FAN Standings 2011
Right around this time last year we looked at how the FAN projections projected the 2010 standings, so now seems to be as good a time as any to take a look at what the 2011 fans have projected the standings to look like based on their individual player projections thus far.
Red Sox 98 Yankees 94 Rays 87 Baltimore 81 Blue Jays 79 Twins 87 Tigers 83 White Sox 79 Cleveland 73 Royals 68 Rangers 85 Angels 79 Athletics 78 Mariners 76 Phillies 90 Marlins 85 Mets 84 Braves 82 Nationals 74 Brewers 84 Cardinals 83 Cubs 82 Reds 80 Pirates 71 Astros 60 Rockies 90 Giants 84 Padres 80 Dodgers 79 Diamondbacks 75
Once again, the fan ballots were a bit optimistic and needed to be scaled back a bit to make the win totals look realistic.
The Braves look obviously low to me (maybe there’s something weird going on there) and the fans really have their hopes up for the Rockies, but I’m pretty pleased with how these came out.
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
I don’t think the Yankees win 94 if they had signed Cliff Lee, #optimism
BAL w/ 81 wins. They will be much better, but I don’t buy .500 quite yet.
unless their pitching improves a LOT, i don’t see them above the Jays
Yeah I like the O’s hitters/fielders over the jays, but the pitching is def. better right now in toronto
The fans in general like their offense/defense enough (top half) and project their pitching to be a little below average.
Orioles had the 4th best record in baseball (best in AL East) from August 1st on. They were beat up last year. They have a good team. I can easily see them winning 81 games and finishing ahead of the Blue Jays.
Can we get a rough idea how the FANS did last year?
Team Wins
Yankees 98
Red Sox 94
Rays 92
Orioles 78
Blue Jays 71
Twins 82
White Sox 79
Tigers 78
Indians 76
Royals 73
Rangers 84
Mariners 83
Athletics 81
Angels 80
Braves 89
Phillies 84
Marlins 80
Mets 78
Nationals 72
Cardinals 88
Cubs 78
Brewers 78
Reds 77
Astros 72
Pirates 68
Rockies 87
Diamondbacks 87
Dodgers 84
Giants 80
Padres 79
Team, Wins Difference (Actual-Fans, sorted by desc. wins)
Philadelphia, 13
Tampa Bay, 4
NY Yankees, -3
Minnesota, 12
San Francisco, 12
Cincinnati, 14
Atlanta, 2
San Diego, 11
Texas, 6
Boston, -5
Chicago Sox, 9
St. Louis, -2
Toronto, 14
Colorado, -4
Detroit, 3
Oakland, 0
Florida, 0
LA Angels, 0
LA Dodgers, -4
NY Mets, 1
Milwaukee, -1
Houston, 4
Chicago Cubs, -3
Washington, -3
Cleveland, -7
Kansas City, -6
Baltimore, -12
Arizona, -22
Seattle, -22
Pittsburgh, -11
Are we sure that list is correct? Who in their right mind was predicting the Phillies for 84 wins last year? That looks like a typo for 94 or something. It just seems very odd to take a team that won 93 games, replaced Feliz with Polanco, and replaced Lee with Halladay, then people predicted 9 LESS wins? If that’s not a typo, that’s just plain weird.
Source: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/quick-fan-standings/
Multiple people in the comments thought the Phillies projection was low, and they were proven correct.
Would be nice if the same was true for the Braves this year.
The pessimistic view of the Jays continues. I predicted they’d win over 80 last year, and do so again this year. Baltimore’s pitching still needs another year to get to Jays level, and the back end of the Jays rotation is excellent in comparison to all in AL East aside form TB. Snider, Hill, and Lind, as well as mid-season addition Lawrie, will all make the Jays a better club in 2011 than it was in 2010.
82-88 wins for the Jays is more like it.
I agree – I see the Jays as the sleeper out of the AL East this year. I am predicting they finish 2nd in the East and are in the wild card hunt til the end.
The Jays starting pitching improves simply because everyone is on the upside of their player life cycle. The relief corp is stronger than last year.
Offensively, you can expect better production from 1B (Lind vs Overbay), 2B (Hill bouncing back), 3B (Bautista vs EE), LF (full season of maturing & improving Snider); comparable production from SS, CF and Catcher. Pivera will not be a productive a JBau, but overall, I see an improved team.
