April 1st, Baseball Simulations

April 1st Simulations ...

Visitors	Home	Probable Pitching Matchup	Favorite	Vegas Win Prob	Simulator Win Prob	Units Bet	Final Score
Giants	Dodgers	J.Sanchez vs C.Billingsley	Dodgers	54.55%	57.97%	LAN, 0.9	LAN 4-3
Mariners	Athletics	F.Hernandez vs T.Cahill	Athletics	52.83%	53.06%	0.0	SEA 6-2
Astros	Phillies	B.Myers vs R.Halladay	Phillies	71.43%	64.32%	HOU, 1.0	PHI 5-4
Twins	Blue Jays	C.Pavano vs R.Romero	Blue Jays	55.75%	54.23%	0.0	TOR 13-3
Mets	Marlins	M.Pelfrey vs J.Johnson	Marlins	62.83%	56.14%	NYN, 1.1	FLA 6-2
White Sox	Indians	M.Buehrle vs F.Carmona	Indians	50.00%	53.15%	CLE, 0.5	CHA 15-10
Orioles	Rays	J.Guthrie vs D.Price	Rays	65.16%	55.06%	BAL, 1.6	BAL 4-1
Red Sox	Rangers	J.Lester vs C.Wilson	Red Sox	54.34%	45.36%	TEX, 1.6	TEX 9-5
Pirates	Cubs	K.Correia vs R.Dempster	Cubs	63.24%	62.97%	0.0	PIT 6-3
Angels	Royals	D.Haren vs J.Francis	Angels	57.81%	55.36%	0.0	KC 2-1
DBacks	Rockies	I.Kennedy vs U.Jimenez	Rockies	65.52%	72.36%	COL, 2.5	ARI 7-6

Seasonal ROI: -12.00%

MLB Scoreboard

Opening Day Simulation

March 31st Opening Day Simulations ...

Visitors	Home	Probable Pitching Matchup	Favorite	Vegas Win Prob	Simulator Win Prob	Units Bet	Final Score
Giants	Dodgers	T.Lincecum vs C.Kershaw	Dodgers	50.50%	54.59%	LAN/0.8	LAN 2-1
Tigers	Yankees	J.Verlander vs C.Sabathia	Yankees	59.35%	58.91%	0.0	NYA 6-3
Royals	Angels	L.Hochevar vs J.Weaver	Angels	58.51%	57.60%	0.0	LAA 4-2
Braves	Nationals	D.Lowe vs L.Hernandez	Braves	58.33%	41.10%	WAS/3.4	ATL 2-0
Padres	Cardinals	T.Stauffer vs C.Carpenter	Cardinals	65.52%	60.79%	SD/0.6	SD 5-3
Brewers	Reds	Y.Gallardo vs E.Volquez	Reds	53.27%	56.88%	CIN/1.0	CIN 7-6

Seasonal ROI: 0.00%

Dodgers simulation details/contest at True Blue LA

MLB Scoreboard

Organizational Rankings

Inspired by the second annual MLB Organization Rankings done by Fangraphs, I have decided to calculate my own. Last year famously, Fangraphs took a lot of deserved heat for ranking the Seattle Mariners, the laughing stock of baseball in 2010, as the #6Org. There was much uproar about the validity of a system that could rank them so high. While the 2011 list from Fangraphs is just underway, they have already raised my eyebrows by ranking the Dodgers as the #23Org. So I took it upon myself to see how difficult it would be do come up with a more sensible organizational ranking system. Not only that, but I've made my spreadsheet used to come up with my rankings a public google document.

Of course I don't have the hoards of databases and "expert" writers at my disposal to create such a ranking, but I feel I have done as good of job in the 60 minutes time it took me to slap together this ranking system. Below are the inputs and weightings used.

Methodology
1. Recent success and future forecasted success (winning games, making playoffs). This takes into consideration the number of games the team won over the past three years, along with their expected win total from Vegas for the 2011 season, plus a multiplier for number of times the team has made the playoffs over the past three years.
2. Minor league system (Baseball Prospectus)
3. Market Cap / Value of team (Forbes)
4. $Win efficiency (2011 Expected Wins above replacment per millions in projected payroll). The number of wins above 48 that the team is expected to have in the 2011 season (Vegas over/under) divided by its expected 2011 payroll.

Weights
1. 50%
2. 25%
3. 10%
4. 15%

With that, here is the list...

