Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 377: The 2014 Standings Draft

Episode Date: February 3, 2014

Ben and Sam draft teams based on their projected gains (and losses) in the standings this season.

Just up ahead's the finish line. Two banded referees and two checkered rags. Out of the corner of my eye comes a dark horse with black wings. Ooh, heading for the finish line. Good morning and welcome to episode 377 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. How are you? Good. The same. How are you? Pretty well. Good. Talk about the Super Bowl. Boy, how about those big plays? I didn't see any of them. Oh, man. All up and down the the field the field there were big plays yeah yeah sorry i missed them uh-huh uh uh it's my it's my day it is uh before we start um people have been have been

facebook asking an email asking about the season preview shows. We are planning to start them this week, and we will be doing sort of the same format as last year. You and I will be interviewing someone who wrote for the annual, either the essay or the chapter comments for the team in question, and then our intern Nick at BP will be interviewing someone else, someone from outside of BP, a beat writer or a columnist or a broadcaster who covers that team. And we will put the interviews together, and hopefully you will enjoy both perspectives.

So we'll be going in order of projected win totals this year. So we'll be starting with the Astros going bottom to top later this week. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, spoiler alert, Ben. Spoiler alert. Spoilers, Ben. Ben. Ben. You're right. Ben. You're right. No one knew

that the Astros would have been projected to be bad. Sorry. Sorry for blowing it. When are we starting that? I think we're starting it Wednesday if it all comes together. Drat. I thought we were starting it tomorrow. And so my topic is slightly

in anticipation of that. But not entirely. But before we get to that, can I just ask you, now that A.J. Burnett is taking offers, I mean, we don't know what aj burnett you know actually told the pirates that the the explanation for why the pirates didn't make him a qualifying offer was was largely at least reported as uh being that you know burnett

basically told them that he was going to retire or uh or sign with them and so there was really no point in them offering him a qualifying offer and i don't know maybe it would have seemed tacky if they had or something like that um and um so uh do you i don't know how do you feel are you suggesting that he he pulled the bait and switch he had some some ulterior motives for saying he would retire. Did you, yeah, did you, would you, if you were a team, would you like ever believe a guy who told you that? Like, is there ever a, is there ever a point in, in sort of, you know, just like giving a player the benefit of the doubt or if not that exactly,

even if you don't believe him, just sort of deferring to his, his threats or whatever. Like if a player is savvy enough to make you seem like the bad guy in the relationship or, I don't know, maybe just if he's going to take it the wrong way. Is there ever a point where you just go along with his delusion? Because you had to know. I mean, didn't you just have to know this was coming like this seems like the most predictable part of the offseason to me well I never predicted it so I can't say that but I think in maybe in a case where it's a player who's been with one franchise

his whole career and he's like very closely associated with that team. If it were Mariano Rivera, for instance, this year, or Chipper Jones a year ago, where you expect to have a continuing relationship with that player post-retirement and want him to serve as some sort of ambassador and you've known him for years and years and he's never played anywhere else, maybe in that case you take him at his word and you assume that he's actually going to retire if he says he's going to retire and you

don't want to suggest or imply that you don't believe him by then offering the qualifying offer, which could maybe jeopardize your relationship with him post-retirement. Otherwise, there's not that much to lose, really, by doing it. If he retires, then no harm done. And if he doesn't, then you made the right call. Yeah, I think that's well put. So do you then think that it was oversimplified in the reporting, and in fact, the Pirates simply didn't want to make him the offer um for like reasons of not wanting to get stuck with 14.1 million dollars in next year's payroll because if so i mean like i think a lot of people gave him a pass on that decision at the time but it seems significantly more likely that that was the reason because like you said there was no

well i don't know maybe there is a slight downside. Maybe if you want him back and you think that you're going to make him mad and force him into retirement by giving him a qualifying offer, you might have something to lose. But yeah, I mean you're right. It seems like there's not a big downside. So probably the reporting maybe was not right. Yeah. And while they're still, they're still pursuing him, it seems like they're still interested in him and he's, he's not going to come cheaper than, than a qualifying offer would have been. So, so it doesn't seem like it could be the financial reason that they,

