Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the American League West, a division that has produced just a single World Series champion since the inception of the 3-division format. That run may come to an end soon, as the Angels now appear to be an elite AL [...]

As a person who spends considerable time outside the box, I was intrigued when I came across yesterday’s ESPN headline for “Five radical game-changing proposals.” I am a big fan of articles that integrate the opinions of various writers, and this particular piece offered the thoughts of some of ESPN’s top contributors. So imagine my surprise [...]

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the National League West, a division comprised of top-heavy teams that has seen a different club capture the flag in each of the past three seasons.
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Diamondbacks
In 2011, Upton actually met Doug Thorburn’s expectations, and kicked the crap out of [...]

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the American League Central, a division that has seen all but one ballclub finish in the top two spots over the last two years, with the Kansas City stragglers on the prospect-laden fast track to contention.

Indians

Friends of the feathered [...]

The review of BP2k11 continues with the NL East, a division that is undergoing a dramatic shift in the fortunes of several franchises. The Marlins have started throwing money around like it’s 1997, the Mets are in rapid decline, the Braves have a young core and plenty of pitching to spare as they challenge the aging [...]

The sand trap of luck has sucked in a legion of baseball enthusiasts. Lured by deviant BABIP’s, even astute analysts continue to walk into the trap, and proceed to sink as they grasp for statistical explanations to pull themselves out of the muck. Luck has become the default scapegoat for anything that cannot be conveniently [...]

 
The projection game is dicey, with a multitude of systems competing for the accuracy crown, and the inevitability of outlier performances that are bound to make certain predictions look foolish in retrospect. The crew at Baseball Prospectus has undertaken this arduous task for over a decade, developing metrics and building a substantial database, culminating in [...]

The alarm clock has rung, marking the dawn of the season of roster turnover, and some teams are wasting little daylight before addressing their off-season needs. The new faces extend to front offices all over the country, as no fewer than eight ballclubs are experiencing an overhaul with respect to upper-management. Those teams with key [...]

 
Game Seven of the World Series is an experience like no other. Every other elimination game involves one team having the chance to take a champagne shower, with the other just hoping to play another day, but Game Seven means do-or-die for every player on the field. It is guaranteed to be the penultimate day [...]

“Sequencing” is another one of those terms in the pitching lexicon that has multiple definitions. In Raising Aces, I have often used the mechanical definition of sequencing to describe the order in which a pitcher executes the various links of the kinetic chain. This element is intertwined with mechanical timing, in the sense that a [...]