Full Court Press

Using my own "statestical" formula, I see the Sox winning spomewhere between 145 and 150 games. This total would be higher except for the fact that, even sans Santana, they still won't beat the Twins.

For the Cubs ... well, it's already over. There's a term for it in horse racing. I believe it's called, "left at the gate".

A prediction of 30 wins for the Cubbies would be overly optimistic, so I'll stick with a more rational figure, like 18.

Lou Pinella will be found hanging from a water pipe in the club house sometime around Memorial Day, and Mark Prior will finish his first season in sunny San Diego with a 24 / 5 record and a Cy Young award.

To add insult to injury, he also wins the World Series MVP, and Steve Bartman gets to hand him the trophy.

I assume that was an incredibly lame attempt at humor by Mark Villano. If not, would you like to bet on any of those moronic statement?

Seriously, were you trying to be funny?

PECOTA does not take into effect the human factor that the games have to be played the player have to play and can anyone or anything project you next passing of gas? Well then PECOTA is flawed it can not see into the humanity of it all. How would it predict whether Thome hits 40 or 5 homers, who's to say one of the kid pitchers becomes a phenom why couldn't Boston have a unpredicted year like the Sox did last year. PECOTA is crap watch the games and remember it's a pastime, not a calculation.

Mr. X asks: "Seriously, were you trying to be funny?"

Seriously ... are you serious?

Or do you just not know any better

With a PECOTA prediction of 89 wins, I'm really surprised that there aren't more lemmings, er ... I mean Cub fans, massaging their Cubbie Chubbies on this blog.

Hope springs eternal in Arizona, although it usually blows a gasket by the time it reaches Wrigley Field.

Dante's inscription should be etched in stone at the gates of this ivory covered Hell.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"

I'll tell you what I like about both of our baseball teams:

We have two of the most interesting, and quotable managers in the league.

Win or lose; they're entertaining.

There's nothing vanilla about Lou or Ozzie.

Does the system explain how the Cubs will increase their slugging pct from .422 in 2007 to .452 in 2008? The increase in OBA from .333 to .343 is reasonable, if Fukodome is in fact a .400 OBA type. If the Cubs did see those increases in offense while their pitching and defense gave up the same as last year, they probably would win 90 games. It might take a bit of cork and steroids to get them to hit the equivalent of the 40 more HRs required to push their slugging pct up by 30 pts though.

Next congressional investigation is preparing to look into the abuse of mind altering substances by sports prognosticators. It would seem they have some evidence that suggests these soothsayers of the sports world gather around an eight legged bong for hours and discuss their visions into the future.

I think the quote is : "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Ummm...what planet are you on where you think the Astros will be "kind of good" ?? What does their pitching staff consist of again?

Mark, I am intrigued by your comments. May I subscribe to your newsletter?

NO NASCAR THREAD TODAY?

Ummmm....i got my day planned.

YeeHaww.....

Mark...is this your personal blog now too?

Mark, please stop trying to be funny. It's not working. Not even close.

hey this pecota guy should be in vegas

Paul sez: I theink the quote is, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

This is open to interupitation:

Wicapedia sez:

There are many English translations of this famous line. Some examples include
All hope abandon, ye who enter here - Henry Francis Cary (1805–1844)
All hope abandon, ye who enter in! - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1882)
Leave every hope, ye who enter! - Charles Eliot Norton (1891)
Leave all hope, ye that enter - Carlyle-Wicksteed (1932)
Lay down all hope, you that go in by me. - Dorothy L. Sayers (1949)
Abandon every hope, you who enter. - Charles S. Singleton (1970)
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here - John Ciardi (1977)
No room for hope, when you enter this place - C. H. Sisson (1980)
Abandon every hope, who enter here. - Allen Mandelbaum (1982)
Abandon all hope, you who enter here - Robert Pinsky (1993)
Abandon every hope, all you who enter - Mark Musa (1995)
Abandon every hope, you who enter. - Robert M. Durling (1996)
All hope abandon, you who enter here. - James Finn Cotter (2000)
Abandon all hope upon entering here! - Marcus Saunders (2004)

Bculz sez: "Mark...is this your personal blog now too?"

No more than it is yours.

Andy asks: "Mark, I am intrigued by your comments. May I subscribe to your newsletter?"

I don't have a newsletter, but if you'd like a copy of my book I'll be happy to oblige. (It's even copyrighted)

Ask Roman to send you an e-mail with my address, and I'll forward a copy of, "JUMP! A Guide For The Existentially Challenged"

You'll love the "Jester" font.

Eddie G sez: "Mark, please stop trying to be funny. It's not working. Not even close."

I'm getting a chuckle out of it.

And that's all that matters.

Roman: This isn't for publication!

I'll gladly forward a copy of my book to you, or anyone else that cares to read it.

No charge.

You have my email address.

You'll laugh; I promise.

Mark

My rationale is simple:
RedSox win in 04 and break their curse.
Whitesox win in 05 and break their curse.
RedSox win again in 07.
WhiteSox win again in 08.

Cubs go to playoffs - get swept.
Whitesox win it all.
Cubs go to playoffs - get swept again.
Whitesox win it all...again.