that they couldn't get stuck with him on a one-year deal if they're still interested in him for either a one-year deal now or a multi-year deal, either way, probably at a higher AAV. And yet you would also think that if he had stabbed them in the back here and told them he was going to retire and then unretired after they didn't offer him the qualifying offer, maybe that would sour their relationship and they wouldn't want to bring him back. And it seems like that's not the case either. I don't know that teams get to have relationships soured. It seems like when you're dealing with a collection of athletes who are certainly going to include some number of valuable, talented players who are not stable human beings, you as the team just have to be the grown know the grown-up with the short memory i'm not all players are are like that and not all players are going to do that to you certainly most probably won't but enough will that as a team you just have to you you can't be the

one that holds the grudge you just can't afford to do it so i actually don't know that that's evidence of that but um yeah uh last thing before we get to your topic, someone, someone tweeted at us on Friday, a purported fat Puig picture. Uh, we analyzed it a little bit and, and I said that we would say something about it. Um, I will, I will link, I retweeted this, but I will link to it in the podcast post so you can all judge for yourself. If this one photo were the only evidence that we had from this day, it seems like it was some sort of Dodgers community youth event. And there were a bunch of players doing things with kids and he's standing there and he kind of has the appearance of like an old man punch, sort of. of has the appearance of like an old man punch sort of just like a slight slight protrusion there but he has his he has his hand on the small of his back sort of pushing his his stomach forward

um based based on this one picture did you have any did you have any doubts or any did you did you believe it that there could be fat quig believed there could be, but to me it looked like slouch. To me it just looked like bad posture. Yeah, and there was a subsequent picture from the same event where he's standing straight. I did not find that picture to be convincing either, though. To me that picture offered no clarification. All right, well, we will submit it to the listeners. Go look and tell us what you think.

I'll post it in a Facebook group also. I think it's more likely that it's a giant ab than that it's fat, but you guys can tell us. Yeah. All right. So because we're doing the team previews soon and we're going to be asking lots of questions about teams and talking about how they look, and also because I believe Tuesday is it, we're going to be releasing the Pocota standings. That's the plan.

So, on Tuesday, we will have the company policy on 2014, essentially, in writing. We will have all these predictions, projections, I should say projections, for win totals. And from there, you can extrapolate what's going to happen with certainty. And so before that, I wanted to get each of us kind of on record as, this is not exactly winners and losers of the offseason. It's only partially that. But I wanted to do a draft, sorry everybody, but to do a draft in which we pick gainers. We pick the teams that are most likely to gain in the standings, not win totals, but in the standings. So to make this a little bit clearer, if a team was six games out of first

place last year and finishes two games out of first place in 2014, that would be a plus four. And if they go the other way, that would be a minus four. And if they won their division by 10 games and they this year only win the division by two games, that would be a minus four. And if they won their division by 10 games and they this year only win the division by two games, that would be a minus eight. And so what we're really looking for is who's not necessarily who is better, but who is in a better position, whose position has been strengthened and who will, you know, who will be more competitive next year than they were last year. And so in order to keep this from being horrible, Ben and I have each ranked,

we each have a piece of paper in front of us in which we have ranked the teams. So this should be very easy, because it should just be a matter of reading the name on the top of your list and crossing out the ones that are chosen as we go. And so this shouldn't take more than two minutes except for the the

agonizing self-doubt and second thoughts no no you may not if you if you take five if you take five seconds on a pick you lose your pick you lose your pick you lose your pick okay all right and then you get stuck with the last team at the bottom okay uh okay all right and then and then we can talk about, maybe you might not want to cross out or you might want to have two lists so that at the end we can talk about where we most differ or the ones. I did my work on a computer.

