Oakland vs Kansas City

It has been a pretty long time since I made a post and a lot of stuff has happened, but a new statistical though has brought me back. So here is my latest thought on how to predict playoff games correctly.

This goes back to the idea of Pitching Performance Value, but this time evaluated with WAR. PPV would evaluate a pitcher's performance after they have pitched. This new stat will make a prediction of the game winner before the game starts.

Former AL East rivals will go head to head tomorrow

So if an average pitcher pitches against an average lineup and an above average pitcher pitches against an above average lineup the box score is likely to appear the same. For example if Wei Yin Chen and Sonny Gray were to go head to head the box score may look the same. Wei Yin Chen (Orioles) is an average pitcher against an average lineup and Sonny Gray (Athletics) is an above average pitcher against an above average lineup.

To figure out who might win this game we will look at a ratio of the pitcher's WAR and the offense's WAR as a whole. So take the WAR of the starter and divide by the summation of the WAR of the opposing lineup. Do this for both pitchers and lineups and the greater value is the pitcher who will win. So lets do this for tomorrows game between the Athletics and Royals

The Royals lineup has a WAR of 18.3 and the Athletics lineup has a WAR of 21.3. Jon Lester (Athletics) has a WAR of 4.8 and James Sheilds has a WAR of 3.4.

Royals Ratio = 3.4/ 21.3 = 0.15
Athletics Ratio = 4.8/18.3 = 0.26

The Athletics will win the game tomorrow. It is hard to say what the final score will be, but according to the overall talent of the players and pitchers Oakland has an absolute advantage. Baseball is unpredictable but i'm just trying to quantify it.

The Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox failed make the playoffs on the last day of the 2011 season. They had a record of 90-72 and this off season they fired Terry Francona and hired Bobby Valentine as manager.

The Red Sox have one of the best line ups in baseball. The following players are notable:

Dustin Pedroia: .387 OBP, 21 HR, 91 RBI, 26 SB
Jacoby Ellsbury: .376 OBP, 32 HR, 105 RBI, 39 SB
Adrian Gonzalez: .410 OBP, 27 HR, 117 RBI, .548 SLG
David Ortiz: .398 OBP, 29 HR, 96 RBI, .554 SLG
Kevin Youkilis(120 games): .373 OBP, 17 HR, 80 RBI, .459 SLG

The preceding are 5 notable offensive players on The Red Sox. If they can repeat their 2011 season they can definitely continue to be one of the best lineups in baseball. A mistake they made was keeping Ellsbury as the lead off hitter. He hit way to many home runs to be leading off. If he had guys on base he would have many more RBI's. Another thing that has to go right for The Red Sox is Carl Crawford. Crawford had the worst years of his career. Only having an on base percentage of .289 is unacceptable for a guy who gets paid 142 million dollars.

The other part of The Red Sox's team is the rotation. Josh Beckett had a great year, but it was one great year. He is not going to repeat something like that. His ERA will bounce back to around 3.50 which is lower than his career average of 3.84. Jon Lester is a force to be reckoned with. I see Lester as one of the games' top left handed pitchers. He is not in the same pack as Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia, but a 3.37 ERA over his past 3 seasons puts him in a category with Cole Hamels and David Price.

One big mistake I think The Red Sox are making is putting Daniel Bard in the starting rotation. Bard was a fireman out of the bullpen for The Red Sox. He would come in the 7th or 8th inning and throw 97-99 MPH fastballs and a hard slider. Going to the rotation will drop his velocity and without having a good third pitch the left handed sluggers will wait on the slider. The Yankees did this with Joba Chamberlain, The Rangers are doing it with Neftali Feliz and now The Red Sox are doing it with Daniel Bard. I am extremely against taking a good bullpen guy and putting him in the rotation. It messes up their whole mind set.

The Red Sox did sign Mark Malencen and traded for Andrew Bailey. Bailey has a 2.07 ERA over 3 years in Oakland. He was a good choice as Papelbon's replacement. Melancon had a 2.78 ERA over 74 innings for The Astros in 2011. He would fit nicely into the bullpen, but it think it would be better if the set up guys were Bard and Melancon.

The Red Sox have a nice lineup, 2 above average starters and the back end of the bullpen is pretty good. They have a new manager and are hoping to make the playoffs this year. They do not want to repeat the mess that happened in September of 2011. I think The Red Sox will win the wild card, but it will be close to compete with the Angels and Rangers. One of these three teams will win the wild card.