The 2007 Seattle Mariners won 88 games, finishing second in the AL West. In the offseason they added Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva to a rotation that saw Jeff Weaver, Horacio Ramirez, Cha Seung Baek, and Ryan Feierabend combine to make 68 starts last year while compiling a 6.49 ERA.
They did lose a few guys from last year's team, including Jose Guillen (signed with Royals), Ben Broussard (traded to Rangers), Jeff Weaver (unsigned), and George Sherill (Bedard trade). But the additions to the rotation clearlymake up for these losses. In other words, Steve Phillips will likely predict that the Mariners win 90 games.
Baseball Prospectus' projection system, PECOTA, has them winning 73 games.
The issue is not their pitching, which PECOTA has as a little better than league average. The problem is they are projected to score 691 runs, which is the lowest number in the AL.
How does an 88-win team seemingly improve, yet become a 73-win team? A few possibilities:
Pythagorean Record
This is the obvious one. Seattle was outscore by 19 runs last year, and their third-order record was just 78- 84. If you are setting the baseline on the 2008 team at 88, you are wildly overestimating their true talent level.
Ichiro
PECOTA has Ichiro hitting .304/.346/.384, for a VORP of just 14.7. This is a guy with a career line of .333/.379/.437, whose average VORP over the last three years has been 48.1. PECOTA is consistently down on Ichiro (last year it had him at .310/.353/.400; he hit .351/.396/.431), so you have to think they are being unfairly docked a few wins here.
Age
The average age of the 30 MLB teams last year was about 28. Weighted for playing time (from here), the average age of the 2008 Mariners' lineup is 30.3, with Ichiro, Ibanez, Sexson, Vidro Johjima, and Wilkerson all on the wrong side of 30. This is another thing that goes unnoticed by he mainstream media. There is a significant difference between going from 28 to 29, and 30 to 31, and I think that is part of the reason their projection is as low as it is.
Defense
Seattle was 27th in the majors last year with a defensive efficiency of .678. This also goes back to their age- it is likely that they will be just as bad, if not worse, this year, as everybody is a year older, and they traded away a very strong defender in Jones.
73 wins seems a little extreme, but I think a projection of around 76 is entirely reasonable. Either way, articles like this are sure to be written, but we'll have to wait and see if there's a post like this come September.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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2 comments:
Seattle also faired poorly in my seasonal simulations that use 2008 ZIPS projections as data input. Their average win total was 75.28 wins, 4th best in the AL West.
LAA: 85.52
TEX: 82.84
OAK: 79.72
SEA: 75.28
vr, Xeifrank
Seems about right...they way overachieved last year, they got worse hitting-wise this year, and their pitching is better.
They won't touch 80 or 82 wins.
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