I didn't use the pen and paper method. Yeah, I know that you can cross it out. You can just put an X by it. Okay. So that might be one way to handle it, Ben. I'll figure it out. You can just put an X by it. Okay. So that might be one way to handle it, Ben. I'll figure it out. All right. So since you're the victim here, you can pick first.

And it has been noted that in many of these, you have picked first and that we have not gone with the standard snake order and that I have been put at a disadvantage for that. But I don't care because this is all make-believe. It's all pretend. So you can pick first. Okay. I will take the Blue Jays. And I will... Wow. And really? Okay. And I'll pick the Angels. All right. I will take the Nationals. I will take the Mariners. I will take the Mariners. I will take the Yankees.

I will take the Tigers. Okay. They were farther down on my list. All right. I'll take the Astros. That was my next pick. I'll take the Astros. That was my next pick. I'll take the Marlins. All right. That was also my next pick after the Astros. I'll take the Cardinals.

They were my push. They were right in the middle. I put them right in the middle so that I had a perspective on where I was putting teams. So they were my push. I'll take the Mets. Okay. I'll take the Padres. See, I have the Padres.

This is my first team that you've picked that I have as a negative. You have them going down. I have them going down, but only by one game. They were my first negative team. I'll take the Giants. Oh, okay. I'll take the Cubs.

That was my next pick. I'll take the Brewers. Huh, okay. I had the Brewers negative, actually. All right, I'll take the Rays. That was my next pick. I'll pick the White Sox. that was my next pick i'll pick the white socks uh that was my next pick pretty close agreement here so far so far so good um royals royals okay i will i you know

i had the royals negative and uh because but that's partly because i the tigers you know as i have the tigers so high yeah i i i i tried not to keep internal consistency but i accidentally i accidentally did in some cases i actually think that the well we'll talk about this uh i'll go with the twins Okay, I'll take Rangers. That was my next pick. Phillies. Okay, Dodgers. That was my next pick. Red Sox.

Okay, Orioles. Not my next pick. Yeah pick I like that pick A's Alright Red Sox I picked Oh you picked Red Sox Diamondbacks

That was my next pick Reds That was my next pick reds that was my next pick pirates oh they were my last last yeah okay uh rockies yep and uh indians that was my next pick. So I am stuck with the Braves, which was your last. Yes, that was my last pick, yes. That was my second to last. Interesting. So big differentials where you were lower than me. Of course, that's the only possible way is that you could be lower than me.

If you'd been higher, then I would have picked them. So you were higher on the – you were lower visually on the list I'm looking at. This won't make sense to anybody. You were much higher on the Yankees than I was. It sounded like I was higher on the Blue Jays, no? Yes, the Blue Jays, yes. That was much higher. Which is weird because I actually had them like eighth or something.

Yeah, I had. But they were the second team you picked? I think they were my first pick. I had Blue Jays and Nationals pretty much neck and neck. Interesting. I had the Angels first. They were my third. They were 18 back last year.

Yeah, that's a lot. So many games. And they've done nothing, basically. Right. I didn't have them higher than I did because, right, it's hard to, like, point to something they did and say that's why they're going to be better. And if you look at their pitching staff,

it doesn't really look like a team that's going to be that much better. But, so I don't know what I'm really banking on there because I don't expect the A's to be significantly worse, really. So. the A's to be significantly worse, really? With the Angels, this is going to sound like the exact same conversation we had last year. Remember last year I talked about how the reason

I was bullish on them is that even though they had lost Heron and Santana who were famous pitchers, those guys were the problem the year before. They were way worse than they should have been expected. So you don't actually have to replace Heron and Santana as where they stand in baseball history. You just have to replace their 5.5 combined ERA, and I should say improve on it. And that seemed like a pretty easy thing to do, and they didn't.

