ESPN the magazine predicts the AL east

[Snutchy]

Detritus. I wouldn't even line a litter box with that filth.

The Orioles need to take that article, blow it up nice and big, and hang it in the clubhouse. Motivation.

[TonySoprano]

Their predictions include some pseudo-sociological-science (say that 3 times fast) they call "Chemistry 162"

from the article

Demographic Factor The impact from diversity, measured by age, tenure with the team, nationality, race, and position. Teams with the highest scores have several overlapping groups based on shared traits and experiences.

Isolation Factor The impact from players who are isolated because of lack of subgroups from these shared demographic traits. Too much diversity can, in fact, produce clubhouse isolation for players who don't have teammates with similar backgrounds or experiences.

Ego Factor The impact from individuals' differences in performance and monetary status. Too few All-Stars and highly paid players signal a lack of leadership; too many however creates conflict. the ideal level falls in the middle.

TB, which has the best chemistry, according to their Goldilocks methodology, gets two extra wins.

EAST	PRE	EGO	DEM	ISO	PROJTBR	91	0.1	1.7	0.2	93-69BOS	90	-0.4	-0.8	0.2	89-73NYY	84	-1.0	-0.4	0.5	82-80TOR	77	0.2	1.4	0.4	79-83BAL	76	0.0	-1.0	2.0	77-85

What a load of Barbara Streisand

[Can_of_corn]

It keeps on surprising me how many high 70 win totals I'm seeing projected for the Orioles. Did we really get that much worse from last year?

Exactly, the 2012 team was "lucky" the 2013 was a legitimate 85 win team. So either everyone else got a lot better or the O's got a lot worse.

[AlbionHero]

Detritus. I wouldn't even line a litter box with that filth.

The Orioles need to take that article, blow it up nice and big, and hang it in the clubhouse. Motivation.

I'm not sure they'll have room on the board for all the articles, since 5th place with high 70 win totals is pretty much the consensus among all the magazines and websites. Don't know why people are attacking ESPN here when they are no different from anyone else. The advanced stats, which are totally unbiased, have us as a 77-79 win team as well.

I hope we can outdo those projections, but at some point the pitchers xFIP will have to come back and haunt them, they won't be pitching above their level forever.

[Can_of_corn]

I'm not sure they'll have room on the board for all the articles, since 5th place with high 70 win totals is pretty much the consensus among all the magazines and websites. Don't know why people are attacking ESPN here when they are no different from anyone else. The advanced stats, which are totally unbiased, have us as a 77-79 win team as well.

I hope we can outdo those projections, but at some point the pitchers xFIP will have to come back and haunt them, they won't be pitching above their level forever.

I haven't seen any studies showing how a strong infield defense combined with heavy use of defensive shifts may effect the value of xFIP as a statistic.

[mdbdotcom]

We will club them into extinction. That is all.

[harp6]

All these projections are like the stock market. They are based on previous performance. Mutual funds and stocks always put the disclaimer stating that past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Past performance may give some indications of the future. For instance, many of the teams should have some players that perform close to the career numbers.

Because teams are made up of variables called people, things can change. These team rankings cannot accurately predict injuries. They may have some idea of who may get injured from past experience, but that has no guarantees. Take a look at how many pitchers with no injury history are having season ending surgery this year. They cannot accurately predict breakout years, such as Davis last year. They cannot accurately predict when age finally catches up with a player, such as half of the Yankee line-up. They cannot accurately predict peak years and off years for players. Victorino seemed to be going downhill, but then bounced back and had a great year last year. Can he repeat that year, or will he reverse course?

So my advice, save bragging rights until the end of the season when we are in the playoffs or win the world series. Why puff out your chest and say "we are not a last place team" when none of the games have been played. Don't get bent out of shape because some experts think that we are not that good. What they are doing is like predicting the weather by computer models. What makes baseball so great is we get to watch all the variables of this coming season play out. Variables that all the computer models cannot predict. Hopefully, enough of them fall in the Orioles favor.

[MurphDogg]

The reason FIP and xFIP are valuable is because they attempt to calculate how pitchers would perform independent of defense. However defense is a part of the game and pitchers with above average defense behind them should outperform FIP and xFIP every year by the nature of the stat.

[weams]

Detritus. I wouldn't even line a litter box with that filth.

The Orioles need to take that article, blow it up nice and big, and hang it in the clubhouse. Motivation.

There is no one here that particularly wants to be objective. We all want the Orioles to win. I think they will.

[weams]

The reason FIP and xFIP are valuable is because they attempt to calculate how pitchers would perform independent of defense. However defense is a part of the game and pitchers with above average defense behind them should outperform FIP and xFIP every year by the nature of the stat.

Very good point.

[weams]

I'm not sure they'll have room on the board for all the articles, since 5th place with high 70 win totals is pretty much the consensus among all the magazines and websites. Don't know why people are attacking ESPN here when they are no different from anyone else. The advanced stats, which are totally unbiased, have us as a 77-79 win team as well.

I hope we can outdo those projections, but at some point the pitchers xFIP will have to come back and haunt them, they won't be pitching above their level forever.

So you are saying, when we do win, it will just be luck? Na. Sorry. I don't buy that.

[Kalkan]

Their predictions include some pseudo-sociological-science (say that 3 times fast) they call "Chemistry 162"

from the article

TB, which has the best chemistry, according to their Goldilocks methodology, gets two extra wins.

EAST	PRE	EGO	DEM	ISO	PROJTBR	91	0.1	1.7	0.2	93-69BOS	90	-0.4	-0.8	0.2	89-73NYY	84	-1.0	-0.4	0.5	82-80TOR	77	0.2	1.4	0.4	79-83BAL	76	0.0	-1.0	2.0	77-85

What a load of Barbara Streisand

Does it really matter? Orioles were +1. This seems to be a minor point when what we are talking about is a ten win difference needing to be resolved.

Again, though, I assume much of the projection is derived from ZiPS, but I have no clue. ESPN usually uses ZiPS.

[Kalkan]

The reason FIP and xFIP are valuable is because they attempt to calculate how pitchers would perform independent of defense. However defense is a part of the game and pitchers with above average defense behind them should outperform FIP and xFIP every year by the nature of the stat.

The defensive projection should account for this, right?

[AlbionHero]

So you are saying, when we do win, it will just be luck? Na. Sorry. I don't buy that.

No, I don't think its luck... but players do have career years sometimes which'll be tough to replicate, which is what I'm guessing the projection systems are looking at. Most projections have Tillman dropping a run in his ERA and Davis having like 15 less homers, and those projections likely drop us by a few wins. Manny is projected to drop a few WAR as well.

Though with that said, theres no reason to think guys like Markakis or Wieters can't improve this year to make up for any players coming back down to earth.

[weams]

No, I don't think its luck... but players do have career years sometimes which'll be tough to replicate, which is what I'm guessing the projection systems are looking at. Most projections have Tillman dropping a run in his ERA and Davis having like 15 less homers, and those projections likely drop us by a few wins. Manny is projected to drop a few WAR as well.

Though with that said, theres no reason to think guys like Markakis or Wieters can't improve this year to make up for any players coming back down to earth.

So it is Barbra Streisand. Just total foolish page filler from a New England centric publication. That they have to give away.