The ZiPS Projections Midpoint Roundup of Triumph and Shame: The American League
MLB passed the halfway mark of the 2021 season over the long holiday weekend, providing a convenient spot to take a break, look back over the preseason projections, and hopefully not cringe too much about how the predictions are shaking out. Since this is the big midseason update, I used the full-fat ZiPS model for individual players in addition to the normal depth chart reconfiguring, with all the high-fructose algorithms rather than the leaner one used for daily updates.
Let’s start with the American League standings.
Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | #1 Pick | Avg Draft Pos |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Boston Red Sox | 92 | 70 | — | .568 | 46.8% | 34.2% | 81.0% | 8.4% | 0.0% | 24.3 |
Tampa Bay Rays | 91 | 71 | 1 | .562 | 35.1% | 38.5% | 73.5% | 6.8% | 0.0% | 23.4 |
Toronto Blue Jays | 87 | 75 | 5 | .537 | 11.7% | 29.6% | 41.3% | 2.9% | 0.0% | 20.2 |
New York Yankees | 86 | 76 | 6 | .531 | 6.4% | 21.4% | 27.8% | 1.8% | 0.0% | 18.8 |
Baltimore Orioles | 59 | 103 | 33 | .364 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 20.4% | 2.4 |
I was making a “do not panic” argument on behalf of the Yankees back when they were 5–10 and some people were digging for their doomsday preparedness kits, and while it might not be time to find where you left those water purification tablets, the situation is bleaker now than it was three months ago. Not that the team is actually worse; New York has been on an 88-win pace in the games since that reference point. But an 88-win pace isn’t nearly enough to get out of an early-season hole in a division where there are three other teams with more than detectable pulses. Even projected to play solid baseball the rest of the season, the Yankees have gone from the favorite to the projected fourth-place team.