Hot Stove: Blessed In the West

Dave Paisley

Wrapping up my personal predictions for the forthcoming season, I’m heading over to the West Coast, where the good teams are many and the bad teams are few.

First, a quick recap of my cunning prediction methods. I took all thirty major league baseball teams and figured out a rough starting lineup and pitching rotation for each. Then I calculated an average OPS for the starting lineup, and an ERA for the rotation, based mostly on last year’s performances. I figured that, on balance, the ups and downs of nine players would even out.

From those OPS and ERA values, I determined team runs scored and allowed based on last year’s team numbers. Then I adjusted them so that the runs scored equaled the runs allowed. (Generally speaking, the starting lineups would score more runs if they had all the ABs, and the top five starters would give up fewer runs if they pitched all the innings.)

Given all that, I then calculated a winning percentage using the time-honored Pythagorean method. I also figured out how much above or below average the offense and defense were, with a combined total. You can see the results in the tables below.

Let me start first with the home of the reigning World Series champions, the National League West. Here’s how the numbers worked out:

Team	OPS	ERA	RS	RA	W%	W	Off	Pit/Def	Total
SF	.842	4.52	940	789	.579	94	17%	1%	19%
AZ	.782	4.08	820	718	.560	91	2%	10%	13%
COL	.877	5.52	1011	953	.527	85	26%	-19%	7%
SD	.793	4.67	843	815	.516	84	5%	-2%	4%
LA	.740	4.15	737	728	.505	82	-8%	9%	1%

Working up from the bottom, it may surprise some of you to see Los Angeles propping up the division. Note, though, that they’re doing it with a better-than-.500 record. Pitching looks good (provided Kevin Brown et al return and are healthy all year), but the hitting is off quite a bit.

The loss of Gary Sheffield leaves the offensive burden in the hands of Shawn Green, Paul Lo Duca, and… Brian Jordan and Eric Karros. If I were a Dodger fan I’d be very worried right now. It will be interesting to see how things play out in Chavez this year when they realize that the team isn’t really that competitive.

Moving up, we have the Padres, a couple of games ahead of the Dodgers. They’ll have an inexperienced pitching staff, with Bobby Jones the only real veteran, but they should work out to be adequate. Offensively, they won’t miss Tony Gwynn, mostly due to Gwynn’s hefty production drops the last few years, and the fact that he’s barely played anyway.

It will be up to Phil Nevin and Ryan Klesko to keep up the offensive end, with support from Ray Lankford and Mark Kotsay. I can’t see that inspiring much fear and awe in the rest of the league, but the Padres should hang in there.

A mere one game ahead of the Padres (and from this range that’s pretty much a dead heat) are the Colorado Rockies. Hampton, Neagle and Elarton provide the basis of a decent rotation (Coors factor accounted for). Hopefully, Hampton has figured out what caused the rapid deterioration in the back end of last season and fixes it. If the rest just hold their ground, the team will manage well enough.

Offensively, Larry Walker, Todd Helton, Todd Hollandsworth and Todd Zeile (what’s with cornering the market on Todds anyway, and why did they let Todd Walker go?) will all be able to do serious damage to opposing pitching, and the net result should be a few more wins than losses.

Next we have our returning World Series champs. They really look stocked on the pitching front, with Rick "just glad to be out of Texas" Helling, Brian Anderson, Miguel Batista and Armando Reynoso providing more than adequate backup. I haven’t mentioned bullpens much here because I don’t think they really have that much influence, but getting Matt Mantei back to go with a maturing Byung Hyun Kim could give the Snakes an amazing pitching staff.

Unfortunately, the offense still features the black hole that is Tony Womack, and there are some other weak spots, but they should pull through with that pitching.

Finally, there’s the projected NL West champ—the San Francisco Giants. Great offense and merely average pitching should be enough to propel them into the playoffs, unless they have another unlucky year where they don’t.

Bonds and Aurilia can’t be expected to produce at the same level as last year, but Jeff Kent and Reggie Sanders should be able to pick up some of the slack. While David Bell is overrated, he should provide some stability at third. Overall, I expect them to finish a bit ahead of the Diamondbacks.

Over in the American league, the West situation looks like this:

Team	OPS	ERA	RS	RA	W%	W	Off	Pit/Def	Total
SEA	.806	4.18	869	734	.576	93	9%	8%	17%
OAK	.746	3.68	747	653	.561	91	-7%	18%	12%
TEX	.831	5.52	920	953	.484	78	15%	-19%	-4%
ANA	.728	4.46	711	780	.458	74	-11%	2%	-9%

For Angel fans, it’s probably disappointing to see them on the bottom like that after a couple of promising, scrappy seasons. The truth is, though, that the Angels have made few strides to real competitiveness. Sure, the pitching has been shored up, but Troy Glaus could easily be their only everyday player with an OPS over .800. That simply isn’t going to get the job done.

Next up there’s Texas, who managed to spend the entire offseason wheeling and dealing and came out, well, not much better off than they went in. The offense once again looks great with Palmeiro, Gonzalez and Rodriguez leading the way, but the pitching still looks shaky.

We’ll see how Chan Ho Park fares in the much less friendly confines of Arlington, while Ismael Valdes, Dave Burba and Kenny Rogers could all flame out due to age and/or injury. Or they could just plain suck, as has happened on occasions in the past. The cast of relievers has changed almost 100% too, without really looking much better.

This will be the 353^rd time a team has tried to go the "fabulous offense/mediocre pitching" route to success and I predict an equally unsuccessful ending this time around. If you count "almost a .500 team" as a lack of success. In Kansas City they don’t, so I just want to be clear on that.

Moving up, we bump into the Oakland A’s, Cinderella team of the last two years. Unlike Cinderella, though, they never made it to the ball. Or even the ball before the ball. The tough part for the A’s will be following up on an excellent year without Jason Giambi’s bat to help.

The pitching looks stellar, although one injury to the big three (Hudson, Mulder, Zito) and things could head south quickly. Still, the big problem is offense, and they really don’t have anyone to fill Giambi’s shoes. Carlos Pena may be a hot prospect, but he’s no Giambi, and the A’s will see a drop of about .300 OPS points at 1B. Similarly, David Justice is no lock to bounce back to form.

The A’s will likely feature nobody with an OPS over .900, although they do have balance, something our next team rode to 116 wins last season...

Finally we have the Mariners. The team is largely unchanged form last year, some spare parts notwithstanding. David Bell is gone, replaced by Jeff Cirillo. Stan Javier and Jay Buhner retired, but that’s about it. Will this team win another 116 games? Of course not. But—and this is a big but—they could.

Last year they managed to go without injuries to front-line players, although losing Carlos Guillen to tuberculosis hurt at the end of the season. Pitching remained remarkably healthy, though, and that’s unusual, unless you count uber-prospects Gil Meche and Ryan Anderson missing the season.

Will Ichiro develop more power? Will Bret Boone repeat as an MVP candidate? Can Edgar Martinez remain healthy and productive? Can Jeff Cirillo bounce back from a disappointing stint in Coors? A lot of questions, but overall, the Mariners will return an above average offense and pitching staff to reclaim the AL West.

about the author

What would the world be like without predictions? Well, it would lack this column for starters. Why not thank Dave Paisley for going out on a limb and giving you something to complain about at drdjp@strikethree.com ?