2007 Season Predictions

[BigRapidsJackass]

Clay Davenport has started his "playoff chances" table that runs everyday from now until, well, the playoff clubs clinch:

Postseason Odds

Very interesting: based on the PECOTA projections (HF has warned us about that) the Rockies have about a 1 in 5 chance of making the playoffs either as division winner or the wild card. And that is almost precisely the same chances the evil Dodgers have, and better than the Giants. PECOTA, like lots of other systems, has the D'backs as the favorites.

On an unrelated note, Fox Sports reported that the Rockies offered Kim to the Orioles for mediocre, 36-year old sinkerballer reliever Todd Williams. Amazingly, the Orioles said "no," apparently thinking BK costs too much (and this would be the same club that throws money around at crappy players like there's no tomorrow). If that deal had been done, the Rox BP playoff chances would have dropped overnight. Why does everyone hate BK?

[rockieprogress]

I'm having a real hard time getting over 79 wins.

Lopez is a bust IMO...
Hurdle is a bust in everybodies opinion...
Hoping that young guys in the BP save the team?
Needing another injury-free season from our SP?
Keeping Mabry and Finley?

To get to 79 wins, they'll need to fire Hurdle by May 15th because they'll likely get their butts handed to them by the NLWest in April. The schedule to start, is the Rockies worst nightmare. How they handle it should determine whether or not Hurdle should remain in charge.

As the spring has progressed, I've become more pessimistic.

I think I need a dose of drew's optimism juice

[Heltonfan]

I realized this morning that I had been using the old Coors park factor (around 120) in my team projections, as opposed to the three-year average of 113. This actually makes a substantial difference, since less extreme results at Coors appear to lead to a less devastating hangover effect (which makes perfect sense, of course). Which is to say, the humidor has little or no effect on our hitters' overall numbers (since what we lose at home, we gain on the road), but it has a tremendous effect on the value of those numbers. The lower the Coors park factor, the better off we'll be.

Having fixed this, I now get a projected record of 78-84 for the Rockies. That ought to be the final tweak before the season starts.

[Roxpert]

Heltonfan, that's an interesting fix. Maybe you ought to produce a matrix. On one axis, you could use a range of Coors park factors, and on the other axis, you could use a range of RAR for the most volatile group of players collectively, namely Tulowitski, Iannetta, Matsui, and Lopez. In my view, as that foursome goes, so goes our W/L record (to a large extent).

So, for example, the rows of the matrix would have a Coors park factor of 110 to 150 (in 5 point increments, that would be 10 rows), and your columns could range from -20 RAR (an average of -5 per player) to +80, or whatever you think a best-case scenario is. In 10 run increments, that would be 10 columns. Each cell would have your projected wins for this season.

Depending on how Coors plays this year and how well our players up the middle hit and how Rodrigo Lopez pitches, we could be really disappointing or very surprising, in a good way. A matrix along the lines of what I'm describing (or a variation of it) could illustrate that.

[Heltonfan]

I don't think the notion of individual player volatility is useful at all. That's partly because I'm not at all convinced that we can identify volatile (or stable) players with any accuracy, and partly because the attempts that have been made in that regard (PECOTA) haven't given us any reason to believe that there are large differences between players in their volatility. Besides, I doubt that we could reach a consensus on which players are the most volatile. You named Iannetta, Tulowitzki, Matsui, and Lopez. I'll agree on Tulo, because we're working off a very limited sample there (less than 700 career PA). Same thing applies to Iannetta, to a lesser extent. But Matsui? The only things there that suggest volatility are his Japanese numbers (which I deem too distant to be of relevance) and his 2006 BABIP. And Lopez? Again, if he had had a normal BABIP last year, we'd be calling him a rock-solid #4 starter in the Jeff Suppan mold.

If I'm right about the effect of the humidor on the hangover effect, we'll pick up about 7 runs for every point the Coors park factor drops below what I'm currently using (113; and that's the b-ref park factor, not the simple Home/Road ratio that you like to use). So if Coors plays like it did last year (PF of 107), we ought to win 82 games rather than 78. And if we get just a couple guys to significantly beat their projections (say, +15-20 runs... anything beyond that is pie-in-the-sky nonsense), we're up to 85-86 wins. It's not hard at all to draw up a scenario in which this team is very competitive.

[Roxpert]

Well, of course, you do realize that a lower Coors park factor would be at least partially due to the fact that our offense may be doing better on the road in relation to home. What's the cause and effect here? IMO, it's not the lower Coors park factor that necessarily CAUSES a lower hangover effect.....rather, it's the seasons in which our offense evens out its production on the road versus home that contributes to a lower Coors park factor.

Historically lower Coors park factors, after all, only happen if a) the ratio of our pitching staff's road runs allowed to Coors runs allowed rises relative to other years, and/or b) the ratio of our offense's road runs produced to Coors runs produced rises relative to other years.

In short, it's not the milder and more pitching-friendly Coors, in and of itself, that "allows" our hitters to make an easier transition and adjustment to road hitting conditions, thus mitigating the hangover effect. Instead, it's the years in which our hitters happen to have a collectively good season on the road versus home that CREATES the lower Coors park factors, by historical standards.

