M’s to win 105 games
DMZ · February 5, 2008 at 8:01 am · Filed Under Mariners
They won 88 games, right? And they exceeded what you’d expect for the runs they scored and gave up, but that’s a product of having Weaver and HoRam getting blown out all the time and the bullpen. So replacing Weaver and HoRam, with Silva/Bedard, that’s ten wins, Sexson has to rebound so you get another four wins there, Lopez is a good young player and he should improve so that’s another two wins from last year. Then you take the ace pressure off Felix, that’s another win as he’s more comfortable.
105. No problem.
I say I come for the intelligent baseball analysis but I really come for the ponies.
Speaking of projections, does anyone remember what the general feeling was for the 2001 team that won 116 games? I know we weren’t favorites to win the division but what were the win projections among the sabermetric community?
marinerfaninvenice- You’re right. I need to go take some time to look at the ponies….
…nope, I still don’t feel any better.
My mockery has more to do with that this entire post was based upon sarcasm. I honestly thought he was being sarcastic because the way he responded to Derek’s original post, and I qoute
DMZ I agree with some of the improvement you speak of a definate increase in wins is not fantasy but possible reality.
However 105 which would be an increase of 17 wins is a bit farfetched and abit much to expect.
Now say 92 to 95 wins is a bit more of a realistic number.
I applaud Mr. Bearman and his boundless optimism for the coming season. Sadly, I am unable to share in his positive thinking because I’m sitting here looking at all the pieces and see well, something less than he sees. Much less.
You have no spelling errors, sir. ‘Galaxie’ is a Ford. In particular my 1970 Galaxie. ‘Boi’ is simply a play on swapping out ‘y’s.
you can swing wins 5+/- depending on if Rick white is on the roster. (5+ if hes not). 110
I’m also shocked to be informed that I’m a ‘hater’. Someone should’ve told me that years ago before I had spend untold hours cheering and crying for the team my entire life. They should’ve told me to make sure I hang onto other memories of my father besides the ones spent at the Kingdome trying to get Spike Owen’s autograph.
I’m sorry you misjudge frustration for something you have years of emotional investment in for being a ‘hater’.
509Mike – Unfortunately the same wizard who ran Rick White out there to get bludgeoned to death will be back make those same decisions. Apparently the only pre-req that McLaren has is that the pitcher is a gritty veteran of who can pass for the fourth member of ZZ Top.
Start with 88 wins in 2007, less 4 to get to upper end of pythag statistical variation. Add 7 for Bedard over the guy would would be in the rotation if Bedard’s not here (3.5 ERA vs 6.5 ERA for 200 innings – 10 runs = 1 win right?). We know Bavasi needs a good reason to not have Ramirez in the rotation and reasons don’t get any better than this.
Add 2 for Silva instead of Weaver (4.5 vs 5.5 EAR for 200 innings). Subtract 1 for Wilkerson in right vs. Guillen.
Ibanez, Beltre, Betancourt, Ichiro, Johjima = 2007. Vidro = 2007. Call those guys a wash in 2008. Subtract 1 since Sherrill > RRS/EOF. 91 wins, and with a couple of breaks we are watching meaningful September baseball.
Last sentence should have read:
“Ibanez, Beltre, Betancourt, Ichiro, Johjima = 2007. Vidro = 2007. Call those guys a wash in 2008.”
well 100 even after the R. White effect wouldnt be to bad as long as they don’t give him more appearance due to the loss of sherill
Dan W-
I’m guessing your estimate for Bedard over another pitcher is about double what it should be. More like 3-3.5 wins.
How come I’ve added “Vidro LESS THAN 2007” and “Sexson/Lopez GREATER THAN OR = 2007” twice now but it still doesn’t show up in my posted comment? Jeez.
MSB # 95, pure gold.
Little poll here, be honest, who else has download the My Little Pony theme?? No one??? Ya, me either… I swear. *Shift+Delete*
Mike – I’m basing my estimate on Bedard vs Ramirez, since that’s who I think ends up in the #5 slot if Bedard’s not here. Plus, my baseline is the 07 record which included Ramirez.
His estimate of Silva’s effectiveness seems drastically high as well.
I have to say, even being a WFB fan, I LOVE the pony!
Dan, because < and > are HTML markup characters.
