One-month buy or sell report: MLB myths and realities

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One-month buy or sell report: MLB myths and realities

Joe Peta
Special to ESPN.com
ESPN INSIDER

With one-sixth of the MLB regular season completed, it's not too early to look for clues to the sustainability of a team's pleasantly surprising or worrisome start. Early looks at the baseball season are a breeding ground for overanalysis and overreaction, but even this early, it looks safe to say that the battle to cash an "over" ticket on the San Francisco Giants was over before it began.

Individual pitching stabilizes faster than hitters' results, but even so only a handful of starters have faced 150 batters as of the end of April. However, team performance is simply the sum of individual output, and a healthy amount of one player's unsustainable pace, either good or bad, is often offset by someone else on the other side of the ledger. Ryan Zimmerman's 1.344 OPS may look ridiculous versus his last decade of production, but so does the 5.70 ERA the Nationals' bullpen is currently sporting.

So with an eye for accounting for those types of outliers, let's take a look at five teams with unexpected starts and take a shot at deciding whether to modify, abandon, or double-down on their spring training outlooks for the rest of the season.<offer style="box-sizing: border-box;"></offer>
Records and statistics are reflective of all games played through Sunday, April 30.


New York Yankees

Vegas projection: 83 wins
My projection: 79 wins
Current record/pace: 15-8 (106-win pace)

Yankees skipper Joe Girardi has managed to keep the franchise's astounding string of 24 consecutive winning seasons alive the last four seasons with a combination of sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors. While that has earned him the admiration of fans and analysts, and allowed him to maintain his job, the teams he's fielded haven't been fun to watch for the last few years. Attendance at Yankee Stadium underscores that as well. New York hasn't drawn 4 million fans since 2008 and last year's figure barely exceeded 3 million. Even if the Yankees don't maintain the 100-win pace they're currently on, all of that should change this year. This Yankees team is loads of fun to watch.


Truly the Bronx Bombers again, the Yankees lead the American League in runs scored and they're doing it with the take and rake mentality they exhibited during their dynastic run of success bookending the turn of the century. They're second in the majors in walk rate while leading the American League in home runs, led by the mammoth home runs off the bat of 6-foot-7 Aaron Judge. Thanks to the incredible data Statcast supplies, we know Judge has the most home runs in the majors (7) that would have been round trippers in all 30 major league parks.

No-doubt-about-it homers contribute to appointment TV when Judge is batting, but just as encouraging for Yankees fans counting on a return to the postseason is the work of the rotation. Michael Pineda and Luis Severino are posting strikeout rates in excess of 30 percent while walking no more than 4 percent of the batters they face. That's helped the rotation flash the fourth-lowest SIERA in the majors -- an encouraging indicator of its future ERA, assume no change in personnel. Further, the bullpen is sixth in SIERA allowing the entire staff to post the second-lowest SIERA in the majors. You may quibble about projecting future ERAs based off of the collective individual results over 26 games, but know that the Yankees SIERA is sandwiched between the pitching staffs of the Indians and Dodgers, both of which appeared at the top of nearly everyone's best staffs before the season started.
The offensive improvement is real and exciting and that's with little or no contribution from Gary Sánchez (due to injury), Gregory Bird (due to ineffectiveness) and last year's National League home run champ, Chris Carter (ditto). But it's the results of the pitching staff that call into question my preseason call that the Yankees will be outscored by their opponents over the course of the season. With the best run differential in the American League, that looks unlikely going forward.

Myth or reality: A 100-win pace may not be realistic, but the Yankees start which has positioned them as both a playoff team and an AL East contender is reality. Whether you'll find any value betting on them on a daily basis is another matter entirely. The Yankees have faced a tougher-than-average schedule to date and yet they've been priced as an 88-win team by oddsmakers, season-to-date. That's obviously much higher than the 83-win tag placed on them before the season started and makes finding value going forward a daunting task.