They got worse. Blanton and Hansen were worse, and so basically it's sort of the same position where it's not like I think that Santiago and... Santiago? I get the two... Yeah, I always get Quintana and Santiago confused. Santiago and Skaggs, neither one is a Cy Young contender

or necessarily even a great number three. But Blanton and Hansen combined something like six ERA last year. So their pitching only has to be a little bit better is what i'm saying their offense was still good last year their defense still seems good um and uh you know richards in the rotation i don't know it just seems like it seems like some some regression for the a's some regression for the rangers i don't think the mariners are going to like set some new bar at 98 wins in the division or anything like that. So maybe the division comes back three games to them and the Angels win 84 or 85 or something,

and all of a sudden they've made up a lot of that ground. Yeah. Looking at my AL West rankings, I didn't really have anyone projected to be significantly worse. And then I had the Angels projected to be better, the Astros projected to be better, and the Mariners projected to be at least somewhat better. So I guess my spreadsheet here would suggest that I think that the range will be much smaller than it was last year, which was very large. It was a 45 game range between the A's and the Astros. So I figured the Astros, one way or another, will pick up some games there. Yeah, that's a good...

Initially, I was more bullish on the Astros. I don't know if I think that they're a 71-win team or a 61-win team, but they're not a 51-win team. No. Yeah, they probably are. That'll be awful and sad, and they might be it. We'll find out on Wednesday when we do the season preview podcast. You're not swayed by the Yankees' third-order winning percentage?

Which, by the way— Last year, you mean? Yeah, which was really horrible. It suggested they were a true talent, much worse team. Yeah, like 79 wins or something instead of 85, something like that. Something like that. Maybe 77. 85 something like that um something like that it's maybe 77 something yeah i i am swayed by that but i think they i think they improved enough this winter that between the people that they signed

and presumably some of the people who won't be quite as hurt as they were last year um i think they improved enough to to make up the difference between their actual and Pythag predicted record last year. So maybe they'll end up around the same place. And I don't really expect the Red Sox to win 97 again. Yeah. Fair point. Yeah. And you're right.

It was 79. No, their third order, their first order was 79. Their third order was 72. Oof. Oof. That's ugly. That's really ugly. So that's a lot to make up.

Yeah. Yeah. I actually still haven't, I don't know that I've seen it. Well, I don't know – I go back and forth on whether they've actually improved a great deal this offseason or not. And so I need to sit down with a calculator and six minutes of free time and just like look at it because in my head there's been so much movement that I just see days that spike and then days that go down, and I don't actually know where the mean is. Yeah, it's hard to lose Cano, replace him with Brian Roberts and Kelly Johnson,

and then it's hard to do that and still gain a lot, I think. And lose Rivera, too. Yeah, and lose Rivera. I mean, really, I don't think that's more than, you know, like, two wins tops. I mean, not even. Like, the gap between Rivera and Robertson is not big. The gap between Robertson last year and whoever the setup guy will be now could be big unless they sign someone else.

Yeah, right, and that's how it works. Yeah, that is how it works. Yeah, so I don't know. You just have to add up Cano losing Cano and then getting Ellsbury and Beltran and McCann and a full season of Soriano and maybe a little bit of Cheater here and there and some Teixeira. But no A-Rod. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of addition and subtraction there. It does sound like a gain. I think so. and Tanaka, and yeah.

So then, furthermore, you don't buy the third-order winning percentage for the Tigers, who, according to that, were like 120-win teams last year. I mean, they had just an absolutely absurd third-order winning percentage, like 100-plus wins. I did have the tigers improving they were not uh well yeah i had them improving by a few games um just i mean they won the division by one game last year um and i figured that the indians would be one of my biggest decliners this year. Yeah.