Not PECOTA, but makes just as much sense.
Go Whitesox!

Us Cub fans have every reason to be optimistic this year. Thanks for the PECOTA stats. They've shown in the past to be relatively close to the actual standings. True, there can always be universe altering circumstances that can come up, however, Mark Prior was let go so I think we'll be okay.

Go Cubs Go!

Ricky.....welcome back! You're a breath of fresh non-irrelevancies to this blog. The Sox being pegged to go 72-90 last year was one of my chief arguing points on FireJay against Mariotti arguing that the Sox were grossly underperforming.

I have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus, and was pretty disappointed by the record, because it actually is based on Carlos Quentin getting the majority of the playing time (7.2 projected VORP in 70% of season) and not Jerry Owens (-2.4 projected VORP in 30% of the season). The actual reasons PECOTA thinks the White Sox won't do that well are that Jermaine Dye will look a lot like he did last season, Konerko is bound for a regression, Thome is bound for a regression, and the starting pitchers have simply brutal projections. Buehrle is pegged for a 4.77 ERA, Contreras is at 5.00 (which is actually lower than I thought), and Danks/Floyd are looking at something in the 5.20-5.30 range. This is why Kenny Williams ultimately failed this offseason. He took the team in a win-now direction, but didn't realize just how many players this failing team needed to turn itself around.

As for the Cubs, a lot is riding on their .400 OBP projection for Fukudome. I personally don't know how they think he's going to draw that many walks (his projected batting average is still below .300), but if his on-base skills translate, the Cubs have picked up the second coming of Carlos Guillen at the plate.

I'm relieved that Jason Marquis will also revert to being a bad pitcher.

Get real. The PECOTA win projection only happened because Crede was out. A typical Crede year would have easily put the Sox near 80 wins.

Think of all that went wrong to reach 72 wins. Bullpen implodes, middle of the lineup well below career avgs, Contra implodes, & defensive replacements at 3B are horrible!

The odds of that all happening again is not likely.

Well...I just thought it weird that you slam me for blogging alot and then proceed to flood the thread with more verbage than me.

Its usually the finger pointer who is the most guilty, so it makes sense.

Anywho

PECOTA win projections:

Okay, how many of you people knew about or what PECOTA projections were before Roman posted this? I am just curious.

Ricky responds: Ricky, not Roman. The last thing I want to do is smear the man's good name. Don't confuse my tomfoolery with his work.

bculz sez: "Well...I just thought it weird that you slam me for blogging alot and then proceed to flood the thread with more verbage than me."

Touche'.

I should keep the vodla bottal away from my computer. Posting While Intoxicated should be a finable offense.

Its Tushay!

Juan,

Great to see you again! Allow me to point out why you are incredibly, incredibly wrong again!

The PECOTA projections occur BEFORE the season. As in assuming Joe Crede never got injured. Joe Crede has never been worth 8.0 wins, his max was around 6, and Fields was worth like 2. Buerhle and Jenks both beat their projections big time, which about cancels out the bullpen grossly underperforming. The middle of the order hitters were PROJECTED to have similar years to what they did.

72-90 was a very reasonable projection in that division given all of those things.

Oh, and by the way, Jerry Owens is projected to have a -2.4 VORP in 30% of the playing time. Now, at the end of the year, when Owens is terrible and PECOTA is right, don't write back saying "hey that's not fair! They predicted that AFTER he sucked this year!"

Ah who am I kidding. You'll probably think he was awesome anyway.

Does the Pecota system have a category for trailer trash facial hair by team, division or league? If so the White sox are a lock to be this years TTWS {trailer trash world series} champions.

Bculz sez: "Its Tushay!"

In what language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch%C3%A9

"Tush-ay" is a gay thing.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

oh...sorry....you mustve missed the whole Touche' vs. Tushay thread a few months ago.

I think ricky or seedy or someone said...Tushay...Tushay...

Noles: The PECOTA projections occur BEFORE the season.

Duh! I'm not surprised my post went over your head.

If you believe Joe Crede has never been worth more than 8 wins to the White Sox you're a fool. Between his play & his timely hitting he was worth at least twice that in 2005-2006. Likewise if you think the difference between Crede of 2006 & Fields of 2007 was just 6 wins you're a bigger fool.

Jenks & Buerhle does NOT make up for the totality of blown games by Sisco, Aardsma, Thorton, MacDougal, Myers, & the rest of the crap that served in the pen. Again you lack any psychological insight of the game suggesting you've never played it. I have. A horrible pen will wreck the pysche of a team a LOT worse than a horrible starter or two.

I'd sure like to see your evidence that Thome-Konerko-Dye-AJ were expected to drop off as much as they did.

Let us mock what we do not understand. PECOTA, thats stupid.

Isn't it funny how these 'nerds' have found ways to actually understand previous preformance and apply it to future performance.

Another funny point is the talk about these statistics don't matter, its what happens on the field. Alright, and there is a word associated with how we track what happens on the field, its called STATISTICS.

Arrrr, caveman brain does not appreciate change. Me like old ways.