2017 Post Mortem

At the beginning of the season, League Nostalgia ran our rosters through the PECOTA sabermetric system managed by Baseball Prospectus. The results have been nothing but astonishing

PECOTA accurately predicted the final standings in three of the six divisions. And while the final records themselves are a little off, PECOTA was able to nail down the divisions with remarkable accuracy.

In the AL East, PECOTA correctly predicted the final positions within the division, along with a tight battle at the top, with all three top teams forecasted to win 89+ games and being within 4 games of one another. Tampa however, had different plans, and ended up winning the division with a convincing 5.5 games. However, no team in the division topped the 85 wins of Tampa.

In the AL Central, PECOTA again predicated the final standing accurately. The model predicted a tight race with KC winning the division by a mere 1 game over Detroit. However, KC and Detroit both outperformed PECOTA’s projections of 89 and 88 wins, with 99 and 93 wins respectively, as KC cruised to a 6 game lead by the end of the season.

In the National League, PECOTA predicted the NL West perfectly as well, even going as far as to correctly predict the final record for Arizona, 98-64. Arizona was clearly the favorite in the division, running past San Diego, who, in any other year would be proud of a 92-70 season. Such is a heartbreaker.

But PECOTA also “failed” at some projections.

In the AL East, the “fall of Texas” surprised even their owner, let alone the rest of the league. A favorite heading into the season, on the path to a 90 win season, Texas ended up 71-91. A terrible year by Lester and Santana, both significantly underperforming, and a mostly average Strasburg, led Texas’ pitching staff to an awful 4.58 team ERA. Texas also gave up 234 homeruns, second to only Boston’s 239. And perhaps not surprisingly, Boston ended up with a similar final record at 73-89.

In the NL East, nobody could have predicted Philly’s dominance. PECOTA made the simple error of swapping out the two top teams, Philly and Miami, and with Miami’s history of controlling the division, the error was understandable. Miami has been the best team not only in the division, but the best team in the entire league the past two years, with back-to-back World Series titles.

The similarities between Miami and Philly are just as remarkable.

• Miami’s team ERA: 2.72; Philly’s team ERA: 2.74.

• Miami’s team Earned Runs: 450; Philly’s team Earned Runs: 458

• Miami’s runs allowed: 489; Philly’s runs allowed: 495

• Miami’s double plays: 145; Philly’s double plays: 153

The biggest difference between the two teams was the offensive output by Philly. Philly ended up scoring 189 more runs, and out slugged Miami by 136 homeruns. The offensive power of Philly was the clear factor between these two powerhouses.

The NL Central saw Pittsburg run away from the pack, winning the division by a ridiculous 27 games. And while PECOTA projected StL to be a rebuilding team, they only missed their actual win total by 5 wins. But like Texas, nobody could have predicted the demise of the rest of the division. PECOTA projected MIL and CHI to win 85 and 75 wins respectively; however, once real life kicked them in the teeth, they ended up winning merely 67 and 61 games.

137; Milwaukee committed the most errors in the league by a substantial margin, as the second worst team (BAL) only committed 108. Unsurprisingly Napoli was the biggest culprit on the team, committing 22 errors at 1B, followed closely by Danny Valencia at 3B with 16…. in only 78 games. But defense wasn’t Milwaukee’s only albatross. In struts Marcus Stroman into the conversation. In 35 games started, he had a whopping 5.38 ERA. He was 6th in total hits allowed, 2nd in runs allowed, and 5th in number of wild pitches.

All in all, PECOTA got more right then wrong, and outside of some anomalies and outliers, the system seemed to be able to nail the league down. But, now that Shartktopus were victorious and the offseason is approaching, it’s time to reset and refresh and wait to run our next batch of teams through in 2018.