Yankee fans - get ready to welcome home your fourth place team

It feels like yesterday that I introduced PECOTA's amazing projections for 2008 to the 3 loyal readers of NYYSI. The future looked bright and all signs pointed to a glorious exit for the "House That Ruth Built". Now, after losing 2 out of 3 to the lowliest of lowly Seattle Mariners, and with a 3 game set against the Yankee-killing Angels looming, it is more than likely that the Yankees will return home for their final homestand as a fourth place team. Further, the Yankees elimination number (combined number of Yankee losses and Red Sox wins until the Yankees are eliminated from playoff contention) is down to 12.

Hey, look on the bright side - at least the Orioles have a firm hold on last place in the division.



Talk about it in the NYYSI Forums! Read the full post, after the jump

PECOTA 2008 Projected MLB Standings Redux - Yankees are still #1

I'm sure all 12 of the loyal NYYSI readers remember this blog post when I pointed out that Baseball Prospectus' infamous PECOTA projections had the AL East Shaping up like this:

American League, ranked by projected 2008 record

East	W	L	RS	RA
New York Yankees	97	65	880	727
Boston Red Sox	91	71	838	746
Tampa Bay Rays	89	73	785	714
Toronto Blue Jays	79	83	768	772
Baltimore Orioles	66	96	746	885

Well, now BP has been kind enough to point me in the direction of a Google spreadsheet showing how their projections have fared since 2003. Obviously, any stat geek will tell you that isn't exactly a huge sample size, but it isn't anything to sneeze at.

As the much-smarter-than-me Nate Silver points out:

Overall, though, the PECOTA projections have tended to get more and more accurate over time. The average error in our won-loss projections since 2003 has been as follows:

2003    5.91 wins
2004    7.71 wins
2005    5.14 wins
2006    4.94 wins
2007    4.31 wins

Basically, PECOTA is getting closer and closer to being "deadly accurate" as they claim on the cover of their yearly baseball book. That is good news for us diehard Yankee fans/stat geeks/ computer worshippers. By now we all know that PECOTA is projecting the Yankees to be the best team in all of baseball.

Now lets take a look at how well PECOTA has predicted Yankee win totals since 2003:

YEAR	PECOTA	ACTUAL	DIFFERENCE
2003	109	101	-8
2004	106	101	-5
2005	95	95	0
2006	94	97	+3
2007	93	94	+1

AVG: -1.8

The lesson here? When all of the MLB preview magazines come out with their "ballsy" picks featuring the Yankees finishing in third in the AL East, don't get up in arms. Simply take heart that our friend, the lovable computer PECOTA, says good things are in store for the 2008 New York Yankees.

Talk about it in the NYYSI Forums! Read the full post, after the jump

PECOTA Projected Standings - Yankees are # 1

UPDATE: Projected standings have been revised

American League, ranked by projected 2008 record

East	W	L	RS	RA
New York Yankees	97	65	882	727
Boston Red Sox	91	71	837	738
Tampa Bay Rays	89	73	785	714
Toronto Blue Jays	79	83	768	775
Baltimore Orioles	65	97	746	889

I guess it is getting a little carried away tracking this so closely, but what else is there to do in February.

Original Post (2/16/08):

Its an exciting day as the first round of PECOTA projected standings have been released. To my surprise, PECOTA projects the Yankees as the best team in the land and finishing with 96 wins. Check out PECOTA's projected AL standings (courtesy of Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus:

American League, ranked by projected 2008 record

East	W	L	RS
New York Yankees	96	66	885
Boston Red Sox	93	69	840
Toronto Blue Jays	83	79	766
Tampa Bay Rays	82	80	788
Baltimore Orioles	69	93	742
Central	W	L	RS
Cleveland Indians	89	73	835
Detroit Tigers	89	73	842
Chicago White Sox	77	85	780
Minnesota Twins	74	88	709
Kansas City Royals	71	91	741
West	W	L	RS
Los Angeles Angels	89	73	810
Oakland Athletics	78	84	732
Texas Rangers	74	88	788
Seattle Mariners	73	89	691

I'm gonna go ahead and blame this guy

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EATEN CURT SCHILLING, BECKETT - NOW PECOTA PROJECTS YOU IN SECOND PLACE!!

and lets take a look at this quote from Papelbon yesterday:

"If we're not the team to beat," Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon said Thursday, "I'd like to know who is. I think that our No. 1 thing is to stay healthy. If we do that, I don't know who can really compete with us."

Obviously, PECOTA is just a computer running projections, but considering what they are showing, maybe Paps shouldn't so damn cocky? An attitude like that is why people all over America are starting to hate the Red Sox as much as they hate the Yankees.

As a final note - I didn't post the NL projected standings, but PECOTA also projects the Mets with 96 wins as the best team in the NL. Subway Series 2008 anyone?


Link to PECOTA 2008 MLB projected standings (paid content)

Link to Nate Silver mini-analysis of projected standings Read the full post, after the jump