Yankees and TBay regress this year. I’m not pick the Jays to win the WC, but they’ll be in the hunt in September.
just because they are better this year doesn’t mean they have a better record. The AL east has gotten (terrifying as it is) better this year, with the exception of the rays.
Something tells me that Florida and Philly will be separated by more than 5 games.
florida has a lot of good young talent and what could be a surprisingly food rotation.
Mmmmm Food rotation.
Yes, they will be rather tasty fish, pan seared with a bit of lemon.
I do quite like their rotation though. Offense…not as much. Uggla leaving is going to hurt and Infante’s (if he takes his place) defense isn’t spectacular/able to make up for the power hole. Stanton might though. Somewhat.
I think CWS look a little low. I see them winning between 83-86 games.(I think Min, CWS and DET will all be around there) I’d probably shave a few wins off of KC and put them to Chicago. I maybe a bit pessimistic when it comes to KC but I just don’t see them not losing atleast 95 games this year.
Something tells me that the fans took ten wins away from the Braves and handed them to the Mets.
As a Mets fan, I think we will finish within 3 games of .500, either way, but I expect the Braves to finish around 88-92 wins. Heyward’s going to be even better when not playing injured, but I think you will lose some games due to infield defense.
These projections always leave teams too bunched together- seems like more than four teams always win 90, and more than two teams win fewer than 70. I personally would be surprised to see Kansas City lower than Houston given the disparity in their pitching abilities.
You always have to regress to the mean heavily when you do projections, or else you’re likely to be very inaccurate.
true. that actually makes this whole thing make a lot more sense when you consider that. I mean a lot of the “good teams” looked too low, while the “bad teams” seemed much too close to .500…
On the Braves:
The fans expect McCann, Prado, Hinske, Johnny Venters, and Alex Gonzalez to regress. David Ross (1.6 WAR last year) doesn’t have a projection. They don’t think Craig Kimbrel (1.6 WAR projected) will fully replace Billy Wagner (2.2 WAR last year).
On the other hand, fans seem to expect all the starting pitchers to improve from last year.
Man, I hate when my team trades a utility player and a rookie LOOGY for perennial 30 homer guy. I also hate it when we release a sub-replacement tub of lard with a 27 year old all-star. It’s too bad they replaced an aging 1st baseman with two bad knees with a top prospect. What a shame they have three lefty’s in the bullpen when they play Philadelphia 18 times. Stupid Jason Heyward no longer being 20 years old anymore and playing with a broken thumb!!
Dude, are you like being sarcastic, or what?
OVER on: ChiSox (79), A’s (78), Philly (90), Braves (82), Reds (80), Astros (60)
UNDER on: Baltimore (81), Minny (87), Marlins (85), Mets (84), Rox (90)
*heads to the betting window* Can I get these bets within anybody? Anybody? Where is that damn cashier?!?
Oh! And UNDER on the Yanks (94) also. *Reaches back into wallet*
everyone is predicting a yankees collapse, but they aren’t much changed from last year’s 95 win season. they lost pettitte (who missed 2 months last year), but even a mediocre bounce back from burnett (and arms that can throw 4.5 ERAs in the 4th and 5th spots will be better than vasquez and is 5+ ERA) should make up for that. the bullpen got stronger and the lineup basically did not change at all. so really, i expect about 93-95 wins. it should be almost the same as last year.
Yeah I don’t get that at all unless people are expecting a more significant amount of injuries.
Swisher and Gardener are due for some regression (and probably Cano)… but a lot of the starters had down years (ARod, Tex, Jeter was ~50pts below his career BABIP, Granderson), not to mention Nick DL Johnson is essentially replaced by Martin (who is probably the most likely headed to the DL at some point but should put up more than Johnson did)
Sabathia didn’t have a career year, Hughes started like gangbusters but gassed a bit in the 2nd half so I would not expect a significant drop in his overall WAR (2.4 last year), AJ if anything should go up (1.3 WAR last year). The 5th spot will be at worst as bad as it was last year (but could have some upside), so the only major drop is Pettitte to Nova (and Pettitte posted just 2.3 WAR)
The pen is likely to be about the same… Soriano will help but in the grand scheme of things the impact on the reg season for an 8th inning guy is minimal.
I’d say 94 is probably pretty close.
