Understanding the Nationals’ Projected Advantage
Bryce Harper was in the news a couple weeks ago. It had nothing to do with his performance — in 2015, he hadn’t yet performed. It had nothing to do with his health — in 2015, he hadn’t yet gotten injured. It had everything to do with his words. Harper generates three kinds of stories, and this was another one about him not hiding his confidence. Harper spoke openly about how much he believes in his current cast of teammates, and while every player would claim to believe in his cast of teammates, Harper has a way of drawing extra attention, and he didn’t beat around any bushes. Harper went so far as to talk about the disadvantage of facing the Nationals’ starting staff in the playoffs.
Of course, while we like our players to be humble, it’s not like Harper was talking about anything we hadn’t already thought and said ourselves. The Nationals do seem like a juggernaut. The Nationals do seem like they should take the NL East running away. The Nationals do have a rotation that would be terrifying to face in October. Say what you will about Harper’s personality, but he just said what most people already believe. There’s no such thing as a playoff shoo-in this early in the year, but the Nationals are about as close as it gets.
A year ago, the Nationals won 96 games. Their closest division rival won 79. Actually, two rivals won 79, and this offseason one of them got a little better, while the other got substantially worse. Now, the Nationals were expected to win the East. Preseason projections had them winning their division by six or seven games. Right here, we gave the Nationals a 74% chance of winning the division. Those were the highest division-winning odds in baseball, by about 10 percentage points.
This year’s playoff odds were recently published, and they update every day. They update on account of events like injuries. For example, the Blue Jays had about 42% playoff odds a few days ago. That’s dropped to 31%, with news that Marcus Stroman will be out all year. How do the Nationals look? We have them with an 87% chance at the division. Those are the highest division-winning odds in baseball, by about 14 percentage points. Our playoff-odds page has the Nationals projected to lead the East by 13 – 14 games. It’s a massive advantage they have, and it’s not even controversial. Steamer backs it up. ZiPS backs it up. PECOTA backs it up. Clay Davenport backs it up. All the authorities agree: the Nationals are positioned to win their division by a landslide. It’s difficult to conceive of a situation in which the Nationals are even seriously challenged.
This got me wondering about projection history. So, we see the Nationals are projected for a huge advantage. Have we seen bigger projected advantages in the past? How much of an advantage is this, historically? Some time ago, I gathered team projections going back to 2005, based on whatever I could find. It’s not perfect, and projections have presumably improved over time, but data is data, and I went back to my data.
What we don’t have are historical playoff odds. Not overall playoff odds, and not division-winning odds. So I did something simple: I calculated, for each division in each year, the projected gap between the best team and the second-best team. This gave me 60 numbers, and you’ll see them represented by the following histogram. As expected, most divisions have been projected to be pretty close. Nearly 82% have been projected to be decided by no more than five games. Nearly two-thirds have been projected to be decided by no more than three games.
We have the Nationals projected to win the NL East by more than 10 games. You can see just how uncommon such an advantage has been. One other time since 2005 has a team been projected to win its division by more than 10 games. There’s one instance of a projected 10-game margin, and one instance of a projected nine-game margin. There are four projected eight-game margins, and one projected seven-game margin.
That gives the Nationals’ advantage some historical context. And, we can add a little more detail. The one other projected margin of more than 10 games? That was in 2005, the first year in my sample, and the year where I have the least confidence in the numbers. The projected 10-game margin was in 2006. The projected nine-game margin was in 2005. The eight-game margins came in 2008 (twice), 2010, and 2013, so here we get more recent. But the Nationals’ advantage is more than eight games, as of today.
We can say, at least, the Nationals have the biggest projected division advantage in a decade. The one bigger gap was all the way back in 2005, and even if you trust those numbers, that sure was a while ago. No other division since has seemed this lopsided, according to the forecasts. So Harper’s confidence is more than justified. It would’ve been justified even before the Max Scherzer signing. Now? There are ways for things to fall apart. There are ways for division rivals to surprise. But, a lot would have to get weird. The Nationals are sitting on the highest of perches.
I guess I can end with some caution, though, just so it doesn’t seem like I’m issuing a guarantee. The team projected to win by 17 games did ultimately win, by 11 games. The team projected to win by 10 actually won by one. The team projected to win by nine did not win its division. The team projected to win by seven did not win its division. Two of the four teams projected to win by eight did not win their divisions. The sample is small, so it’s virtually meaningless, but what meaning there is is worth keeping in mind — more can go wrong than you think. The Nationals are the most obvious of the postseason shoo-ins. When it’s March, there’s no such thing as a postseason shoo-in. There are only numbers that exist in a virtual form.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
What team had the 11 game advantage? One of the Tigers teams?
I want to know who all the 9+ projected winners were. But mostly the 9-game team that lost the division in 2005. Boston?
Agreed, that’s kind of the maddening part of this article. We have all these data points of teams who were historically projected to win their divisions by wide margins…but we won’t tell you how they actually did!
It would appear to be the 2005 St Louis Cardinals.
The Nationals should certainly be an NL favorite, but Harper should concentrate on his own play. You don’t stay a young phenom for long, especially since Trout is so good already.