But I think, well, yeah, and I don't know. I think the Royals will at least sort of hold serve. I don't know whether they will gain. So I probably should have had the Tigers a little higher. I had them gaining a few wins just because, I don't know, I figure some of their guys won't be as good they're generally kind of old they lost fister fielder cabrera might not be as good um so i don't know that i would expect them i don't i don't think they're like a hundred win team or anything

they won 93 last year i could could see them adding to that by a little bit um but their third order was 105 wins yeah yeah well i would never project that for anyone no i wouldn't either but uh you know high-ish 90s seems pretty reasonable. So that's why I had the Royals dropping. I actually, if I had to choose winners and losers, like if that were a topic, and somebody made me choose the winners and losers, I think the Royals might be, they might be the team that I would consider

the winners of the offseason in a lot of ways. I generally like what they've done, the moves they've made. It feels like the rest of the division has almost entirely come back to them a bit. Certainly the Indians, probably the Tigers. The Twins and the White Sox aren't

doing anything in the short term that's going to push them. I like them. Not only do I like the moves but they all seem like sort of smart type of moves it just feels like a like a club that like really did have um you know a plan or something and like they're putting the pieces together and i like that a lot so i wanted to have the royals in positive territory yeah um but couldn't do it

yeah it was a satisfying winter. It wasn't like one of those winters where a team just signs everyone and you expect them to be better because they signed everyone like the Blue Jays before last year, the Dodgers before last year. This wasn't one where they spent that amount of money

but all the things that they did seemed to fit their roster pretty well. Um, and they also have some, some young guys who maybe debuted late last year who might play a bigger role or might, might debut at some point this season. So yeah, I don't know. I sort of expect them to tread water more or less and be a little bit better or worse depending on randomness. They basically had no injuries last year. Yeah. And I told you not to look at the Pocota standings, which you presumably have access to.

Have you seen them though? Yeah, I looked at them a few days ago. Yeah. Just a glance. Yeah, exactly. So did I and just a glance And they might have changed since then. But the one thing that I really remember, the thing that like the big giant thing that sticks out is that the Dodgers are just like insanely good according to the standings. Or they won't be.

You know, we're still working on the depth charts and looking at details and scrubbing them and all that. But when I looked at them the dodgers were considerably better than any other team um and yet we both have them dropping is that just because it's just hard to predict any team is going to win by more than 12 games i mean only only one other team has to outperform expectations in pythagoras and make a push to 90. Yeah, I don't know that they would drop. I mean, they won the division by 11 games last year as a 92-win team. And I find it hard to really project many teams to be significantly better than that.

But I could kind of talk myself into them significantly better than that but i could kind of talk myself into them being better than that and i don't really see the diamondbacks being notably better um i could imagine the padres being a little bit better the giants being a little bit better so i kind of i maybe they'll just sort of end up with roughly the same margin maybe they'll be a little bit better and some of the teams behind them will be a little bit better um but I would I would still expect them to have a pretty comfortable lead yeah I I had them only dropping by by two um and it's not that yeah it's more that it's not so much that there's any one team I think is going to push them.

And I actually will, I will quite, I'm fairly confident that I will project them to win more than 95 games and maybe high 90s this year. They're one of the rare teams that I feel comfortable projecting that, you know, that high. But, you know, it's more that just only are there are three teams that could plausibly have a bunch of things break right and win 90 games and normally if you have you know four teams one of them does something weird and and you know wins a bunch of games so I just figure someone will win probably in the high 80s or low 90s in that division And I think the Giants are a good bet to do that. I feel pretty good about their chances. As I recall, the Pocota for the Giants was pretty decent too. But we can talk about the way those shake out on Tuesday when they're out.

And then on the bottom end, who was your projected biggest loser in standings? Pirates. It was Indians, Braves, Pirates basically clustered in a tie at the bottom. Okay. Yeah, I had Braves lower than anyone else. And I agree that, I mean, the Pirates and the Indians are the classic plexiglass principal teams that sort of got, you know, overachieved last year. And most teams that

overachieve tend to come back to the pack a little bit. But the Braves, the Braves won the East by 10 games last year. And it's not that I think they'll be significantly worse. No, not at all. But I could see them not winning 96 again just because teams don't win 96 all that often. And I would expect the Nationals to be much closer, possibly even better. And that kind of eats up.

I mean, if the Nationals, if I project the Nationals to win the East, which I might, then that's 10 games right there. Or 11. Yeah, I don't have anything against the Braves. I think they'll be a really good team. I think they quite possibly will make the playoffs. In fact, I might go so far as to say that I think they will make the playoffs.

