Larry Mahnken and SG's

Replacement Level Yankees Weblog

"Hey, it's free!"


The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog has moved!  Our new home is:
http://www.replacementlevel.com

Featuring:
Larry Mahnken
SG
sjohnny
TVerik
Sean McNally
Fabian McNally
John Brattain


This is an awesome FREE site, where you can win money and gift certificates with no skill involved! If you're bored, I HIGHLY recommend checking it out!



Web
yankeefan.blogspot.com

Disclaimer: If you think this is the official website of the New York Yankees, you're an idiot. Go away.


February 12, 2006


Diamond Mind Projections part two, PECOTA
by SG

I hope most of you enjoyed MGL's interview and subsequent discussion in the last entry. Thanks again to MGL for his time, and I heartily recommend picking up The Book. You'll learn a bit about baseball, and help support Retrosheet.

Last week, I posted some WARP (Wins above Replacement Player) and Diamond Mind simulation results based on ZiPS. For those who don't like ZiPS, thankfully there are other projection systems out there. I ran through another 100 Diamond Mind simulations using Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projections, and the results were far more encouraging for Yankee fans.


Team W L RF RA DIV WC DIV% WC% Made% High W High L
American League
East
New York(A) 91 71 879 785 53 19 52.5% 18.5% 71.0% 106 80
Boston 87 75 852 767 33 14 33.0% 13.8% 46.8% 107 73
Toronto 83 79 767 749 13 6 12.5% 5.5% 18.0% 100 68
Baltimore 75 87 747 804 2 2 2.0% 2.0% 4.0% 92 58
Tampa Bay 70 92 698 826 0 1 0.0% 1.0% 1.0% 90 53

Central
Minnesota 84 78 742 711 44 2 44.0% 2.0% 46.0% 104 72
Cleveland 83 79 787 762 38 3 37.5% 3.0% 40.5% 98 62
Chicago(A) 79 83 743 764 11 3 11.0% 2.5% 13.5% 99 65
Detroit 78 84 757 785 8 0 7.5% 0.0% 7.5% 92 62
Kansas City 68 94 692 818 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 86 52

West
Oakland 94 68 781 655 75 11 75.0% 11.0% 86.0% 109 77
Los Angeles(A) 84 78 729 710 9 17 8.5% 16.8% 25.3% 97 71
Seattle 84 78 758 741 13 18 12.5% 17.5% 30.0% 98 60
Texas 79 83 830 845 4 6 4.0% 6.3% 10.3% 96 60

National League
East
Philadelphia 89 73 790 705 46 18 45.5% 17.8% 63.3% 101 70
New York(N) 89 73 794 741 44 16 43.5% 16.0% 59.5% 107 68
Atlanta 81 81 763 759 11 8 10.5% 7.5% 18.0% 98 61
Washington 76 86 695 744 1 1 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 88 62
Florida 70 92 689 783 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 86 55

Central
St. Louis 93 69 759 645 74 13 74.0% 12.5% 86.5% 109 79
Milwaukee 83 79 745 727 11 10 10.5% 10.3% 20.8% 104 66
Chicago(N) 82 80 741 730 7 13 6.5% 12.5% 19.0% 95 69
Houston 79 83 725 754 4 5 4.0% 4.5% 8.5% 101 65
Pittsburgh 78 84 716 740 5 4 5.0% 3.8% 8.8% 94 63
Cincinnati 74 88 774 849 0 2 0.0% 1.5% 1.5% 91 60

West
Los Angeles(N) 93 69 808 695 87 3 86.5% 2.5% 89.0% 106 77
San Francisco 82 80 758 738 10 8 9.5% 8.0% 17.5% 100 64
San Diego 79 83 740 744 3 1 3.0% 1.0% 4.0% 95 57
Arizona 76 86 763 810 1 1 1.0% 1.0% 2.0% 89 67
Colorado 67 95 775 912 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 81 57


The Yankees improve by 6 wins and score about 50 more runs a season. I'll take that.

I won't do any more of these until towards the end of spring training, when rosters are more set and we can sort out the lineups and pitching staffs more accurately.

In other news, the Yankees and Shawn Chacon avoided arbitration, which I was happy to hear. While I have a lot of concerns about Chacon's performance next year, I think risking acrimony by going to arbitration doesn't make much sense. Let's hope as his memory of pitching in Colorado gets further away, Chacon can continue to succeed. MGL discussed Chacon on a thread on Baseball Think Factory, and said the following:


I have Chacon projected to be a good (better than average) pitcher. I think that Pecota's projection for him is flat out not even close, but I could be wrong. I have a lot of respect for their projections overall. While it is indeed tricky to project players coming from the Rockies, even using proper park adjustments, there is one thing that no forecasters do that I do, which will make a big difference in the projections. That is to adjust for the hangover effect for Rockies players. IOW, their road stats while playing for the Rockies need to be adjusted quite a bit as well as their home stats. When Rockies players switch teams (or go from another team TO the Rockies), their road stats (not including their road stats in Coors Field) go up substantially (or down substantially if they are GOING to the Rox). If you don't adjust for that, you will substantially under-project players like Chacon.

So basically I think that Chacon is a pretty good pitcher (and should post around a 4.50 ERA for the Yankees) and that Small sucks. Wright is not half the pitcher that Chacon is. I think that he (Wright) is terrible as well.


The Yankees made a minor move that I think was very smart, picking up Darrell Rasner on waivers from Washington. Rasner was rated as the National's 8th best prospect last year, but he profiles as a fifth starter/middle reliever. He is not a great prospect by any means, but he adds some pitching dept to the organization, and is only 25 years old.

Pitchers and catchers report in 3 days. How cool is that?