24% for his career (he has been in the top 20 in MLB every year in that category for at least the past six seasons).

ODDS: 9 to 5

So when we start talking about how a Guerrero or a Jones or a Pujols will be chasing a record, barring something tragic happen, they will be chasing A-Rod’s. And it will more likely be a number over 800 that they are reaching for.

___________________

Some younger players to watch with less than 250 homeruns?

Adam Dunn - 209 HR at age 27
Mark Teixeira - 146 HR at age 27
Miguel Cabrera - 112 HR at age 24
David Wright - 71 HR at age 24
Prince Fielder - 40 HR at age 23

So here they are. The three second basemen of my generation. Don’t come to me with your Bret Boones and your Carlos Baergas and your Robby Thompsons. These were the three guys. And before Chase Utley, Rickie Weeks and Howie Kendrick take over as the next generation, I thought it beneficial to see if each will be booking flights to Cooperstown five years after their respective retirements (Alomar is already three years into his).

So you’ve got two former Astros (Biggio and Kent), and an Astros killer (Alomar with a .304/.360/.473 line against Houston in 312 career PAs). Surely this has been done elsewhere, but I wanted a comprehensive comparison to each other (since none other in their time was their peer) and to those already in the Hall, whether known for their bat (Hornsby), for their glove (Mazeroski), or for their overall play (Sandberg).

First of all, a simple statistical comparison of the three. And, remember, Alomar retired in 2004:

Now, I have highlighted a few key stats I want to compare here when we look at these three and try to relate them to their second base peers already in the Hall of Fame.

HITS: Biggio will reach 3,000 hits this year and then most likely retire. Kent will end his career somewhere around 2,500 or so. Alomar finished with 2,724. Biggio has an outside chance of passing Rod Carew’s 3,053 hits which would place him third all-time amongst second basemen (assuming you don’t count Molitor as a second baseman). Alomar’s 2,724 put him seventh all-time when considering only second-sackers, and Kent’s 2,500 or so puts him about 10th, right around where Joe Morgan ranks. So all three will be in or on the edge of the top ten second basemen in hits throughout history.

EqA: We have discussed using Equivalent Average here before and using it as a tool to measure a player’s overall offensive worth, and how it is normalized across time, league, and ballpark so it is easier to compare players across decades. Remember, an EqA of .260 is considered exactly average. Here is a sampling of second basemen’s EqA who are in the Hall:
Rogers Hornsby .338
Eddie Collins .311
Joe Morgan .311
Nap Lajoie .310
Rod Carew .302
Ryne Sandberg .283
Bill Mazeroski .249

Not only do these three second basemen compare here most favorably to Ryne Sandberg and Rod Carew, but their stats are similar in many other categories as well (for example look at Biggio’s Similar Batters listing on Baseball Reference). The EqA scores of all three of these are too similar to determine a difference between the three.

FRAA or Fielding Runs Above Average: None of the three test subjects just jump out at you as great defenders when you look at FRAA (we’ll get into Alomar’s Gold Gloves later). In fact, Biggio jumps out as you as someone who, over his career, has accumulated -121 FRAA. Yikes! Let’s look at the numbers for the same sample group of Hall of Famers:
Mazeroski 271
Lajoie 184
Collins 101
Sandberg 92
Carew -10
Morgan -18
Hornsby -54

So they all fall under Sandberg in this category and severely trail Mazeroski, Lajoie and others. Let’s suffice it to say that these three will be getting in on their offensive merits, not their defense.

Grey Ink and Black Ink: These are both measured and popularized by Baseball Reference to compare Hall of Famers to those not yet in based solely on the numbers. Full descriptions of the two can be found here, but essentially, Grey Ink is how many times you were in the top ten in an offensive category, Black Ink (created by Bill James) is how many times a player led the league in certain categories. Here are the comparison for all three:

Grey Ink - Average HOF = 144
Biggio - 105
Kent - 71
Alomar - 95

Black Ink - Average HOF = 27
Biggio - 17
Kent - 0
Alomar - 3

This part raises an interesting question. All three of these guys, while putting up stellar numbers in their careers, are so far removed from where they need to be to compare to your average Hall of Famer, it seems as though they will never get there. Remember, this is by no means a be-all-end-all test, and while it does encompass all HOFers, it doesn’t go a good job comparing second basemen to each other.

But the question it raises brings up something I have been reading about lately. A while back, our good friend Bill James created fifteen questions that help establish whether or not a player should be included in the Hall of Fame. The answers to those questions help decide whether or not they would be worthy. One of the more important of those questions is

What impact did the player have on baseball history? Did he change the game in any way?

Ah, now here we go! Each of these three men have their claim to a certain amount of fame that no one else shares and that separates them from their peers and fellow legendary second basemen.

