Rating All of the (Remaining) Playoff Teams

Come playoff time, you tend to see a lot of team-to-team comparisons. And when you see team-to-team comparisons, the people doing the comparing frequently lean on regular-season statistics. And, you know, in theory that makes plenty of sense. Those numbers are readily available all over the place, and, isn’t the regular season a hell of a sample? Doesn’t the regular season pretty adequately reflect the level of talent on a given roster?

I’m not going to argue that regular-season numbers are or aren’t more important than, say, postseason numbers. The regular season obviously has the biggest and therefore the most meaningful sample. But as should go without saying, things change come October. Rosters are optimized, and usage patterns shift. For example, during the year, Rangers hitters had a 98 wRC+. Rangers hitters on the roster today averaged a weighted 106 wRC+. During the year, Rangers relievers had a 100 ERA-. Rangers relievers expected to relieve in the playoffs averaged a weighted 75 ERA-. The Rangers aren’t what they were for six months. No team is, entirely. So what do we have now? What does the actual, weighted playoff landscape look like?

Time for some tables of numbers. That’s almost as fun as actual baseball!

We’ve put our relevant team depth charts in playoff mode. What that means is that, for the eight remaining teams, we have depth charts based around expected playoff players, with expected playoff playing times. I don’t need to beat around the bush anymore. Why not just get right to the first table? Here are eight team projections, using current player performance and playing-time estimates:

All the columns are WAR, but the last one. The last one just turns the projected WAR into a 162-game-season win estimate. So if the Dodgers got to play a season as they’re built right now, they’d probably be projected to win around 105 games. For the Cubs, 102. For the Rangers, 88. This does a decent job of establishing some tiers. And you could argue this is the best we can do. What more needs to be said? Based on rosters, playing time, and projections, it’s actually the Dodgers who might be the team to beat. Them or the Cubs. The Rangers and the Indians look like potential underdogs.

Now, that’s all based on projections. And, sometimes, insanity happens. Like what the Rangers just did in the regular season. I’m not going to pretend like this is everything, or that the playoffs are going to be totally predictable. But this at least goes to explain the World Series odds you’ll see on our standings page.

What I’d like to do now is break things down further, while abandoning the projection-first perspective. I want to look at position players, rotations, and bullpens, this time using weighted 2016 statistics. Some people have problems with what projections try to do, but you certainly can’t deny that what happened in 2016 is what happened. So let’s start with the position-player landscape! Shown here are full-season equivalents. BsR refers to baserunning. Def refers to defense. All right.

This ignores any influence of pitchers hitting. What we have: The current group of Red Sox position players was the best in the season that just ended. They just edge out the Cubs, and maybe the difference there is small enough that changes in defensive estimates could swap the order. Based on how they’re projected to play moving forward, the Red Sox hitters were good for a weighted 120 wRC+, which is fantastic. That’s easily the highest mark in the table. But you see that every offense is good. The worst here had a weighted 106 wRC+. That would’ve tied for fifth-best overall in the regular season.

The Nationals look like the best baserunning team left, and the Blue Jays the worst. The Cubs look like the best defensive team left, and the Rangers the worst. Defensively speaking, all the AL teams here are slightly hurt by having a DH, so maybe it’s best to just compare there within leagues. Ultimately, there’s a 13-WAR spread between best and worst. It might surprise you to see the Blue Jays in eighth. Welp, I don’t know, I didn’t make these numbers up. Moving on! Starting rotations.

This is shown in order of WAR, because I wanted to strip away non-pitcher influences. By WAR, the Dodgers have a massive lead, thanks to their opportunity to so frequently give the ball to Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill. You could argue, though, that RA9-WAR should get its due, since the Cubs seemed to have some ability to limit quality contact. By RA9-WAR, the Cubs and the Dodgers are tied with a massive lead. The Dodgers should probably still be considered first, since the Cubs had the better team defense. Evaluating pitching on its own is hard.

The Indians bring up the rear, which isn’t a shock, since two of their best starters are injured and absent. Then you have the Rangers, who are solid at 1 and 2 but very much shaky at 3 and 4. The Red Sox position is very similar to the Rangers position. And so on. To the bullpens!

Staying away from decimal points in these WARs might make you feel like something’s lacking, but I don’t like those decimals, since our calculations aren’t that accurate. What we have: The Dodgers seem to have the strongest bullpen. But just about every team has a pretty strong bullpen, even sort of including the Giants if you just look at their ERA. As I don’t need to tell you, ERA does like to mislead. So FIP is still the better indicator, and by that, the Giants’ pen looks the shakiest. The Rangers’ pen looks strong, and deep, which could and should help them in Games 3 and 4. Something I’ll say about the Indians’ bullpen: It drops off toward the end, but the top of it is fantastic. If they can avoid their middle relief, they’re even better than this.

At last, putting it all together:

Based on the projections, the top three remaining teams are the Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox, in that order. Based on what actually took place in 2016, the top three teams are still the Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox, in that order. Here, there’s a big gap between third place and fourth, showing that the Red Sox might be considered the AL pennant favorites. The projections think they’re closer to the Blue Jays, but this isn’t something worth arguing. In both tables, the Rangers are in last, and that’s probably not a shock. But as you understand, the Rangers spent the whole season seemingly overachieving, so I’m sure their fans will laugh this off.

It could all be laughed off. This post isn’t going to do anything. All these are are numbers, and pretty soon, the actual games are going to resume. But this is my best shot at showing who’s actually the best and the worst, and where, among the teams still alive. Make of that what you please.