Yesterday, in these pages, the Washington Nationals were revealed to be the projected 2014 World Series Champions. So, let’s not bury the lead in the American League. I foresee the Tampa Bay Rays winning the AL pennant. Ask a casual fan who the most consistently excellent team over the last four years has been and I suspect it might be a while until you heard the right answer. Candidates such as the Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers, Rangers, Giants or Cardinals might surface, and while it’s true those half-dozen teams have accounted for the last four World Series titles and all eight pennants, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Rangers are the only team that have won 90 or more games each year since 2010. In fact, stretch it back six years and the Rays have averaged just under 92 wins a year. That’s a remarkable stretch of elite play, but the success of the last four years has been obscured, just like the A’s a decade earlier, by Tampa’s failure to win a single playoff series. That doesn’t effect this year’s regular season however, as Tampa once again will put 90+ win talent on the field. In fact, thanks to a somewhat surprising decision to ‘stand pat’ in the face of a looming payroll squeeze, I think it’s the best team the Rays have fielded of the lot. David Price, Tampa’s ace and former Cy Young Award winner is under his 7[SUP]th[/SUP] and second to last year of team control. Arbitration eligible for the last couple of years, Price has signed a series of one-year contracts including a $14 million deal for 2014 this winter. $14 million may be significantly below market-value for a pitcher with Price’s skills (Clayton Kershaw just signed for more than $30 million a year, over seven years, although he is three years younger than Price) but $14 million represents about 20% of Tampa Bay’s 2014 payroll. As such, two-years of arbitration-eligible Price was a very logical trade chit for Tampa to use to acquire a haul of cheap prospects in return. (Think James Shields for Wil Myers a year earlier, only better.) The Rays didn’t trade Price though and as a result, they have the best rotation in the American League outside of Detroit. It’s filled with high-upside mid-twentysomethings and, as always, it’s backed by the league’s best defense. Here’s a cool comparison of the power of defense comparing the Rays pitching staff with the AL’s best in 2013, the Tigers. Balls in Play Runners DPs Baserunner Kills Tigers 4,059 1,277 135 56 Rays 4,086 1,192 147 58 The Rays staff allowed 27 more balls hit into the field of play, but allowed 85 less runners, and even though there were fewer runners, they erased 14 more of them once they got on base. Put it into a formula and you see that the Rays defense was worth 52 runs or about 5.5 wins more than the Tigers. 5.5 wins is more than the difference, per FanGraphs WAR, between Max Scherzer (6.4 WAR) in 2013 and Jeremy Hellickson (1.4 WAR). In other words, comparing their staff to the Tigers, Tampa’s defense prowess is more than enough, holding all else equal, to make their worst starter as good as the 2013 AL Cy Young Award Winner. It also explains why I have Tampa, and not Detroit, leading the league in runs allowed in 2014. In addition, I love the lineup construction of the balanced offense, and wouldn’t be at all surprised to see (attention fantasy players) Wil Myers push Evan Longoria for offensive MVP. The Rays consistence of regular season excellence is not lost on the oddsmakers who have set a total wins market of 88 ½. I project them to win more, but there are better plays on the menu.
In looking at last year’s team previews I was pretty shocked to read the following conclusion at the end of the Red Sox essay: “There is a path to the playoffs for the Red Sox (it involves a lot of runs scored and competent performances from all five members of the starting rotation) and I don’t think it’s that far-fetched. But you should be getting paid a much better price to back that position.” All through the piece I wrote how the Red Sox had 800 runs-scored potential and sure enough that’s exactly what they did, easily leading the majors with 853 runs scored. Further, they more than overcame my starting pitching caveat, posting a 3.84 ERA, 4[SUP]th[/SUP] best in the American League. The other secret sauce? The bullpen went from being anchored by Alfredo Aceves (2-10, 5.36 ERA and 8 blown saves) in 2012 to Koji UeHERO (4-1, 1.90 ERA and 3 blown saves) last year. Improving a bullpen is the easiest way to make the dramatic leap in the standings from one year to the next that Boston did last year. (I’m looking at you, Seattle.) The point is, the Red Sox didn’t come out of nowhere and they aren’t going to disappear this year, although some regression from a squad that won 97 games and needs to replace Jacoby Ellsbury and very productive departed pieces at shortstop and catcher is highly probable. Oddsmakers had a good read on Boston not just in the preseason but all through the year – no one made money blindly betting on Boston, even early in the year, thanks to inflated lines. I think that’s the case again this year. The Red Sox are equipped to battle the Rays all season for the division and comfortably grab a Wild Card spot if they fall short, but with an over/under market of 87 ½ games, there’s no value in chasing that scenario.
Toronto may not have deserved the hype that accompanied them north, post-Spring Training, after their splashy acquisitions of a reigning Cy Young Award winner in R.J. Dickey and a consistent all-star in Jose Reyes, but neither were they really a 74-win team either. They may have finished in last place for the first time since 2004 (first time in a decade? That surprised me, frankly) but poor health cost the team a lot of production last year, and I think, with much more muted expectations, better things are in store in 2014. This may be the one year the window is open for this roster because with the exception of Brett Lawrie, all of the needed contributions on offense will come from players who are over 30 now (Reyes, Encarnacion, Bautista) or who will be 30 by season’s end (Melky Cabrera). The lineup is solid enough to produce more than 750 runs as long as they don’t have to give 18 different players at least 100 plate appearances like they did last year. Almost certainly though, pitching will prevent Toronto from maintaining any sort of meaningful differential between runs scored and runs allowed – a requirement to project an over .500 finish. There is more upside here than there is perhaps at some with some other teams pegged to finish somewhere around the .500 level, but Toronto’s market of 79 ½ strikes me as pretty fair. Pass.
