MLB Betting: Looking back and looking ahead
Just one more week until the football season is over and attention can finally be turned in earnest to baseball. So what did we learn from 2008 that might help us as we venture into 2009?
A couple of weekends from now I will turn my rudimentary baseball simulation program on and watch it spit out projections for the 2009 season. Calling it ‘rudimentary’ might be a bit positive since the program is only as smart as its master, and that master happens to be me.
Some of the faults I can improve, and have. But the biggest imperfection is the simple fact the simulations rely on a computer making in-game managerial decisions instead of a human. With 2,430 games to simulate to complete a season, my estimation is it would take me or anyone else about 500 hours to sit and run each game individually in order to get a human manager in the mix. And since I run five simulations, well, you can do the math.
As it is, I spend about 40 hours inputting the bulk of the data and it takes the computer about an hour to run each simulation.
So it is what it is, and for the past few seasons the results of the simulations have been posted up for all to see here at SBR. So for week I’m going to revisit the numbers that were spit out before the 2008 season, compare them to what actually happened and toss out conjecture as to what went wrong or right. I’m starting with the AL East and then the NL East for no other reason than those were the groups that matched up in the World Series.
(If you want to check out all of the previews that were posted last year, search 2008 MLB Preview in these forums.)
The two East Divisions are a good place to start for more reasons than they provided the eventual pair of pennant winners in the Phillies and Rays. One is we will see a couple of glaringly incorrect projections, as well some projections that were pretty spot on. These two divisions also receive the most attention from both the media and the public season in, season out. Right or wrong, that’s just the way it is, and it is reflected in both futures and single game odds.
AL EAST
(Team, Avg Sim Wins / Actual Wins)
Tampa Bay (73.8 / 97.0)
Nothing like starting off with a whopper of a bad projection. The Rays started a bit slow, sitting 8-11 on Apr 20, and then got things in gear to end a Cinderella season in which the clock didn’t strike midnight until they had won the AL Pennant and reached the World Series where they fell to the Phils. Manager Joe Maddon was eventually given a lot of credit for getting the perennial losers to believe in themselves as a very young starting rotation far exceeded expectations, and could be even better this year with David Price along for the whole ride, and eventual AL Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria fueled an offense that finished fourth in the league in homers (180), fourth in on-base (.340) and first in steals (142).
The previous 10 seasons had seen the club produce more than 69 wins just once and finish out of the AL East basement just once. So it was very easy to expect another losing season. Those expectations were not only forecast by me and just about every other prognosticator out there last spring, but also were likely anticipated by the other teams in the AL East. That won’t be the case this year, making a repeat performance unlikely. The Rays still play in the same division as the Red Sox and Yankees, two teams that will be out to keep them from the top this season.
One thing is for certain: Tampa won’t be getting +2800 to win the division this spring like they were drawing last year (+5500 to win the AL, +8500 to win it all).
Boston (92.6 / 95.0)
Even with injuries that cost several key players such as David Ortiz, Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett some action, a total down season for catcher and team captain Jason Varitek, and the antics of Manny Ramirez that saw the Sox cut the cancerous tumor from their roster in a July trade to the Dodgers, Boston still enjoyed an excellent 2008 campaign. Stepping up to make that happen were players like Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and a strong bullpen led by closer Jonathan Papelbon.
The O/U line for wins was around 94, and two of my five simulations did exceed that with one ‘worst case scenario’ dragging the average down to the 92.6 mark. They started the season in the +450 to +500 range to win a second consecutive World Series, and almost made it to the event before falling in seven to the Rays in the ALCS.
They have addressed some of their starting pitching this winter by signing Brad Penny and John Smoltz, though the jury is still definitely out on both coming off injuries. And they still have to figure out their catching situation with recent rumors suggesting they were exploring trade options to land Jarrod Saltalamacchia from the Rangers.
New York (89.2 / 89.0)
For the second year in a row, I cashed an Under ticket on the Yankees’ win total. The totals in each season ranged from 96-97½, and the team on the field has responded with 94 and 89 wins respectively. So it will be very interesting to see where the number lands in a few weeks. One can only assume that after bringing in C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett this winter in a $400 million spending spree, the bar could be set at 98 or higher.
And it doesn’t appear New York is finished shopping. Some of the latest rumors from FOX say the Yanks are looking at both right-handers Ben Sheets and Juan Cruz to add to a pitching staff that ranked eighth in the AL in ERA (4.28) and shuffled 27 different arms on and off their mound. Though the offense and defense wasn’t blameless, the mound was their Achilles.
