31 March 2007

Phillies Beat Mets for NL East Title!...on Paper

Fantasy Baseball is one of my passions. I've played in leagues since 1987 and have experienced the excitement of drafting Mike Schmidt, one of my favorite all-time players. This is where fantasy and reality begin to blur. While Schmidt put up very strong numbers in 1987 (35HR/113RBI/.293BA), keeping him on my roster in 1988 proved to be more of a problem (12HR/62RBI/.249BA). I did manage to finish in second place each season, but probably could have made it to first with a stronger hitter than Schmidt in my lineup.

In any case, it was a lesson learned. Something about weighing emotions vs. hard statistics, something successful fantasy baseball players are very adept at doing. In fact, because of my emotional attachment to the Phillies, I actually tend to undervalue most of their players heading into drafts so that I don't make the same mistake again. Of course, last year this meant passing up on Utley, Howard and Rollins (all fantasy studs) when I could have drafted them in good value positions.

This year I do have Howard and Burrell on one team and Utley on another, but keep missing out on Myers and Hamels, they are both going early than expected and right about the same time. Hamels went one pick ahead of Myers in one draft and Myers when a round before Hamels in another, both ahead of where it made sense to draft them based on the projections.

The relationship between fantasy and reality got me thinking when the news came out that Jimmy Rollins was proclaiming the Phillies the team to beat in the NL East. The emotion is great to hear from a team that had none through the Bowa era and early on in the Manuel era, (maybe it was the Abreu era) but was it just emotion, or does Jimmy Rollins have a point?

Mets fans of course like to point to last year when they ran away with the division and the Phillies were left in rebuilding mode only to find out they were good enough to compete for the Wild Card. As everyone knows, last year was last year and this year is different. It's not like the Mets won 14 straight division titles and have the right to proclaim themselves the team to beat. It was just one year.


The Hard Statistics
While preparing for my Fantasy drafts this year, I decided to take a look at how the Mets roster compares with the Phillies roster. First a bit about how I prepare. When projecting player statistics, I look at 3 sources; The Sporting News, ESPN and the Roto Wire. I take each of their projections and average them out to determine what is expected of every player in the draft. This gives me stats on the players most likely to be drafted and some that aren't. One caveat here, bench players and the bullpen aren't considered (yes, I know this is an area of concern for both teams, so maybe I'll cover that in a later blog).

Looking at fantasy projections may not be the best statistical research, especially for those hard core statisticians out there, and it doesn't take into effect the schedule, which benefits the Phillies, but it does provide some interesting results none-the-less.

What does seem most important in looking at the stats is determining how many runs will be scored by each team's hitters and how many runs will be given up by each teams pitchers. This should give some sort of indication of won-loss record.


Phillies Hitters (runs scored)
123 Jimmy Rollins
80 Shane Victorino
122 Chase Utley
110 Ryan Howard
81 Pat Burrell
71 Aaron Rowand
58 Wes Helms
60 Rod Barajas
------------------
705 Total

Phillies Pitchers (ERA)
3.99 Brett Myers
4.11 Cole Hamels
4.17 Freddy Garcia
4.43 Jamie Moyer
4.67 Adam Eaton
3.00 Tom Gordon
-------------------
4.19 ERA (Averaged based on Innings Pitched)


Mets Hitters (runs scored)
120 Jose Reyes
120 Carlos Beltran
103 David Wright
86 Carlos Delgado
61 Moises Alou
70 Shawn Green
57 Jose Valentin
70 Paul Lo Duca
--------------------
687 Total

Mets Pitchers (ERA)
3.92 Tom Glavine
4.39 Orlando Hernandez
4.35 John Maine
4.46 Mike Pelfrey*
3.83 Pedro Martinez*
5.70 Oliver Perez*
2.06 Billy Wagner
---------------------
4.22 ERA (Averaged based on Innings Pitched)

Note: It's not known when (or if) Pedro will pitch or who he will replace in the rotation, so Martinez, Perez and Pelfry were weighted with the same number of innings pitched between them (which is pretty much how the statistical sources had it as well).


The Final Analysis
As this study shows, the Phillies are again projected to lead the Mets in Runs scored 705 to 687 (starters only), but this year they are also projected to give up fewer runs per game 4.19 vs. 4.22.

Another interesting stat that comes out of this is the number of innings pitched by starters, where Phillies starters are projected to eat up 970 innings this season, the Mets starters are only projected to throw 895 innings. More thoughts on the effect that will have on the bullpens later.

For now Phillies fans can relish in the thought that Rollins is correct when he says they are the team to beat. Of course, that's why they play the games.