Colorado Rockies

Vegas projection: 80 1/2 wins
My projection: 76 wins
Current record/pace: 16-10 (100-win pace)

My bearish outlook on the Rockies this season resulted entirely from viewing their 2016 offensive results through a home and away lens. Second in the majors in total runs scored, they dropped all the way to 22nd when you examine just their road games, and they were only eight runs away from finishing 27th. While not quite as pronounced after 26 games this year, the story is similar; the Rockies are an average offensive team on the road while among the highest-scoring at home.
Of course their opponents get to bat in Coors Field too, and while their start has been encouraging, especially given the absence of free-agent signing Ian Desmond, Colorado has not outscored its opponents in 2017. Particularly worrisome for fans is that a bullish 2017 outlook for the team rested largely on a rotation that was supposed to minimize the effects of Coors by striking out more batters and inducing ground balls. Five turns through the rotation and that's hardly been the case. The Rockies starters have the lowest strikeout rate in the majors and even though the rotation's ground ball tendencies are definitely present (3rd in the majors) and the bullpen has been solid, the anemic strikeout rate is going to make it hard to outscore opponents.
Along with the bullpen, the defense has been an area of improvement as well, but it's still performing as just a league-average unit. They're going to need more than that if they want to lift the rotation to a level of competence that will allow them to realistically finish above .500 and contend in a division which has seen once of its preseason favorites implode. The problem is that within that same division, it's the Arizona Diamondbacks that look more balanced and therefore more capable of maintaining a contending pace.

Myth or reality: Maybe this is going to be like the Rangers last year who confounded data-driven analysts with a winning record while struggling to outscore its opponents. For now however, I see a team that looks exactly what I thought they'd be this year: Overrated offensively thanks to Coors Field with a questionable ability to outscore their opponents. Nothing about their first 26 games has changed that view. Colorado is not outscoring its opponents and nearly the entire over-.500 record is attributable to beating up on the badly-damaged San Francisco Giants six out of seven games. Their start, if it has anyone thinking the postseason is a realistic destination, is a myth.


Chicago White Sox

Vegas projection: 70 wins
My projection: 70 wins
Current record/pace: 13-10 (92-win pace)

The White Sox start doesn't surprise me. I may not have recommended an over bet on Chicago's American League-low wins total this year, but it had nothing to do with the talent that's currently on the field for the White Sox. It had everything to do, however, with the talent that may be on the field after the All-Star break.

Given the prospect haul they received for Chris Sale and Adam Eaton, it's impossible to fault the front office for the offseason teardown. But it obscured the fact that the White Sox were one of 2017's true legitimate MLB dark horses, absent those trades. They're showing flashes of that potential this year.

Chicago has allowed the fewest runs in the majors, even without Sale making five starts because their defense, which showed huge improvement last year, ranks second in the majors so far in 2017. This year's defensive performance doesn't look fluky either. Looking at the first month of the season in weekly chunks, the White Sox are one of just three teams (Angels, Marlins) who have not had a single week of below-average adjusted-defensive performance.

To be sure, the individual weaknesses of each starter hasn't gone away even if James Shields is carrying a 1.62 ERA into the month of May. But stellar defense and a fantastic bullpen can carry just about any rotation to a .500 record and that's what's happening in Chicago. And what a bullpen it's been so far. Not only has it posted the best results of any pen in the majors (1.94 ERA) they've also flashed the best skill sets, as reflected in their MLB-best SIERA of 2.72, a much better predictor of future ERA.
In their preview, I reasoned that if the White Sox were going to be priced as a 70-win team in the regular season, I viewed that as a much better way to play a bullish view on the White Sox as opposed to making a win totals bet and then worrying about what assets they might shed in-season. Sure enough, the White Sox were priced as a 69-win team in April. Going 11-8 in games, that they were an underdog may only sound mildly impressive, but it was good for a net win tally of 8.46 units thanks to their daily status as not just an underdog but a substantial underdog.