This roster certainly could win 100 games or more this season when there will be a lot of excitement over the opening of their new stadium. But with that excitement will come even more pressure than usual. A lot of that pressure will be on Sabathia and Teixeira, as well as veterans like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez. But most of the pressure will fall on manager Joe Girardi who I doubt can survive a second year missing the playoffs. Hank and Hal Steinbrenner no doubt have him on speed dial.
Toronto (83.0 / 86.0)
Poor Blue Jays. For years now they have played third fiddle in the AL East behind the Yankees and Red Sox, and now it looks as though they’ve been moved to fourth chair in the quintet with the Rays coming of age. After getting off to a 35-39 start and basically being buried in the back of the division by the All-Star break, the Blue Jays canned manager John Gibbons and brought back Cito Gaston from their glory days in the early-mid 90s. And the club did respond to the move going 51-37 from that point on.
But it will take more than Gaston this year. With Burnett departing for the Yankees and Shaun Marcum out most if not all of 2009 following Tommy John surgery, two holes in the rotation will need to be filled behind Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch. The bullpen, an underrated group in ’08, returns virtually intact, and the offense should benefit from full seasons from both Aaron Hill, who missed almost 100 games with post-concussion syndrome, and Adam Lind.
Still, it would take just about everything going right for this club to overcome Tampa, Boston and New York. Even finishing second in that group and being in the Wild Card hunt seems unlikely. I’m already thinking Under if the win total comes out 80½ or higher.
Baltimore (67.2 / 68.0)
What a sad, sad franchise the Orioles have become. It’s easy, and accurate, to place a lot of that blame on owner Peter Angelos. After all, he’s the man ultimately in charge of hiring the right folks to run the club. But even if he had hired the right people, some plain old bad luck has also played into this club’s demise since the 1996-97 seasons. Curse of Jeffrey Maier, perhaps?
Pitching was the culprit and probably will be again this season. The staff ranked next-to-last in the AL in ERA (5.15), and dead last in home runs allowed (184), walks issued (687) and strikeouts recorded (922). It’s a fly ball staff for the most part, and you can’t get away with that unless you are very good at not putting men on via the free pass.
There is some optimism on offense with the likes of Nick Markakis, Adam Jones and Brian Roberts. If Felix Pie can catch on and realize his potential, it will be even better. But right now, anything less than a 90-loss season would be an achievement.
Just one more week until the football season is over and attention can finally be turned in earnest to baseball. So what did we learn from 2008 that might help us as we venture into 2009?
A couple of weekends from now I will turn my rudimentary baseball simulation program on and watch it spit out projections for the 2009 season. Calling it ‘rudimentary’ might be a bit positive since the program is only as smart as its master, and that master happens to be me.
Some of the faults I can improve, and have. But the biggest imperfection is the simple fact the simulations rely on a computer making in-game managerial decisions instead of a human. With 2,430 games to simulate to complete a season, my estimation is it would take me or anyone else about 500 hours to sit and run each game individually in order to get a human manager in the mix. And since I run five simulations, well, you can do the math.
As it is, I spend about 40 hours inputting the bulk of the data and it takes the computer about an hour to run each simulation.
So it is what it is, and for the past few seasons the results of the simulations have been posted up for all to see here at SBR. So for week I’m going to revisit the numbers that were spit out before the 2008 season, compare them to what actually happened and toss out conjecture as to what went wrong or right. I’m starting with the AL East and then the NL East for no other reason than those were the groups that matched up in the World Series.
(If you want to check out all of the previews that were posted last year, search 2008 MLB Preview in these forums.)
The two East Divisions are a good place to start for more reasons than they provided the eventual pair of pennant winners in the Phillies and Rays. One is we will see a couple of glaringly incorrect projections, as well some projections that were pretty spot on. These two divisions also receive the most attention from both the media and the public season in, season out. Right or wrong, that’s just the way it is, and it is reflected in both futures and single game odds.
AL EAST
(Team, Avg Sim Wins / Actual Wins)
Tampa Bay (73.8 / 97.0)
Nothing like starting off with a whopper of a bad projection. The Rays started a bit slow, sitting 8-11 on Apr 20, and then got things in gear to end a Cinderella season in which the clock didn’t strike midnight until they had won the AL Pennant and reached the World Series where they fell to the Phils. Manager Joe Maddon was eventually given a lot of credit for getting the perennial losers to believe in themselves as a very young starting rotation far exceeded expectations, and could be even better this year with David Price along for the whole ride, and eventual AL Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria fueled an offense that finished fourth in the league in homers (180), fourth in on-base (.340) and first in steals (142).
