Futures Watch: Week 14

This week:

Oakland, 40:1 (Sportsbook)
Current Record: 45-38
PECOTA Playoff Odds: 49.6%
Tampa Bay, 12:1 (BetUS)
+220 to win the AL East (VIP)
Current Record: 51-32
PECOTA: 92.1%

The statistics above do not reflect today's events.

Does this mean I'm going to have to do series previews every week? I hope not.

The home team is now 12-0 in this year's Rays-Red Sox games. That is a nice little stat which will inevitably get blown out of proportion when they meet again in September. Some even thought it was important enough to make Boston a "contrarian" pick on Wednesday. They were wrong.

By the way, I would imagine it's quite rare to get a team that's five up in the loss column at +220 to win the division. Although if you haven't gotten on board by now, you're probably not in agreement with PECOTA's forecast anyway.

They Rays now have an off day before hosting the Royals for four; the Red Sox are heading to New York for a four game series beginning on Thursday. So that presents another opportunity for the Rays to increase their current 3.85 game lead.

This week's results in Anaheim were not nearly as encouraging, but that probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given the location. If the A's can survive four games this weekend in Chicago, they have a chance to make up some ground next week, as they host Seattle and Los Angeles before the break.

San Francisco, 300:1 (5Dimes)
Current record: 37-47
PECOTA: 4.6%

This isn't how it was supposed to be. The Giants' offense was supposed to score three runs a game, and Lincecum and Cain were going to combine for a 2.75 ERA, and an 11-25 W-L record.

Instead, they're "only" third to last in the NL in both scoring and OPS+. With the exception of shortstop, they haven't suffered any major injuries, and everyone has performed at or above expectations. They're on pace to beat their PECOTA projection of 634 RS by only 20 runs, but that's with scoring down almost 7% across the board in the NL.

The real winners in this--assuming they don't win the division, which would really just be embarrassing for everyone involved--may be Lincecum. He's been as good as advertised, with a 2.38 ERA and 9.4 K/9. Somewhat shockingly, he's gotten an above average amount of run support, at 5.1 R/G. That has allowed him to start 9-1, and he's currently a close third in Cy Young Predictor. It's going to be an uphill climb, but could end up being an intriguing storyline in the second half.

Oh, and unless you really believe the playoffs are a crapshoot, I wouldn't bet on them just yet. Although their rotation would set up quite nicely in October. I must admit, I hadn't thought about that possibility until just now.