Dan W – Not trying to just be pessimistic, but isn’t expecting an injury prone pitcher moving to a team with crummy defense to put up 200+ IP with a 3.5 ERA a little unrealistic. And I realize Bedard is awesome and would love to watch him pitch for the Ms. That being said I think you might be expecting a little much from the guy, and in large part due to the D which isn’t his fault.
Spokane – fair enough. Maybe the ponies are having their intended effect, but I DO expect Bedard to do put up those kind of numbers. You could back that off a touch and bump up Felix a touch and still get to this result.
The Mariner 4/5 starters last year had a combined 6.52 ERA, over 366 innings. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to project Bedard and Silva averaging a 4-4.5 ERA over those same innings, which would be an 80-100 run improvement over their 2007 counterparts.
Erik Bedard is awesome; I don’t think he is 7 win awesome.
Do those ponies bite?
I love that commercial. Is that wrong?
I cannot believe all the pessimism from all the Negative Nancies here … predicting that the Mariners will *only* win 105 games. Sheesh.
Combine proven veteran goodness, hometown grit, and a dash of cute (Willie and his Pony), and the M’s should go undefeated this season.
Every respected baseball person knows that Cute>Talent everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.
The Mariners win 105 games? No way, I highly doubt they win 105 games in 2008.
But, I can see 104 wins as a good possibility.
Dave’s already said Bedard is 5 wins over replacement. He’s easily 7 over HoRam.
Jeez, another post by another group of pessimistic nerds. It’s obvious what’s going to happen this season: Willie Bloomquist will reveal himself to be Jesus Christ reborn (earning his new $33 million dollar salary), then damning every MLB player, manager and GM straight to hell. The M’s finish 162-0, and sweep the World Series over, oh, um, I don’t know, uh………Colorado.
HALLELUJAH!!!
I have figured it out! The secret to USSM posting is… set your expecatations as low as possible so in the case of a fluke contention for the AL West this year, we can all say gosh, those Mariners shure did exceed our expectations of them. That way, everything about the M’s can be positive, cute, and full of veteran grit!
That being said: Every aspect of our team is absolutely terrible!!!! We’re going to go 0-162 next year!!!! Willie Bloomquist for MVP!!!! We’re going to trade Felix and Ichiro!!!! Sign John McLaren to a ten-year deal!!!! Woo-hooo!!!!
Oh, and Bearman for GM!!!!
I don’t want to speak for Dan W but I think he has a relevant point. If you are going to project the 2008 Mariners using the 2007 Mariners as a comparison, you can’t say that Bedard and Silva give you x number of wins over a hypothethical replacement player. The pitchers used by the 2007 Mariners were not replacement level. For example, if you look at the starts made by Weaver, Ramirez, Baek and Feierabend, they collectively made 68 starts, pitched 352.2 innings and gave up 264 earned runs (6.74 ERA). If you use Silva’s and Bedard’s 2007 numbers, they collectively pitched 384 innings and gave up 158 earned runs (3.70 ERA). I realize Silva and Bedard very likely won’t make 68 starts, but the point is that they likely give will you more innings than the 4 guys that the M’s ran out in the #4 and #5 slots last year and will probably give up at least 100 fewer earned runs (assuming Bedard doesn’t improve over last year, which I think he will – that may offset a decline by Silva). If 10 runs is equal to 1 win, that is at least a 10 win improvement over last year.
It is fair to use Bedard’s wins over replacement when evaluating whether they are giving up too much in this trade, but not fair to use when trying to compare the 2008 M’s to the 2007 M’s. The 2007 M’s didn’t use replacement level pitchers in the 4 and 5 slots in their rotation.
I’m also not certain why no one ever brings up the fact that the Angels also played above their expected pythagorean win total last year. The Angels were +91 runs last year, and the M’s were -19 (a 110 run difference). If you factor in the pitching upgrade that I discussed above, that makes up most, if not all, of the difference. Sure, you also have to factor in any upgrades made by the Angels and any other downgrades/upgrades for the rest of the M’s, but to say that the M’s have absolutely no chance next year with Bedard is not correct. We can argue whether the M’s 35-45% chance to win the division is worth giving up Jones ++, but I don’t think it is fair to dismiss totally the M’s chances with Bedard.