You have to keep in mind with the Yanks though(and any team for that matter) that you can’t just look at what they did you have to take into account what their competition did.
Yeah the Yankees may have not gotten worse but on paper the Red Sox and Orioles both look like they got better, the Jays should atleast be the same and the Rays look like they may take a step back but depending on how Jennings develops it may not be as big as people think.
In the Central most think Chicago and Detroit should be better, Cleveland should be better since they should be more healthy this year(Santana, Sizemore among others), Minnesota probably took a small step back but I don’t think it’s nothing major and KC should me worse.
In the West Texas shouldn’t be much worse if any than last year, most think Oakland will be better, I don’t see how things could get any worse than they were for Seattle last year so they should improve, and the Angels should be better with Wells(contract sucks but he’s still an upgrade for them) and full seasons of Morales and Haren.
So in reality I think really only 2 teams took steps back in the AL on paper(TB and KC) and the Yankees probably would’ve beaten up on KC regardless so I don’t think they even matter, and the rest should either improve or atleast stay the same.
So even though the Yankees themselves may have not gotten any worse they could still conceivably win quite a few less games this year because of their competition.
With all that said, personally I think people are writing off the Yankees too soon and I think they will win the East or the WC this year but I can see where some of the naysayers are coming from.
“aren’t much changed from last year’s 95 win season”
A lot of key guys marching deeper (and deeper) into their 30s. Mo, Jorge, Jeter, A-Rod, Burnett. Even Teixeira and Sabathia are probably getting to that point where you expect their best years are behind them.
And just to be clear, my not expecting the Yankees to win 94 isn’t predicting an imminent collapse. I’m expecting 89, 90 wins, still good enough for second in the division and wild card. Just not 94.
last i saw, Vegas had the Sox at 83.5, so sadly not. that still might be a decent bet though. Herm Schneider is consistently malfactored, even in the fans’ eyes I guess.
I see the Reds taking the Central and the Braves much better than that.
I think Greinke, Marcum, and Gallardo seems like a solid front 3. If the Brewers don’t take it, it’ll be because of Yuniesky.
I think it’s a crap shoot between the Brewers and Reds and a lot of it depends on who steps up and who doesn’t. Do Fielder and Braun bounce back? Do Bruce and Stubbs step forward? What about the Reds’ young pitching and the Brewers’ poor defense. There are a lot of variables there. The one thing I do feel fairly certain about is that Cubs fans must be awfully optimistic, I think they’ll finish 4th behind Wainwright-less St. Louis.
I am assuming you are just making fun of Yuniesky. Nothing wrong with that. But…
There are other potential problems. The last four spots in the lineup are nearly automatic outs – Gomez, Lucroy, Yuniesky, Pitcher (not necessarily in that order). Plus, there is no guarantee of Weeks’ health. Who knows how well Hart will do. And then there is the defense.
The Brewers could do amazingly well. They could completely tank, too. I’m really looking forward to the season. It won’t be boring in the land of beer, cheese and super bowl champs.
“The last four spots in the lineup are nearly automatic outs…”
Agreed – I see a lot of similarity between the Cards and Brewers in that regard. Just an abjectly awful bottom-half of the lineup for both.
“I think it’s a crap shoot between the Brewers and Reds”
Also agree. Think the Cubs and Cards will be the second tier, 5-8 games back of the Reds and Brewers. Pretty tight, could go four-deep if things break right.
I think the Rays will fight Boston for 1st in the AL East, possibly taking it. I feel like the Yanks will reprise their ’08 season finish. The Royals will have to be dreamin’ to win more than 62…and we already know they’ll be sleepin’ most of the season, so maybe 68 wins is possible. Still I doubt it. When they call up their future stars in September, that might keep them from losing 100 but then again, these guys will still be inexperienced major leaguers and might not.
You can ding the Cardinals about 4.5 wins since Wainwright hasn’t been updated by prognosticators.
Heavy east coast bias here (outside of the Rockies). SF=NYM and only 3/9 west teams at least 500. SD, OAK and possibly the LA teams could all do it.
The fans (us) have an East Coast bias?
…damn liberal media…
/sarcasm
Call me a homer, but I still don’t see the Orioles beating the Jays this year.
Orioles will, more than likely, be last in the AL East. However, that said, I predicted EVERY team over .500 (Orioles at 82-80).