It's completely just a positioning thing in this case. I think the Nationals are going to be good. And where did you have the Cardinals? Push. Right, okay. So what did they win by, three or four last year? Three. Yeah.

And they won 97, so it's hard to project them to win much more than that. So it's, but I would, would you, I mean, you wouldn't expect any team in that division other than the Cardinals to, well, would you? I guess you would to come within three games of them or? I wouldn't expect any individual team to, but I would expect some team to. Well, you're projecting the Pirates to be one of the biggest losers. And the Brewers and the Cubs, I don't think you can really make a case that they could come that close.

So you're really kind of counting on the Reds then to do it, it seems like. Well, just because I said that the Pirates are likely to be the biggest drop doesn't mean that I think the Pirates are certain to be the biggest drop. I think they're a team that could still do it easily. It would not surprise me or shock me or defy physics. And certainly the Reds could. And I would give the Brewers, I don't know, I probably would give the Brewers maybe a 1 in 14 chance of winning 90. Maybe not 90, 88. Just because no more Betancourt? I mean, seriously, it's like with no work whatsoever,

it's a five-game upgrade in first place. It's incredible. It really is. And, you know, they'll have Braun for the whole year, and they underperformed their third order. And, you know, if Weeks comes back and does some stuff, I mean, it's not that hard to find a good team in there. Mm-hmm.

Any other teams? I kind of like that team, actually. There's, it's not that hard to find a good team in there. Any other teams? I kind of like that team, actually. There's some fun parts on that team. That might be the team that I get emotionally attached to this year. Well, I know you're already emotionally attached to one member of that team. It seems like Chris Davis. No, I said other people will be emotionally attached. I have not yet staked ground on Chris Davis. No, I said other people will be emotionally attached. I have not yet staked ground on Chris Davis.

Okay. So one thing, though, about this is that there are players who have not signed. So did you consider when you were doing this who you thought was likely to make another move? I did. It seems like the Dodgers still are like probably more likely than any other team at this point to make a move just because they have the resources and they've kind of not done much this offseason and they've been like the action to rumor ratio for the Dodgers has been quite low.

So, you know, I would guess that action to rumor ratio is a pretty good gauge for the next month. Yeah, and just the fact that they're the Dodgers. And if you're going to bet on anyone to sign anyone at any time, probably be then. I think I mentally bumped up the Blue Jays a bit on the assumption that they might make a move for a starter. And to a lesser extent, the Ori Orioles probably so maybe that's why I was higher on them than you were uh-huh I considered it a a very reasonable possibility if not necessarily a probability that the Angels could still without much effort address the major problem with their team um you know these guys who are still hanging around uh all fit nicely in their yeah in their

rotation joe pinero is a comeback what is it about this year and the comebacks this feels like a it's the casimir effect is this a is it a casimir effect is this is this a trend or is this just something about modern medicine or what how many people are we actually talking about? Just Mulder, Pinero, who else? There's others. There's others. Is Penny, does Penny count? Yeah, sure. Abreu, Johnny Damon?

Yeah, what's going on with Damon? Is Damon back? Trying. Or said something something once Sizemore do we count Sizemore yeah although I don't know he he was trying to come back before he just couldn't um yeah all right did we well hey hey Ben yeah we'll come back tomorrow we will with another episode of effectively wild yep and pakoda will be out so we will probably talk about what the actual bp projections say and wait yeah uh you said tuesday it's coming out tuesday yeah but but we will be... Oh, right. We will be anticipating.

We'll talk about them Monday night for Tuesday, I think. Could be. Could be. Yeah, because they'll go up first thing Tuesday or early Tuesday. Yeah, so we can do that, and then we will start the season preview stuff. Oh, and we are going to continue to do listener email shows throughout the season preview process on Fridays so we'll only do four season previews per week

and then we'll do the listener emails just because you like listener emails and we like listener emails and it'll break up the monotony a bit alright so we'll be back tomorrow you can start sending us emails