Sunday, March 8, 2009

PECOTA Has O's In Fourth

I've never done a spit-take before in real life - I didn't think things like that actually happened. Then I saw this from BaseballProspectus:

American League, ranked by projected 2009 record

East W L RS RA AVG OBP SLG
15 Boston Red Sox 99 63 852 695 .270 .348 .434
13 New York Yankees 95 67 794 671 .263 .337 .415
6 Tampa Bay Rays 91 71 805 718 .254 .335 .416
9 Baltimore Orioles 77 85 827 885 .269 .336 .434
5 Toronto Blue Jays 75 87 704 761 .253 .319 .403

Fourth place. I don't even know what to say about that. Awesome? Unlikely? I do have the O's with about the same level of offense for 2009 (though with more OBP and less SLG), but with better pitching. I've been of the opinion that the 80 win projection from the team WAR is high due to natural home-team optimism, and so I've been bumping it down to 75-77 when people ask me about them. If the O's can find some pitching amongst the host of candidates they have auditioning, then a .500 season is definitely within reach. Crazy.

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