Widely regarded a year ago as the luckiest team to ever win 93 games in a season and the least-qualified of all the 2012 playoff entrants, the Baltimore Orioles regressed 8 games last year to 85 wins and missed the playoffs. So, last year karma paid the Orioles back for their good luck in 2012 right? Not exactly. Famed stock analyst Gordon Gekko might take a look at the 2013 Orioles, compare the data to the 2012 squad and say, “not bad for a quant but it’s a dog with different fleas.” You see, while the Orioles got lucky in 2012 in terms of how their runs scored and allowed translated into wins, in 2013 they got lucky in terms of the actual runs they scored and allowed. In other words, in 2012 Baltimore outscored its opponents by 7 runs, a differential that is expected to result in 82 wins. (Per Bill James Pythagorean Theorem.) Last year, there was no such Pythag Luck. The O’s outscored their opponents by 36 runs, which leads to an expected win total of 85 games, exactly what they won. The trouble is, the Orioles underlying stats suggests they were lucky, by a wide margin, to have scored and allowed the run totals that they posted. In 2012 it was Pythag luck; in 2013 it was cluster luck. After I normalize for cluster luck the Orioles runs scored/allowed goes from 745/709 to 727/742 and an expected win total of 79 wins. Starting from that benchmark, the loss of Manny Machado for at least a month is quite damaging considering he was the second most valuable everyday player for Baltimore last year. His September knee injury was gruesome and while advances in surgical techniques have progressed to such incredible lengths that Machado won’t just be back this year, he may only miss a month. Still, one must wonder if it will take more than a season to get back to 6.0 WAR production. The lineup has some nice pieces, especially if Matt Wieters would finally take ‘the leap’ at age 27, but the starting rotation is even messier than the Blue Jays and that should hamper any effort to get in the playoff chase.
Widely regarded a year ago as the luckiest team to ever win 93 games in a season and the least-qualified of all the 2012 playoff entrants, the Baltimore Orioles regressed 8 games last year to 85 wins and missed the playoffs. So, last year karma paid the Orioles back for their good luck in 2012 right? Not exactly. Famed stock analyst Gordon Gekko might take a look at the 2013 Orioles, compare the data to the 2012 squad and say, “not bad for a quant but it’s a dog with different fleas.” You see, while the Orioles got lucky in 2012 in terms of how their runs scored and allowed translated into wins, in 2013 they got lucky in terms of the actual runs they scored and allowed. In other words, in 2012 Baltimore outscored its opponents by 7 runs, a differential that is expected to result in 82 wins. (Per Bill James Pythagorean Theorem.) Last year, there was no such Pythag Luck. The O’s outscored their opponents by 36 runs, which leads to an expected win total of 85 games, exactly what they won. The trouble is, the Orioles underlying stats suggests they were lucky, by a wide margin, to have scored and allowed the run totals that they posted. In 2012 it was Pythag luck; in 2013 it was cluster luck. After I normalize for cluster luck the Orioles runs scored/allowed goes from 745/709 to 727/742 and an expected win total of 79 wins. Starting from that benchmark, the loss of Manny Machado for at least a month is quite damaging considering he was the second most valuable everyday player for Baltimore last year. His September knee injury was gruesome and while advances in surgical techniques have progressed to such incredible lengths that Machado won’t just be back this year, he may only miss a month. Still, one must wonder if it will take more than a season to get back to 6.0 WAR production. The lineup has some nice pieces, especially if Matt Wieters would finally take ‘the leap’ at age 27, but the starting rotation is even messier than the Blue Jays and that should hamper any effort to get in the playoff chase.
With the entire starting lineup on the wrong side of 30, except Scott Sizemore, and at age 29 he’s just barely a ‘youngster’, the Yankees are fielding an unprecedented lineup in terms of average age. Unprecedented in baseball, and maybe even all of sports, that is. However, the concept of throwing together a bunch of aging former stars has been tried in other art forms. Be warned Yankees fans, Last Vegas was a critical and box-office flop. Oddsmakers’ expectations: Everyone from baseball insiders to bettors with Las Vegas-based leanings like to make fun of the perceived-less-than-sharp markets that come out of the Reno-based Atlantis Casino, the first shop to post total wins over/under markets on MLB teams. As we’ll see as this series goes on however, I foresee the Atlantis having a smaller forecasting error at the end of the year than any other oddsmaker. The Yankees market is a perfect example. The Atlantis opened them at 83 ½ games. The LVH in Las Vegas, which has always functioned as the official line for my preview series opened them at 85 ½ while most other sportsbooks have since drifted the line higher. My New York-based Bookmaker, as well as the overseas gold-standard, Pinnacle Sports has them listed at 87 wins with a slight discount on the under side of the bet. As you might guess from my preview, I strongly liked the under . . . in Reno. At the current market of 87 wins, an under bet on the Yankees is not only my strongest play this year, it ranks at least as strong as last year’s top-conviction plays, and eventual easy winners, under Toronto and over Cleveland.