Biggio - Besides being one of three second basemen that will have 3,000 hits, he has set the record for most leadoff homeruns by a National Leaguer and has set the record for most times being hit by a pitch. Also, he is the only man to be named to an All Star team as a catcher and a second baseman.

Kent - Besides being the only one of these three to win an MVP, he holds the record for most homeruns by a second baseman in history. He also is the only second baseman to have 100 or more RBI in six consecutive seasons (1997-2002).

Alomar - Holds the record for Gold Gloves by a second baseman with 10. With 12 All Star game appearances, he trails only Rod Carew in that category for 2B (18), and, if we’re getting picky, Carew played nine of his when he was primarily a first baseman.

In my humble opinion, once all of their playing days are over, all three of these will gain entrance into the Hall of Fame. They were all too dominant for too long a time in too many categories to be denied. Alomar for his defense, Kent for his bat, and Biggio for his table-setting skills and cumulative numbers.

I don’t know what Weeks, Utley, Kendrick, or any other post-2004 second baseman is going to do for the next fifteen years, but we have all been so fortunate in the past fifteen years to witness the simultaneous careers of three incredible players. With only 18 current second basemen in the Hall, we have had the chance to see a collection of players at the same time that has not existed since Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie, and Rogers Hornsby at the position almost 100 years ago.

If you haven’t had a chance to, catch them while you still can.

When it gets to be the end of September or beginning of October, you start to see a lot of papers and media outlets grade players and teams from the previous year based on how they performed the past six months. What I am going to do in this exercise is VERY briefly give a predicted grade to all players on the Astros’ 25-man roster and write sentence about each as to why I think they will perform at the level of that grade for the season. And away we go…

Roy Oswalt A+

I think that this is his year. All of his peripheral numbers such as BB ratio, Isolated power, WHIP and GB/FB ratio have so good for three years…plus, he was first in the NL in VORP with 72.4 last year. We just need to give him the run support. I think he gets no lower than #2 in the Cy Young voting this year.

Lance Berkman A

He was so unbelievably good last year, it is almost impossible to repeat what he did in such a sorry lineup - according to BP, he accounted for 8.5 of the Astros’ wins by himself last year. He had Hall of Fame numbers and will look to repeat them, but fall just short in ‘07.

Carlos Lee A-

Once he learns how to play defense against that crazy 20-foot wall in left field, he should come close to being worth what we paid for him. He won’t steal 19 bases again, but should have plenty of RBI opportunities. His average will probably dip a little bit, too - but walks will be up.

Morgan Ensberg A-

This grade is predicated upon Garner’s brilliant experiment of putting Ensberg in the two hole. His .396 OBP last year was 11th in the NL, and that was with a .235 average! He should just stand there and draw walk after walk and score run after run; and I think he will. Defense should be solid again, too.

Dan Wheeler A-

Will undoubtedly be asked to close some games this year as well as pitch at least 75 innings and hold all 8th inning leads. He was up to the task last year as he ranked 4th in the NL with 24 Holds while also going 9 for 12 in save opps. and posting an ERA of 2.52.

Chad Qualls A-

Ranked right behind Wheeler with 23 Holds in ‘06 and will be pitching a lot more in the 8th inning this year as well as multiple innings on occasion. Last year, he appeared in exactly half of the Astros’ games; a trend that should continue. He also had a stellar average of Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) of only .266 (14th in the NL with pitchers that threw at least 75 innings). It that proves to not be a fluke, a great season should be ahead.

Mike Lamb B+

Lamb had the best hitting year of his professional career in 2006 with an .836 OPS in only 381 at bats. The defense at third is still in suspect as he has been tagged with giving up 10 runs for the Astros over the past three years in part-time duty. He should see less time at third this year and more at first and possibly the outfield where he is less of a liability. Not many teams can produce a back-up or pinch hitter who slugs .475 like Lamb did last year, especially not a left handed one (he hit .324 and slugged .497 against righties).

Chris Burke B

We know he is going to struggle in centerfield. My guess (and hope) is that he sees a lot more time at second base after the All-Star break when Pence is called up and Biggio is resting. His value will be increased then as he continues to improve at the plate. These numbers only really matter for fantasy, but I can see a 15/15 year from Burke with a strong slugging pct. from all the doubles he will hit. Starting off hitting sixth will take some of the pressure off of him of a full-time job.

Mark Loretta B

Here are the OBPs for Loretta over the past five years: .345, .360, .391, .372, .381. I don’t know if there are many other bench players I would rather have than Mark Loretta. Combine that with the fact that he can play second, short and third and you have a solid addition to this team (sorry, Eric Bruntlett). Oh, and when he spent a third of the season with the Astros a few years ago, his OBP was .481! And another thing, last year he was in the top ten in the AL in at-bats per strikeout. Dude gets on base.

