Schoenfield on the NL Central

[magnumo]

In Dave Schoenfield's latest "SweetSpot" article at ESPN.com, he analyzes and ranks the players for each NL Central team, position by position..... and then uses those rankings to project the teams from strongest to weakest, using a simple point system. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the article, but my attention was drawn to two items:

1. He sees the Pirates as the 4th strongest team in the division, ahead of the Cubs and Astros again. That's not particularly surprising, since most pundits are picking the Pirates to finish 4th or 5th.

2. On the other hand, his ranking of the Pirates' starting pitchers seems noteworthy..... in terms of how low his opinion is. He ranks 4 of our 5 starters at the bottom (i.e. 6th out of 6), as compared to the starters on the other NL Central teams..... and he ranks the remaining Pirate starter 5th out of 6.

Those two points seem pretty inconsistent. If our starting rotation is that bad, I see no way that the Pirates finish 4th. I recognize that the point system he used is not sophisticated. Personally, I believe that pitching is more important than his point system allows.

Nevertheless, the article provides an interesting and pretty comprehensive perspective looking forward to 2012 in the NL Central division..... recommended reading, in my opinion.

NL Central showdown: Position rankings - SweetSpot Blog - ESPN

 

[thedddd]

In Dave Schoenfield's latest "SweetSpot" article at ESPN.com, he analyzes and ranks the players for each NL Central team, position by position..... and then uses those rankings to project the teams from strongest to weakest, using a simple point system. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the article, but my attention was drawn to two items:

1. He sees the Pirates as the 4th strongest team in the division, ahead of the Cubs and Astros again. That's not particularly surprising, since most pundits are picking the Pirates to finish 4th or 5th.

2. On the other hand, his ranking of the Pirates' starting pitchers seems noteworthy..... in terms of how low his opinion is. He ranks 4 of our 5 starters at the bottom (i.e. 6th out of 6), as compared to the starters on the other NL Central teams..... and he ranks the remaining Pirate starter 5th out of 6.

Those two points seem pretty inconsistent. If our starting rotation is that bad, I see no way that the Pirates finish 4th. I recognize that the point system he used is not sophisticated. Personally, I believe that pitching is more important than his point system allows.

Nevertheless, the article provides an interesting and pretty comprehensive perspective looking forward to 2012 in the NL Central division..... recommended reading, in my opinion.

NL Central showdown: Position rankings - SweetSpot Blog - ESPN

So true!

Anyway he really didn't go out on any limb here and pretty spot on what the consensus rankings should be for the division.

My only issue is if Eric Bedard is worse than the other teams 4th starters the Pirates are in a lot of trouble.

 

[thedddd]

One other thing if you take away the two top positions for the Cubs/Pirates (SS/CF) and intangibles (not sure how you can quantitatively give that a value?) the numbers are 32,29,29 - Pirates,Cubs/Astros.

What I am getting at is with this method of measuring the Pirates and Cubs are basically the same as the Astros without their 1 stud player. Not taking away from it because it is still interesting to look at and think about.

NOTE: When i took away the SS/CF I took their given value away for all three teams.

 

[thecrow124]

While his method is rudimentary even for me, I would tend to agree with the final order. However, there is a lot I can take issue with in his rankings. For example, he must be taking into account that Bedard will be injured for over half the season because when healthy, Bedard is every bit as good as Matt Garza, let alone his list of #4 starters. When you move Gerard up to being our #1 then everyone else slides down a spot. Actually you could just swap him with Karstens and Karstens then becomes the best #4 on the list.

Anyway, whatever, so I see us with a few more points, but still no hither in the standings, then again maybe I do see us finishing higher.

 

[magnumo]

To both thedddd and thecrow124,

When I first read the article, I didn't like the author's rotation order for the Pirates.

- My first thought was, if Bedard is healthy, he's the Pirates' #1 guy.

- My second thought: If you replace Karstens with Bedard at #1, and move Karstens, Morton, and McDonald down one notch each..... the inevitable result would be that all 5 Pirate starters would rank 6th out of 6 in their respective spots on his list. (I didn't think of flipping Karstens with Bedard.)

- Then, I decided to leave it alone. (I gotta feeling that Schoenfield used some kind of strict statistical evaluation of performance of each pitcher as his basis for ordering the rotations for each team. I wish that he had shared that basis.)

To thedddd,

I like what you did in your post #3..... opens up additional manipulations that might be fun to try.

To thecrow124,

Hope you're right about us finishing higher. I eagerly await "how high" you're willing to go in the W-L Predictions thread.

 

[thedddd]

When I manipulated the numbers the one thing I didn't think about was what if the Pirates Lost McCutchen to an injury? Who would be their CF, McLouth? Where would he fit in the rankings? I am thinking 5th or 6th due to his Brave years.

I think when you have something this simple it is easy to take it and make it something worth more. Also on the list I would like to know his justification to putting Alvarez higher than Stewart?

 

[magnumo]

When I manipulated the numbers the one thing I didn't think about was what if the Pirates Lost McCutchen to an injury? Who would be their CF, McLouth? Where would he fit in the rankings? I am thinking 5th or 6th due to his Brave years.

- No doubt it would be very bad news for McCutchen to suffer an injury.

- The good news (small by comparison) is that they have a number of guys who can play CF: McLouth, Tabata, Presley, and maybe even Hernandez or Marte.

I think when you have something this simple it is easy to take it and make it something worth more. Also on the list I would like to know his justification to putting Alvarez higher than Stewart?

I very much appreciate that kind of thinking. Your statement (bolded above) clearly leads to value-adding..... and I believe that's important (not only on a discussion board, but in life in general).

Same as you, I would have liked to see more explanation in a number of places..... but perhaps Schoenfield (or his editors) thought that would make the article too long. A couple of additional thoughts.....

- Based upon reading Schoenfield in the past, I gotta feeling that his rankings are based on some kind of fairly rigorous process yielding 2012 performance projections.

- His limited explanations give readers like us many opportunities for discussion and speculation. Although it hardly seems possible, Stewart was even worse than Alvarez last year. But for whatever reason, Schoenfield obviously believes that Pedro will outperform Stewart in 2012. (I hope he's right..... and Alvarez will outperform at least a couple of other NL Central third-basemen.)

 

[element1286]

Yea, Stewart had a 13 RC+ last year, didn't think it was possible to be that bad.

 

[element1286]

The Worst Team Ever Projected? - Baseball Nation

 

[magnumo]

The Worst Team Ever Projected? - Baseball Nation

The guy makes a pretty strong case. Makes me feel a little better about the probability of the Pirates staying out of the cellar, at least in 2012.

Although he writes that it will take a while for them to improve the team, the author seems pretty high on the new Houston front office.

 

[thedddd]

Yea, Stewart had a 13 RC+ last year, didn't think it was possible to be that bad.

He was awful last year, we thought Alvarez was bad he was worse. My thought was complete past career and not just last season.

 

[thedddd]

The guy makes a pretty strong case. Makes me feel a little better about the probability of the Pirates staying out of the cellar, at least in 2012.

Although he writes that it will take a while for them to improve the team, the author seems pretty high on the new Houston front office.

I thought the same thing. The Jed Lowrie deal makes you think they will be pretty Shrewd. I look at that deal if the Pirates would have been able to pull a Lowrie, there would be no Barmes. I think McGehee would still be here but that money for Barmes could have been towards a starting Pitcher (Maholm all or partial Jackson?) or partially towards a real First Baseman.

Not a huge fan of Lowrie because he is yet to prove anything but just the thought of focus on positions/upgrades this team could have been better.