THT Dartboard (Power Ranking)

by rdave on Jul 2, 2007 7:40 AM PDT

The Hardball Times currently has the M's ranked at 12th on their dartboard. If I remember right, someone posted that ESPN had the M's had 7 last week before their current streak(?). The Hardball times ranking uses something similar to current record and Pythagorean record adjusted for schedule strength. Anyway, my guess is that it has a little more thinking behind it than the ESPN writer.

For comparison, on 22 June 2006 they were ranked at 19, currently they are at 12. The notable suprises to me on the 1 July 2007 list are the Pads at 5, the A's at 10 and the Yankees at 11.

It looks like the Friars get a huge boost from their ability limit Runs Scored. I'd guess the Yankees are on the opposite side of that equation. They also claim the Yankees are 7-23 in close games which many would expect to even out a bit as the season goes on (based on the contention that close games sans JJ Putz involve a lot of luck).

If Runs Allowed are involved in the equation the M's are still paying for some horrible starting pitching in the first 2 months of the season. Hopefully the current run of good starting pitching is longer than an inevitable regression.

If you don't want to go to the site, here is the blurb on the M's (nothing new):

#12 Seattle Mariners (Dartboard Factor = 86, 82): J.J. Putz is the best closer in baseball and George Sherrill might be the best left-handed RP in baseball. Just a deadly deadly combo at the end of games. Oh and they have 5 other relievers with ERAs at 4.00 or below. At the plate, Richie Sexson is beginning his annual summer turnaround and Ichiro Suzuki continues his monster season. He's the MVP of the league if the season ended right now. Oh and the Ms have three hitters with OPSs over .900 in AAA.

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"Oh and" twice

ugh, that's what I get for writing the damn thing at 5 in the morning. Doesn't help that the Ms are near the end and so by that time I'm already 2+ hours into it.

Anyways, calculations for the dartboard factor in:
Record to date
Strength of schedule
insanely complex linear weights on nearly every offense and pitching category
pythagapat weighting based on above totals for remaining games

Redoing the numbers just now have the Ms up to 88 wins, but their linear weights show equal RS and RA indicating that they should be roughly 39-39 right now.

ordinal order as of end of July 1st of teams slated at 81 wins or higher:
Red Sox
Angels
Indians
Tigers
Mets
Padres
Dodgers
Brewers
Athletics
Mariners
Braves
Cubs
Yankees
Twins
Blue Jays

by Matthew on Jul 2, 2007 9:12 AM PDT reply actions

Runs Allowed/ Pythag record

The Mariners are an interesting case if you're taking RA into the equation. This may be applicable to a bunch of teams, but a strong case could be made that the starting pitching from the first 6 weeks of the season is not at all closely related to the talent level of the team going forward.

Jeff Weaver probably isn't as good as his last few starts (though he has had extended periods of being a pretty good pitcher in his past), but no Major League pitcher has ever been as bad as he appeared in his first 6 starts, including him. I expect an ERA in the mid 4s the rest of the way. Ramirez was pretty bad, and even if he gets another shot, he'll be on a short leash, and won't be allowed to suck the life out of the team. Batista is coming around as well.

Even on the offensive side, the team has a few notoriously slow starters. Beltre hasn't gotten off to a good start since moving north, but has been finishing better, and Sexson always does this. A .305 April has got to be Ichiro's best start, but even that pales in comparison to what he'll do the rest of the way.

In short, it's hard to reconcile the Mariners' April with their June, because it's almost like a different team. Certainly it's not all wine and roses, but this is a much better team now than they were in April, and using season stats like RS/RA just doesn't do justice to the team that's currently on the field.

by AnotherAaron on Jul 2, 2007 10:22 AM PDT reply actions