The previous 10 seasons had seen the club produce more than 69 wins just once and finish out of the AL East basement just once. So it was very easy to expect another losing season. Those expectations were not only forecast by me and just about every other prognosticator out there last spring, but also were likely anticipated by the other teams in the AL East. That won’t be the case this year, making a repeat performance unlikely. The Rays still play in the same division as the Red Sox and Yankees, two teams that will be out to keep them from the top this season.
One thing is for certain: Tampa won’t be getting +2800 to win the division this spring like they were drawing last year (+5500 to win the AL, +8500 to win it all).
Boston (92.6 / 95.0)
Even with injuries that cost several key players such as David Ortiz, Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett some action, a total down season for catcher and team captain Jason Varitek, and the antics of Manny Ramirez that saw the Sox cut the cancerous tumor from their roster in a July trade to the Dodgers, Boston still enjoyed an excellent 2008 campaign. Stepping up to make that happen were players like Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and a strong bullpen led by closer Jonathan Papelbon.
The O/U line for wins was around 94, and two of my five simulations did exceed that with one ‘worst case scenario’ dragging the average down to the 92.6 mark. They started the season in the +450 to +500 range to win a second consecutive World Series, and almost made it to the event before falling in seven to the Rays in the ALCS.
They have addressed some of their starting pitching this winter by signing Brad Penny and John Smoltz, though the jury is still definitely out on both coming off injuries. And they still have to figure out their catching situation with recent rumors suggesting they were exploring trade options to land Jarrod Saltalamacchia from the Rangers.
New York (89.2 / 89.0)
For the second year in a row, I cashed an Under ticket on the Yankees’ win total. The totals in each season ranged from 96-97½, and the team on the field has responded with 94 and 89 wins respectively. So it will be very interesting to see where the number lands in a few weeks. One can only assume that after bringing in C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett this winter in a $400 million spending spree, the bar could be set at 98 or higher.
And it doesn’t appear New York is finished shopping. Some of the latest rumors from FOX say the Yanks are looking at both right-handers Ben Sheets and Juan Cruz to add to a pitching staff that ranked eighth in the AL in ERA (4.28) and shuffled 27 different arms on and off their mound. Though the offense and defense wasn’t blameless, the mound was their Achilles.
This roster certainly could win 100 games or more this season when there will be a lot of excitement over the opening of their new stadium. But with that excitement will come even more pressure than usual. A lot of that pressure will be on Sabathia and Teixeira, as well as veterans like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez. But most of the pressure will fall on manager Joe Girardi who I doubt can survive a second year missing the playoffs. Hank and Hal Steinbrenner no doubt have him on speed dial.
Toronto (83.0 / 86.0)
Poor Blue Jays. For years now they have played third fiddle in the AL East behind the Yankees and Red Sox, and now it looks as though they’ve been moved to fourth chair in the quintet with the Rays coming of age. After getting off to a 35-39 start and basically being buried in the back of the division by the All-Star break, the Blue Jays canned manager John Gibbons and brought back Cito Gaston from their glory days in the early-mid 90s. And the club did respond to the move going 51-37 from that point on.
But it will take more than Gaston this year. With Burnett departing for the Yankees and Shaun Marcum out most if not all of 2009 following Tommy John surgery, two holes in the rotation will need to be filled behind Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch. The bullpen, an underrated group in ’08, returns virtually intact, and the offense should benefit from full seasons from both Aaron Hill, who missed almost 100 games with post-concussion syndrome, and Adam Lind.
Still, it would take just about everything going right for this club to overcome Tampa, Boston and New York. Even finishing second in that group and being in the Wild Card hunt seems unlikely. I’m already thinking Under if the win total comes out 80½ or higher.
Baltimore (67.2 / 68.0)
What a sad, sad franchise the Orioles have become. It’s easy, and accurate, to place a lot of that blame on owner Peter Angelos. After all, he’s the man ultimately in charge of hiring the right folks to run the club. But even if he had hired the right people, some plain old bad luck has also played into this club’s demise since the 1996-97 seasons. Curse of Jeffrey Maier, perhaps?
Pitching was the culprit and probably will be again this season. The staff ranked next-to-last in the AL in ERA (5.15), and dead last in home runs allowed (184), walks issued (687) and strikeouts recorded (922). It’s a fly ball staff for the most part, and you can’t get away with that unless you are very good at not putting men on via the free pass.
There is some optimism on offense with the likes of Nick Markakis, Adam Jones and Brian Roberts. If Felix Pie can catch on and realize his potential, it will be even better. But right now, anything less than a 90-loss season would be an achievement.
One can tell you follow this sport closer than the average fan. 
Looking forward to reading the other divisions. 
