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.

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?)

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.

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.

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.

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!!!!