Myth or reality: This really depends what lens you want to view the White Sox through. Are they a Wild Card threat? Absolutely not, as the rotation and a low-scoring offense can only take this team so far. But in these pages, we deal with price and expectations more than anything else and from that perspective, the reality is that unless oddsmakers adjust their pricing upwards on the White Sox, consistent value will remain on a daily basis.


Toronto Blue Jays

Vegas projection: 85 1/2 wins
My projection: 85 wins
Current record/pace: 8-17 (52-win pace)

Maybe there's a reason no one has attempted to replicate the Yankees' remarkable feat of perennially contending for MLB dominance with lineups that average greater than 30-years old. As pointed out in their spring preview, the Blue Jays very quietly fielded the oldest lineup in baseball last season, wresting that distinction away from New York for the first time in decades. At the same time, the offense scored 132 fewer runs than the year before but it was masked by a postseason berth, driven by a rotation with the lowest ERA in the American League.

A bearish view on the Blue Jays this year almost certainly would have centered on an implosion in the rotation which didn't have skills anywhere close to the ERA they collectively posted. Sure there's been some regression, but the rotation is still above league average. It's been the bullpen and age-related declines in the offense and in the field by the everyday lineup that's resulted in Toronto losing two out of every three games they've played this year.

I'm more concerned about the continuation of poor defense than I am in the production from the lineup or the problems with the bullpen. The relievers' skillsets are those of a high-3.00 ERA unit, not high-4.00 where they sit now. While the Blue Jays are old, there's no reason the production of a quartet of their sluggers should suffer dramatic age effects, all at the same time. Yet Russell Martin, Troy Tulowitzki, Kendrys Morales, and Jose Bautista are collectively hitting .218/.313/.344 in 355 plate appearances. Davon Travis, Steve Pearce and Ryan Goins may be as bad as they're playing but when it comes to Martin, Morales, Bautista and Tulowitzki, even with all of them above 30 years of age, there is no expectation that they will collectively hit like a replacement-level catcher for the remainder of the season.

Myth or reality: The Blue Jays decline from a mashing lineup feared by pitching staffs across the league is reality, and the same age-factors which are almost certainly contributing to the offensive decline are in play on defense as well. From a post-season aspiration standpoint, those goals more realistically reside in the Bronx.

That said, I'm not ready to give up on the Blue Jays yet -- at least when it comes to potentially backing them in single games. They may have been pegged by oddsmakers as an 85-win team before the season started but recent pricing suggests (it's too early to call it definitive) that the Blue Jays have been re-graded as a sub-.500 team. That could make them an intriguing value play as the weather gets warm and the older bodies start swinging the bat better.


San Francisco Giants

Vegas projection: 87 1/2 wins My projection: 92 wins Current record/pace: 9-17 (56-win pace)
Yes, they've been that bad and their cloudy outlook going forward can't be waved away as the result of a fluky injury to their ace Madison Bumgarner. Since last year's All-Star break, the Giants have a 39-59 record, worst in the majors. Over their last 98 games, San Francisco has played like a 100-loss team, which is truly astounding when you look at their roster.

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</article>That pace of losing was a little bit harder to figure out during the second half of last season than it is this year. After all, the Giants outscored their opponents during last year's second half. This year however, they are being decisively outscored and the causes are abundant. First, is the defense. The Giants stellar fielding has been the best in baseball over the last three seasons finishing 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd in my adjusted defensive efficiency rating the past three years. This year they are an abysmal 25th. The resulting increase in runs allowed -- and it would approach 70 runs over the course of a season -- makes it impossible for the Giants to overcome a glaring weakness in their lineup. Outside of their offensive core of Hunter Pence, Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey, the Giants have three enormous black holes. Outside the five veterans, the rest of the everyday players are hitting .192/.237/.270 in 459 plate appearances. That's roughly similar to the Cardinals pitching staff which is hitting .205/.205/.273. No team can hope to play .500 ball, let alone harbor postseason aspirations, if they're batting pitchers in four different lineup spots.

Myth or reality: For fans of the recent three-time World Champions, the Giants worst-in-baseball record over the last 100 games reveals an ugly truth: reality bites.
 

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