Baseball Prospectus = Bunk

Biking for Baseball finally has the whole team together in Denver. We’re taking care of last minute details and making sure we are road ready when we make our way to the Pacific Northwest next week. We even had a great fundraiser with tons of awesome B4B supporters on Saturday who we can’t thank enough. We’ve had a very productive week.

Part of what we are doing this summer is talking baseball with fans across the country. That means we need to be knowledgeable about each team to carry a conversation on with fans of that team. So part of our summer preparation includes spending much time reading about baseball.

I read something today on Baseball Prospectus that I thought was ridiculous enough to share. As you know, the season is starting and every baseball website attempts to project how teams will finish. They spend way too much time developing formulas to predict something as unpredictable as baseball. They usually aren’t right.

For example, Baseball Prospectus predicted the Minnesota Twins to win the AL Central with 86 wins last season. As you know, they ended up winning 63 games and finishing dead last in the AL Central. So they pretty much nailed that prediction, right?

Well, Baseball Prospectus updated their 2012 playoff odds yesterday, and it seems they made some pretty questionable predictions. The worst example is their projection for the Kansas City Royals. The Royals are widely known to have some of the best young talent in the major leagues, most of whom didn’t start last season in the majors. After the All Star break last year, when the young players were all mostly playing everyday, the team finished the season 34-37. According to their win expectancy based on run differential, they should have had a 78-84 record.

With the lineup basically the same, and the young players improving, I think performing to last season’s win expectancy is a good projection. Not according to Baseball Prospectus, who projected a 68-94 record for the Royals as the second worst team in baseball. Highly respected baseball writer Keith Law with ESPN insider predicts the Royals to finish 2nd in the Central with a 81-81 record.

Baseball Prospectus also projects the Dodgers to finish last in the NL West with 77 wins. I’m sure Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier have something to say about that.

Baseball Prospectus is highly respected and I would recommend it to everyone to read, but Biking for Baseball is calling bunk on a few of their projections for this season.