THE POWER RANK

6 surprising MLB teams early this 2015 season

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Screen Shot 2015-05-08 at 10.16.48 AMBaseball is difficult to predict early in the season. Even with a month in the books, small sample size makes it hard to come to firm conclusions on teams.

On Numberfire, Daniel Lindsey looks at 6 teams that have defied preseason expectations early this 2015 season. He does a great job diving into the numbers and highlighting important players.

Numberfire does their own rankings, and they look like they only use data from the current season. It’s an interesting comparison with my rankings and predictions that still weight the preseason heavily.

For example, consider Washington, a team many had as their preseason World Series Champion. Numberfire has the Nationals ranked 22nd, while I have them 4th. With more games, we’ll find out their true strength.

To check out the Numberfire article on 6 surprising MLB teams, click here.

The Tigers’ bullpen will struggle according to predictive pitching statistics

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Screen Shot 2015-05-08 at 9.24.31 AMMy latest article with the Detroit News looks at the Tigers’ bullpen through modern pitching statistics. The take home message: the bullpen isn’t that good.

However, the more fun part is explaining fielding independent statistics to the average Tigers fan. Research has shown that pitchers have no control over balls hit into the field of play.

While the numbers have confirmed this over huge sample sizes, it’s still hard for the human mind to accept. I was very upfront about this in the article. However, it didn’t stop readers from posting 47 comments, and about 49 of these comments were negative.

However, we must keep up the fight against dinosaur statistics like ERA.

To read my article on modern pitching statistics and the Tigers’ bullpen, click here.

Finally!! Early season baseball predictions available at The Power Rank

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The predictions page now has a win probability for every baseball game.

These predictions start with the MLB team rankings. Later in the season, these rankings are my team rankings that adjust run differential for strength of schedule. For more details, click here.

However, these team rankings don’t make much sense in April. The rankings that include games through April 23rd, 2015 had the Mets as the best team in baseball, three runs better than the average MLB team.

For the first two months of the season, I’ll combine preseason expectations with these team rankings based on the current season. You can always find the most current rankings at the MLB rankings page, which gets updated daily.

To account for starting pitching, I use the ZiPS projections from FanGraphs. Dan Szymborski developed these pitcher projection based on 4 years of data and the ideas of defense independent pitching statistics.

The projections didn’t do that well yesterday. The team with greater than 50% win probability won 4 of 12 games.

However, this small sample size doesn’t worry me too much. Highly touted teams like the Nationals and Dodgers both lost yesterday. We’ll see how the predictions do over a larger sample of games.

Thank you to everyone who asked me to get these predictions up. Check the prediction page daily for latest.

How the hot start Tigers have actually been unlucky

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tigers_cluster_luckIn my latest article for the Detroit News, I ask whether the Tigers have gotten lucky early this season.

There are many ways luck can affect a baseball team, but I look at cluster luck here. To read why the Tigers have gotten unlucky in this department, click here.

This doesn’t mean the Tigers will continue to score runs at their current torrid pace. As a commenter pointed out, they have a high batting average on balls in play, which will regress as the season progresses.

However, we can rule out cluster luck early this season. The article has numbers for all MLB teams through Sunday. The list below gives cluster luck through Tuesday’s games.

The first number gives total cluster luck, while the numbers in parentheses gives a breakdown on offense and defense. In all cases, a positive number implies good luck.

1. Texas, 19.32. (11.62, 7.70).
2. New York Mets, 16.55. (9.48, 7.08).
3. Arizona, 14.95. (5.89, 9.06).
4. Toronto, 14.45. (14.83, -0.38).
5. Los Angeles Angels, 10.53. (9.16, 1.36).
6. Pittsburgh, 8.72. (11.18, -2.46).
7. San Diego, 7.27. (3.44, 3.82).
8. Boston, 4.79. (11.96, -7.17).
9. St. Louis, 4.78. (-3.91, 8.69).
10. Atlanta, 2.88. (0.86, 2.02).
11. Philadelphia, 2.09. (-3.17, 5.25).
12. Colorado, 1.46. (-1.37, 2.83).
13. New York Yankees, 1.16. (3.35, -2.19).
14. Minnesota, 1.16. (4.00, -2.85).
15. Kansas City, 0.88. (2.89, -2.01).
16. Cleveland, 0.08. (0.23, -0.16).
17. Cincinnati, -1.29. (3.19, -4.48).
18. Chicago Cubs, -2.25. (1.66, -3.91).
19. Chicago White Sox, -3.76. (-2.57, -1.19).
20. Houston, -5.11. (-5.89, 0.78).
21. Washington, -5.47. (-0.72, -4.75).
22. Oakland, -6.50. (1.67, -8.17).
23. Miami, -6.76. (3.40, -10.16).
24. Detroit, -8.86. (-8.23, -0.63).
25. Milwaukee, -9.15. (2.44, -11.59).
26. San Francisco, -10.72. (-13.43, 2.71).
27. Seattle, -11.66. (-3.98, -7.68).
28. Baltimore, -12.61. (-0.99, -11.62).
29. Los Angeles Dodgers, -15.28. (-13.80, -1.48).
30. Tampa Bay, -15.53. (-3.77, -11.76).

Detroit’s cluster luck has gotten worse on offense but gone back to neutral on defense.

Can Justin Verlander stay healthy in 2015?

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Screen Shot 2015-04-07 at 7.07.07 AMJustin Verlander is a huge question mark for the Detroit Tigers. The former Cy Young winner has a triceps strain in his pitching arm and won’t make his first start until April 12 at the earliest.

Will this injury derail his season? Or is this injury a fluke that will seem like a distant memory when Verlander throws his 200th inning in September?

In my latest column for the Detroit News, I use the injury analytics of Jeff Zimmerman of Fangraphs to analyze Verlander’s situation. I also look at the other starters for the Tigers.

To read the column, click here.