Chris Sampson B

I was watching the game last June 7 when Sampson got the spot start against the Cubs. All he did in that one was pitch 7 innings giving up three hits and no runs while showing some wicked drop on the sinker to get groundball after groundball out. I really like this guy, and with a full season to work on his pitches against major leaguers, I feel like he can do some things.

Jason Jennings B-

Jennings is supposed to replace Andy Pettitte this year. Let’s compare the two from 2006 (Pettitte pitched two and a third more innings):
VORP: Jennings, 50.8 - Pettitte, 30.3
ERA: Jennings, 3.78 - Pettitte, 4.20
HR/9: Jennings, 0.72 - Pettitte, 1.13
And that was from Jennings pitching at Coors field. I am thinking he will do just fine in replacing the Deer Park native. Let’s just hope we don’t only have him for one year.

Jason Lane B-

The reason I give him a grade this high after barely batting .200 in 2006 is that he will primarily serve as a backup unless something happens to Luke Scott. Lane will be in against a lot of left handers where he has an OBP of .335 and SLG of .486 for his career. The averages say he can’t be as bad as 2006 again, but if he is, get Pence up here in a hurry.

Trevor Miller B-

As the left-handed specialit, Miller posted the lowest ERA of his career last season at 3.02 as well as his lowest WHIP at 1.09. Left handers only hit .224 against him with an OBP of only .280. People think he is old, but he is only 33. I see a little bit of regression back to mean from those amazing numbers, but a solid year is still on the way (with no Mike Gallo to worry about this year).

Rick White B-

OK, now here is a pitcher who is old. He will be 39 this year (a kid compared to Williams and Roger Clemens) and in his 14th season. So why such a high grade? Remember, these grades are based on prospective value for what they will be asked to do this season. White is asked to be the Russ Springer of seasons past and his spring ERA of 0.69 and ability to go more than one inning in multiple ST, when your endurance is not what it is in August, games is encouraging to me.

We are getting into the dregs, so less figures and explanations from here on out.

Brad Lidge C+

If you break down the numbers, there were only 5 games that ruined his season in 2006. In the five games where he took the loss, Lidge’s ERA was 20.25 in 4 innings with a WHIP over 3. In the 32 games he saved, his ERA was 1.42 with 47 Ks in 31.2 innings. Still, it’s something in his head, and that can be hard to fix. He is on a short leash this year.

Orlando Palmeiro C+

You have to have him on the team I guess. Good backup, defensive OF and a left-handed contact hitter who never strikes out (he has struck out 221 times in 11 seasons).

Luke Scott C+

He deserves an A+++++ for his second half last year. Forget about him repeating that and look for a more modest .280/24/81 line this year. Only reason it’s a C+ is because of all the expectations people have for him.

Adam Everett C

An F for offense and an A+ for defense. That averages out to a C in my book. Best defensive shortstop in the game.

Humberto Quintero C

Hopefully Ausmus is not playing in 140 games like last year. Quintero will be better than Ausmus in his sleep, so he is serviceable as a backup. Not great on defense, not great on offense, but he did post a .296/.342/.421 line in 322 PAs at Round Rock last year.

Craig Biggio C-

Sentimentality aside, he really is done, and has been for two years. His OBP as a leadoff hitter or #2 guy in ‘06 was .306….horrible. And according to BP’s defense rating, Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), he was a -13 last year. Basically an average second baseman would rate as a zero. Biggio was minus 13. Best of luck in your last year and at the Hall of Fame; you were a great player.

Dave Borkowski C-

The most boring player and least discussed on the Astros. Last pitcher off the bench in my opinion.

Woody Williams C-

I know he has been an Astros killer in the past (if you can’t beat him, buy him), but is it such a good idea to put a 40-year-old flyball pitcher (2006 GB% of only 37%, and no, the other 63% was not from strikeouts) in Minute Maid Park? We’ll see I guess.

Brian Moehler D

On second thought, maybe Moehler should be the last guy off the bench. Hopefully he can give us a spot start or two if Jose Lima or Carlos Hernandez are not available.

Wandy Rodriguez D-

I heard at least two interviews during spring training where the Astros’ brass said Wandy was penciled into the fourth spot because he has won 19 games over the past two years. Well, guess what? He has lost 20! And his ERA has been 5.60! You know I love VORP, and Wandy had a -4.6 VORP in 2006. Meaning he is 4.6 runs worse than just your run-of-the-mill starter you could pick up off waivers or call up from Triple A. Don’t get me started.

Brad Ausmus F

What more can be said. He had a -17.5 VORP last year, second worst amongst full time players. Every year the BP team nominate players for their Christian Guzman Award for who they think will have the lowest VORP for the upcoming season. Four out of 13 chose Ausmus. Last year he threw out 22% of base-stealers, yet still won a Gold Glove. My wife thinks he is hot, if that counts for anything.
So there you go. Long enough? What do you agree or disagree with? Anything you think I have totally off?