Weaver was 10-15, Ramirez was 8 – 7, Baek was 4 – 3, Feierabend was 1 – 6. That’s 23 – 31. So 54 games where they factored in the decision.
Silva was 13 – 14, Bedard was 13 – 5. 26 – 21, 47 games. 30 – 24 in 54 games, extrapolating.
That’s a seven game swing, not bad, but that ignores defense, declines, durability, team offense, parks, etc, and it’s not “at least ten games.” That seven game swing just about erases our pythag problem, eh, putting us right back where we are now assuming nothing else gets worse.
If I’m not mistaken, PECOTA puts Silva about where they’re putting Jeff Weaver. Giving him 30 starts isn’t going to give us the +30 runs you’re expecting.
129 – Actually, Weaver was 7-13. Washburn was 10-15.
Roger,
Using last year’s wins and losses to project this year’s wins and losses? Really?
Tuomas, you may be correct about PECOTA’s projection, but if PECOTA is saying that 2008 Silva will be roughly equal to 2007 Weaver, I am not buying it. Even Silva’s bad outlier season (2006) wasn’t as bad as Weaver was in 2007.
well written
Pitching, as regular readers here know, is heavily affected by defense — which is why projecting wins this year based on win numbers from a previous season in front of a completely different team is silly. Defense wasn’t much of an issue when Weaver was giving up moon shots but it is going to be a factor in ’08 (particularly for Silva). Wilkerson isn’t what you’d call a major improvement over Guillen. Raul, even if he’s not hurt so he can produce at the plate more like the second half of ’07 than the first, is like the ’07 Raul defensively except one year older. Betancourt may have remembered how to throw to first again, or maybe not. Sexson still has the size and agility of a sequoia.
And then there’s offense. Baseball musings has been running projected lineups through their lineup analysis tool and offering high, “given,” and “low” guesses for runs per game:
Team….’.07……best….given…worst
OAK….4.57…..5.32…..5.14…..5.04
TEX…..5.04…..5.35…..5.28…..5.15
LAA…..5.07…..5.30…..5.20…..4.99
SEA…..4.90……4.91…..4.87…..4.67
(I’m sure that formatted ugly, sorry)
I think it’s overestimating Oakland (overrating Jack Cust, among other things) but perhaps not — given how low expectations have been set for that team, they have potential for surprise. In any case, note that the best estimate for the M’s is lower than the worst estimate for every other team in the division. Regardless of how the other teams might do, the estimate for the M’s seems pretty reasonable unless somebody can come up with a credible basis for believing the ’08 team is going to have significantly more offense than the ’07 team (fewer ABs by Bloomquist, perhaps?)
joser (134),
First thing I noticed about that projection is that is projects a career worst season for Ichiro. The .367/.420 numbers are 22 and 17 points under his career averages. In 7 seasons, he’s been under each of those numbers exactly once.
The second item is the projection for Adam Jones to post a .326/.412 split (.738 OPS). Of course, this was done prior to the Bedard trade – and also, prior to the Wilkerson acquisition. Wilkerson’s career line is: .354/.451. Of course, many think Wilky is useless, primarily because his average has been dreadful in Texas.
But, with the exception of his injury impacted 2006 season, he has still been over 100 OPS+. In part-time duty, (and I think in his case, playing part time is part of what has been suppressing his numbers), he managed a 104 OPS+ in 2007.
A 104 OPS+ in Seattle is about .760 – 22 points over the Adam Jones projection.
Of course, the Ms averaged 4.90 in 2007. Projecting them to repeat that actually seems about right to me.
But, park adjustments can skew things a bit. A suspect few people realize that Seattle posted a 104 team OPS+ in 2007, (scoring 4.90 per game), while Anaheim posted a 100 team OPS+ while scoring 5.07. How many teams scored more runs per game ON THE ROAD than Seattle in 2007? Two: Yankees and the Tigers.
Looking at raw run totals for offenses is dangerous math when you’re dealing with a team that has a MAJOR park effect skewing those numbers.
The Angels probably will score more than Seattle. But, unlike 2007, Seattle has a good shot at allowing the fewest runs of any team in the West. Enough to overtake LA? A much harder call. But at the moment, I’d give the Ms a minor nod in run prevention for 2008 – and Anaheim a minor nod for run creation.