JABO: The American League Has Gone Completely Bananas

During a season, it can be hard to take a step back. You get so involved in what certain teams are doing, it’s tricky to be able to see the big picture. Just think about some recent events, though. The Astros have maintained a several-game lead in the AL West. The Twins beat the Red Sox in Boston on Thursday, aided by a ninth-inning error on a bunt, and it fit with a couple team patterns. And the Mariners traded for Mark Trumbo because they’re trying to energize an offense and an overall ballclub that hasn’t met expectations. You have a sense of what’s going on in the American League. But unless you really think about it, the significance might not hit you. You might not realize how insane the AL has been.

I’m sorry for this, but I have to use the word “projections.” I know that can be a major turnoff, but then, I’m not really sure why — projections are just forecasts, based on historical statistics. We make our own mental projections all the time. We all look at a talented young player and figure he could improve. We all look at an aging slugger and figure he’ll decline. If we see a pitcher whose ERA doesn’t match his other numbers, we’ll assume some better luck. And so on. Projections shouldn’t be that controversial, individually, and a team projection is just a combination of individual forecasts. This is no form of attempted sorcery.

So anyway, team projections have existed in some form for quite a while. Right here, some while back, I compared 10 years of performance against 10 years of Opening Day team projections. Obviously, the relationship isn’t perfectly linear — there are things that just can’t be predicted — but overall, the projections have done pretty well. Generally speaking, projected good teams have played like good teams, and projected bad teams have played like bad teams. There have been many exceptions. Enough to keep the sport interesting.

In that post, I compared projected full-season performance to actual full-season performance. Now, as far as 2015 is concerned, we don’t have an actual full-season performance. We have actual two-month performance. But that’s precisely what I want to examine. We know how teams have actually done. At FanGraphs, we projected how the teams were expected to do, based on their Opening Day depth charts. How are the numbers comparing at the moment?

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.