At least, that's something to consider. The only way a less "offensive" Coors would really help our hitters on the road is if the humidified balls allow breaking pitches to be thrown with more bite, or break. This may be true, and such movement with those pitches COULD help our hitters adjust to the same types of pitches on the road. So, in reality, a lower Coors park factor could both be a RESULT of our hitters' carrying more of their weight on the road, as well as a CAUSE for that too. I'm really just thinking out loud, and it's late, and I'm tired. But I'm hoping this rambling post made some sense, and you'll incorporate that into your thinking, if you haven't done so already.

(either that, or my mind can't think straight due to UCLA's devastating loss tonight!)

[Heltonfan]

You're absolutely right, the cause-and-effect here is a problem. It's mitigated somewhat by the fact that we're dealing with pretty good samples here (in any given season, we'll have ~3000 PA on the road and ~3000 PA at home), so when we see a dramatic swing in road numbers like what happened last year, it's likely the result of a systematic effect (not just luck)... but it is still a problem. I think the logic is pretty compelling, though: since the hangover effect is a result of the dramatic difference between Coors and other environments, the more "normal" Coors becomes, the less of a problem we should have hitting elsewhere.

In any case, I'm confident that the fix I made to these projections (using the 113 PF rather than the outdated 120) is a proper one. Whether further reductions in the PF will actually help us is a much trickier issue.

[indianadrew]

either that, or my mind can't think straight due to UCLA's devastating loss tonight!

it was not that surprising though. florida pretty much dominated them the whole game. butler has given them the best game so far. my wife is from ohio, so go buckeyes

[Newman]

It's hard to imagine how we'll have a good season.

I'm predicting 78 wins.

Just reading Woody Paige and Troy Renck's recent columns about our starting pitching, it's hard to get beyond that. How can we have a successful season with such bad starting pitching?

More of the same for us. Will we wind up in last place or will the SF Giants have that slot?

8 of the past 9 seasons the Rox have had losing seasons. Looks like more of the same. Let's give Dan O'Dowd another 5 year extension. As Woody pointed out today (and I hardlyever read him) Dealin Dan was rated as the
29th best GM out of 30 in a recent poll. Let's reward him for that achievement

We need new ownership

[Roxpert]

OK, so with Newman now having weighed in, it's time to sum up the preseason predictions for wins mentioned on this thread:

wolf213 - 82
Heltonfan - 78
Roxpert - 75 (and I've also said 73 and 76 in this thread, but 75 was my last)
PECOTA - 80
TheIncredibleRox - 75
DieHardRoxFan - 72
hiaspire - 80
RockieRooter - 83
BigRapidsJackass - 84
GerryInCS - 68
HoyaRoxFan - 83
indianadrew - 85
rockieprogress - 79
Newman - 78
RMF - 86

Thread average (14 predictions, excluding PECOTA) - 79.1

[RMF]

My head says 79 my heart says 86

The official prediction will be 86

My predictions: the offense will be better. U. Jiminez and B Lawrence will be ready to offset the back of the rotation meltdown which will occur in June. However, the organization will make quick and correct replacements.

My surprise prediction is that the bullpen will be solid. They'll blow some games in magnificent fashion. That will be offset by the Rockies storming back to win some games.

The Rockies will be better and have some fantastic situational luck.

[Roxpert]

I've updated the above list of predictions to include RMF's.

[HoyaRoxFan]

Don't know how much stock you folks put in mainstream media sportswriters, but here's a collection of their picks as I find them...

Woody Paige (DP) 78
Troy Renck (DP) 76
Peter Gammons (ESPN) 84
Jayson Stark (ESPN) 77
Jerry Crasnick (ESPN) 74
Buster Olney (ESPN) 74
Rob Neyer (ESPN) 78
Tim Kurkjian (ESPN) 77
Steve Phillips (ESPN) 75
Keith Law (ESPN) 75
Jim Caple (ESPN) 79
Eric Karabell (ESPN) 74
Jeff Passan (Yahoo!) 77
Tim Brown (Yahoo!) 75
Tony DeMarco (MSNBC) 77

"Pro" Average: 76.667 wins

And for what it's worth, though they don't post projected standings, Peter Barzilai and John Tkach of USA Today predict the Rockies will win the NL West...

[Roxpert]

And now for the OFFICIAL Diamond Mind projected standings....

ESPN.com - MLB/PREVIEW07 - Diamond Mind: Projecting the 2007 season


Their 200 simmed seasons produced an average of 77 wins for the Rockies, compared to the 76 wins I got from my 50 season sample. We do make the playoffs in 9.3% of the seasons, just under the 10.6% playoff frequency that my simming got.

The Pro average seen above is also 77 wins. Could the posters here be a bit too optimistic at 79 average wins? Maybe, but fan bias probably is a couple games over objective outside observers and analysts, and our group of forecasts is more sober than you'll see in other Rockies fan polls.

We will know who was more prescient in about 6 months.

[HoyaRoxFan]

I'd love to know why Gammons is so optimistic, but I don't pay ESPN the big bucks to read his columns... Perhaps my single favorite prediction of anything I've seen is buried deep in CBS Sportsline's "expert" page: Major League Baseball - CBS SportsLine.com

Charlie McCarthy, Sportsline's baseball production manager picks Clint Hurdle of the Colorado Rockies to be named Manager of the Year after they move mountains and finish third in the NL West. Now that's a bold statement.

Charlie is better known for his NASCAR beat reporting. No, really?

Buh-bye, March Madness; hello April... let's play ball!