This time of year, everyone has their own idea about how the upcoming baseball season is going to shape up (including myself). But what also happens this time of year, is we tend to put a little more stock into what the national or local experts have to say about how our favorite team or player will finish. We trust their opinions. They get paid to do this, they must be right, right? They know a heck of a lot more than Joe Beerlover out there hashing out predictions with his buddies, right?

Well, today everyone has access to the same information and it is all free and available to you in about five mouse clicks. There are no secrets anymore - if you don’t realize that people think Felix Hernandez is going to break out this year, then you just aren’t trying anymore. Simultaneous scoresheets and internet box scores and message boards give us all the information the experts have.

So with that being said, let’s look at how some of the experts are predicting the Astros to do this year and we will look at the end of the year and see who was closest. You can click on the link for each one to take you to the respective page about the Astros’ upcoming season.

ESPN - They must have about one trillion people that cover baseball year round. On this page, you can see the predictions of 10 of their best baseball writers. They range from predicting a first place finish (88-74, and Eric Karabell is my new favorite baseball analyst by the way) to 5th in the central (78-84), and everywhere in between. There are other neat little tidbits of information on this page, too.

SI.com - Peter King writes this interesting piece about the Astros and Brad Lidge (wait, I thought he was their main football guy?). They project the ‘Stros will finish fourth in the division and will be the 19th best team overall in baseball in 2007.

Fox Sports - Dayn Perry lays out his 2007 power rankings here and has the Astros ranked 20th overall. He says they will finish fourth behind St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee. I wish Ken Rosenthal had offered his thoughts and opinions as he seems to always be in tune with the goings-on in baseball. But he probably would have picked them fourth as well.

Baseball America - Not much analysis or reasoning here, but BA predicts the Astros will also finish fourth in the division this year. Jim Callis wrote this and made the predictions, and he is a guy whose stuff I really like and read frequently, but I certainly hope he is wrong this time. At least he has us beating out the Cubbies.

Baseball Prospectus - As you know by now, BP uses formulas and algorithms to predict most things they do. For records, they use the Win Expectancy formula which means they have to predict the runs scored by the Astros and runs scored against the Astros. They do this by projecting everything out for each player, which I have gone into before and won’t do so again here. Anyway, they predict an 80-82 season for Houston and have them finishing fourth in the division (with the Brewers winning).

The Hardball Times (new on March 30) - THT also has a good stable of writers and researchers and they have a good site for quick reference to statistics like Runs Created and Win Shares and things like that. This page shows the predictions of 15 writers for each division and playoff round for 2007. Of the 15, two have the Astros finishing second, one has them finishing third, nine have them ending up fourth, two have the Astros in fifth, and one has them in sixth. That is the first time I have seen a prediction for the Astros to finish last.

So overall, the majority of baseball people out there have Houston finishing fourth. It has been a long time since we finished that low, my friends. As a matter of fact, they have had only one losing season in 15 years….and we all forgot 2000 anyway.

The consensus is that three main things have to happen in order for the Astros to be competitive and have a chance at the division. Here they are in my order of importance:

3. Brad Lidge has to time warp back to pre-Pujols 2005. He has been saying all the right things for a year and a half now, it’s time to start backing it up with results. He should have a short leash over the next two months.

2. The Astros have to improve their run-scoring ability. Carlos Lee should help with that considerably, so that’s good news. And once Mr. 3000 gets 70 hits, Garner will hopefully wise up and put Burke at 2nd and Pence in CF. That should emphatically improve our runs scored in the second half.

1. Roger Clemens has to put the spikes back on for Houston. And sooner rather than later.

So how do you think the Astros will finish this year? And if you have a favorite team you would like to see similar projections for, let me know. I will get to it as soon as I can.

If you have never been to www.tangotiger.net, I suggest you check it out. It is run by a guy named Tom Tango who has a great knowledge of baseball research, statistical analysis and mathematics. He combines all of these into interesting articles and blogs, and he has even created a few measures such as “Clutch” to judge player’s abilities to hit in tough situations, among others.

There are plenty of sites out there the predict team’s records for the upcoming season such as your basic ESPNs or SIs and then your Baseball Prospectus and your Baseball America and your Hardball Times. Some use algorithms and formulas, others just use gut instinct. He has compiled a number of these and wants to see who is smarter: the “experts” who work for these sites and the formulas that predict these things, or your average John Q. Astros Fan, or Jane Red Sox Fan.

You can go to this part of his site and put in your predictions for your favorite players and/or teams. Once the season starts, he will then run the numbers and we will see over the next six months who is smarter.

Just a fun guessing game if you have some free time.