What do Harper’s comments have to do with his play. Are you suggesting that he stepped out from Spring Training drills to seek out a group of reporters to spout off to?
He could just not talk to them? Better to be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Counterpoint: who could possibly care all that much outside of First Take and sports talk radio.
Yeah so then he doesn’t say anything to the media and the headline becomes “BRYCE HARPER IGNORES REPORTERS OMG!”
Clown comment, dude.
Take your own advice.
Totally. That strategy worked great for Marshawn Lynch, right? “Yeah.”
Talking to reporters is part of their job. And they get to do it when trying to change into street clothes, mainly, so it’s not like it takes much time.
grumble, grumble…players who say things I don’t like should spend every second of every day taking BP, instead of “focusing” on talking to reporters..grumble, grumble.
Murray? Is that you?
If you mention Mike Trout in an article about Bryce Harper, you’re just trolling at this point.
Actually, Harper has been a “young phenom” for a ridiculously long period of time. He was called the “Chosen One” on the cover of Sports Illustrated in June 2009. Six years later, he’s still prospect age (22).
As a Nats fan, it’s not particularly hard to see a path where it’s close: injuries. They have a seemingly especially injury-prone group of position players (Harper, Ramos and Zimmerman all missed extended periods last year, with Zimmerman missing more than 100 games), and two other regulars (Span and Werth) are already set to start the season on the DL. They have a reasonably good farm system but aside from Michael Taylor lack potentially high-upside talent that’s close to the majors. Add in that the bullpen is shakier with Clippard traded and that might take time to sort out, and the first month or so could be interesting.
I still like the overall talent level very much and hope no further health issues will crop up, but the downside potential is there like any team.
Plus, pitchers’ arms are basically ticking timebombs ready to explode, but without the nice countdown LED that is always shown in the movies.
Who the hell is Clay Davenport?
you don’t know who clay davenport is?
I didn’t, when I posted the question. Then I looked him up. In hindsight, I would look first. I have never really read BP, though, which is why his name was unfamiliar to me.
Harper, asked about how it feels to have Scherzer signed by the Nationals: “I mean, are you kidding me? Where’s my ring?”
Media/Fans: “What an entitled, arrogant jerk! Harper should just shut up! Harper thinks that the Nationals are WS locks! RAARGH!”
Harper goes on to say in the same interview session:
“But everybody looks at our league and they think, ‘Oh, man, we’re sure shot, definitely.’ And I think we are, too. I think we’re a great team. I think we have the things that we do. But if you look at all the staffs that we’re about to face, the Mets have one of the best staffs in all of baseball, I don’t care what nobody [sic] says. Their one through four is pretty impressive. Miami’s one through four, they’re one of the toughest teams, I think, in all of baseball myself. I think the lineup they have, the manager that they’ve got, the way they play, the bullpen they have, I think they’re going to be a very good team. The Phillies are young, but they’ve still got Cole Hamels, they’ve still got Cliff Lee, they’ve still got (Chase) Utley, they’ve still got some guys that are pretty dang good. And then you look at the Braves, they’ve got Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran. I mean, you just look at our division and it’s unbelievable how good the division is. Not just our division, but all of the NL. Not taking anything away from the AL and how they play and stuff, but the NL is just so good with the pitching we’ve got and the divisions we have. It’s going to be tough. We think we’re a good team and we want to go into every game thinking we’re going to win and do the things we need to do. But it’s going to be tough. It’s not sure shot. So we’ve got to keep going out here, working hard and hit on all cylinders, get to work.”
Huh. What do you know. Thoughtful, even a bit humble. Although he likes his team he has nothing but praise for their opponents (he said nice things about the Phillies, for God’s sake, which is more than most pundits are willing to do), flatly states that nothing is guaranteed, the task is hard and the Nationals are going to have to earn everything they get against a tough division and NL.
Guess which part of the interview is completely ignored by media (and, in turn, most fans)? Yep, the one that doesn’t reinforce their already chosen meme: that Harper is a cocky, arrogant jerk.
This. This this this this this
Also, he was essentially just giving really high praise to a new teammate. His phrasing maybe came off as too cocky but I can see he could have not intended it to be that way.
Shame on you on letting the facts get in the way of the story!
“Some time ago, I gathered team projections going back to 2005, based on whatever I could find. It’s not perfect, and projections have presumably improved over time, but data is data”
Any chance that you can post the raw data somewhere…? 🙂
To understand the National’s projected advantage, it is probably necessary to consider the strengths of perhaps the Red Sox projected advantage in 2011:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2011/03/comparing_2011.php
(Historical Spoiler: Missed playoffs, GM + Manager moved to less-Red pastures)
While they certainly had a close trailer (Yankees), the full-fare wildcard with a 10-game advantage over next team is probably pretty close to what we’d consider a lock as well. Despite the late-season collapse, the more obvious reason for not making the playoffs is the classic one: injuries. The variance from these alone is what keeps even the best teams from projecting as a lock for the playoffs. Losing a couple of your top-3 pitchers is an easy way to lose 8 WAR off a good team, for example.
Harper will have at least one MVP before his career is over and when that happens all the media jerks will finally shut the heck up!!!!!!!!!!!