I’ll gladly take the over on the Brewers (84), and Reds (80)
Looking at the standings overall, if this were to play out, the AL races would be sooo BORING… The best race would be the Central with the Twins finishing up 4 games. And no WC race.
The NL, however would be fantastic. Phillies and Rockies would pull away, but the Central would be a 4 team race and the wild card would be 4-6 team race.
These are projections, not predictions. Projections will always have teams bunched together moreso than actual outcomes since outlying performances and other variables are not accounted for.
Phillies and Braves are both obviously undervalued. I think the fact that the fans were so under on the Phils last year is useful to consider. Fangraphs readers (and writers) like to consider themselves contrarian, and thus are likely overcompensating against the media’s “lovefest” with the Phillies. You see it happen all the time.
The Dodgers’ pitching will win more than 79 games. The Braves look low for the same reason. You could probably take about 10 games from the Mets and split them between the Dodgers and Braves. Who votes on this stuff outside of New York and Boston?
I’m shocked at how low the Rangers are being projected. I understand that there are a lot of question marks in the starting rotation after Colby Lewis and CJ Wilson, but there’s legitimately 5-6 guys who should project at or above 4 WAR between pitchers and position players to go with solid depth and few holes amongst the position players.
How are these projected win totals compiled. The intro paragraph says it is based off of the Fans projections of individual players. So are you adding up the team WARs? Are you awarding playing time based off of the fans too?
Would also be interesting to get win projections based off of average win projection guesses.
vr, Xei
It ads up the components (batting/pitching/fielding) and then adjusts for playing time. Some teams are over projected in terms of playing time so they need to be scaled back, and then some teams are under projected. For under projected inning totals, I figure that there are not clear cut pitchers, so I don’t pro-rate low playing time and just leave it as is and expect replacement level production (I should probably expect a little bit higher than replacement level).
If you believe in Fangraph’s Crowd Sourcing (FCS) the best differential to bet in Vegas are:
CWS U85.5 -115 (FCS = 79 wins)
Houston U 71.5 -115 (FCS = 60)
Philly U 97 -110 (FCS = 90)
SF U 88 +105 (FCS = 84)
Seattle ov 70 -105 (FCS = 76)
As always, its not an apple to apple to comparison because the payoff amounts (e.g. SF earns you $105.00, Seattle $95.24, CWS and Houston $86.96).
Vegas is wicked good at this, I’ve had a number of bets finish within 1 or 0.5 games. Its uncanny.
is it possible these projections overvalue top heavy teams (i.e. cardinals) and undervalue teams that have a cast of solid contributors (reds). Also the chicago white sox look way low to me
NATIONALS will win 100….. ok maybe not, but I think they will win 78-80 games this season. You guys underestimate how much better the gloves look this year over the last two years.
Is this prediction seirous? If so, this seriously reeks of fail. The marlins before the braves, are you honestly serious? That’s a bunch of crap, the braves rotation and bullpen are better, while their offensive line up is equal to the Phils, possible even better. Whoever made this projection seems either to have issues, or they were drunk.
On another note, the Yankees before the Red Sox? Seriously? I’m not sure to take this seriously, if you’re really thinking that’ll happen. But my eyes feel like they’re on fire from reading this “crap” prediction..
Projected Winners from espn..
AL east: Red Sox, AL Central Twins, AL West Texas, AL wildcard Yankees. NL East Philies (With the braves with a 57 percent possibility of overtaking the Philies for the NL east, and the loser gets the WC) NL Central Reds, NL West Rockies, NL wildcard Braves/Phils.
That I could believe, but this honestly not. The planets would have to align first.
Everyones entitled to their opinion I suppose, but it’s very hard to believe this prediction to be accurate. Maybe it’s a little biased, but ah well. Have a nice day, least baseball is back!
I would love to see margin of error given! Some teams’ samples will have wildly different distributions in the Fans’ minds.
60 wins. Give me a break. Proof the Astros are despised by everyone else. 102 losses. Bamboozling. Their rotation was one of the best in the NL in the second half of 2010. Their offense scored 3.77 runs a game last season and still managed 76 wins. How can they regress by 16 wins from 2010? How?
I suspect “everyone else” barely notices the Astros exist. Or cares.
They’re going to have to become a much more interesting team to engender any emotion whatsoever, much less get people to “despise” them.
How indeed? 56-106.