Team	Recent Success	Minors	Market Cap	Efficiency Rank	Weighted Final Average	Final Rank
PHI	1	8	6	20	6.1	1
TB	4	2	28	6	6.2	2
NYY	2	4	1	29	6.45	3
TEX	6	10	8	4	6.9	4
ATL	8	3	13	10	7.55	5
MIN	5	15	12	14	9.55	6
SF	7	22	7	1	9.85	7
LAA	9	6	9	21	10.05	8
BOS	3	19	2	26	10.35	9
CIN	13	9	23	8	12.25	10
COL	11	14	17	11	12.35	11
LAN	12	18	3	17	13.35	12
STL	10	21	11	16	13.75	13
TOR	20	5	27	9	15.3	14
SD	21	11	19	2	15.45	15
OAK	18	16	29	3	16.35	16
CHA	14	25	10	22	17.55	17
FLA	15	29	24	5	17.9	18
MIL	16	30	22	12	19.5	19
CLE	26	7	25	19	20.1	20
CHN	19	23	4	30	20.15	21
SEA	24	13	15	23	20.2	22
WAS	28	12	16	15	20.85	23
DET	17	27	21	25	21.1	24
KC	29	1	26	27	21.4	25
NYN	22	24	5	28	21.7	26
ARI	27	20	20	13	22.45	27
PIT	30	17	30	7	23.3	28
HOU	23	28	14	24	23.5	29
BAL	25	26	18	18	23.5	29

Sources:
Baseball Prosectus
Forbes
MLB Contracts

2011 MLB Schedule In Text Ascii Format

I began looking for an online MLB schedule in text ascii format. I couldn't find one anywhere, so I decided to make my own. After scraping the schedules off of mlb.com and writing a program to parse the data, I have come up with my own text ascii (csv) 2011 MLB Schedule.

The format is the following:

Game Number,Year,Month,Day,Away,Home
2431,2011,9,28,LAN,ARI

The game number is just a counter from 1 to 2431 of all the scheduled games. It is easy enough to change or ignore the game counter if need be, but I use it. I have uploaded this text ascii csv file as a shared Google document, one that anyone with the link can view or download.

Note: Second version (3/19) of file is currently loaded as first version listed FLA for all Seattle games.

Diamondbacks vs Rockies, Opening Day Simulation

Here is a simulation of the Diamondbacks and Rockies opening day game. Both teams starting pitchers for their first game of the season are locks. I have used starting lineups from the wonderful site MLBDepthCharts.Com. Below are the box scores from the simulation along with the results.

Lineups

Player	Pos		Player	Pos
Stephen Drew	SS		Dexter Fowler	CF
Justin Upton	RF		Seth Smith	RF
Kelly Johnson	2B		Carlos Gonzalez	LF
Chris Young	CF		Troy Tulowitzki	SS
Miguel Montero	C		Todd Helton	1B
Xavier Nady	LF		Ian Stewart	3B
Melvin Mora	3B		Jose Lopez	2B
Juan Miranda	1B		Chris Iannetta	C
Ian Kennedy	P		Ubaldo Jimenez	P

... And now the results!

Away	Home			Favorite	Win/Prob
ARI	COL	Ian Kennedy	Ubaldo Jimenez	COL	71.79%

It looks like the Rockies will be big favorites to win their opening day game against the Diamondbacks. This is not a big surprise as the Rockies are the stronger of the two teams, the starting pitching matchup is clearly not even and the game is being played in Denver. Besides Putz, the Diamondbacks bullpen gets hammered.

Here is the hitter(s) boxscores

Name	AB	Hits	H1	H2	H3	HR	RBI	BB	SO	wOBA
Stephen Drew	4.337	1.207	0.722	0.309	0.095	0.081	0.347	0.435	1.07	0.346
Justin Upton	4.196	1.176	0.771	0.266	0.017	0.123	0.433	0.392	1.401	0.343
Kelly Johnson	4.117	1.109	0.65	0.303	0.047	0.109	0.454	0.45	1.208	0.344
Chris Young	4.046	1.011	0.61	0.267	0.018	0.116	0.497	0.374	1.237	0.318
Miguel Montero	3.962	1.052	0.667	0.287	0.02	0.077	0.45	0.4	1.105	0.327
Xavier Nady	3.924	1.069	0.704	0.248	0.006	0.111	0.48	0.284	1.123	0.326
Melvin Mora	3.818	1.123	0.748	0.268	0.023	0.084	0.439	0.277	0.874	0.343
Juan Miranda	3.79	1.148	0.791	0.261	0.014	0.082	0.447	0.235	0.647	0.344
Ian Kennedy	3.755	0.427	0.346	0.068	0.003	0.01	0.144	0.143	2.15	0.134
Dexter Fowler	4.312	1.429	0.835	0.357	0.129	0.107	0.472	0.469	0.93	0.406
Seth Smith	4.195	1.373	0.772	0.345	0.044	0.212	0.679	0.501	0.884	0.419
Carlos Gonzalez	4.188	1.551	0.859	0.343	0.088	0.261	0.866	0.44	0.985	0.467
Troy Tulowitzki	4.114	1.437	0.806	0.361	0.057	0.213	0.855	0.357	0.767	0.433
Todd Helton	3.812	1.367	0.835	0.35	0.027	0.155	0.754	0.605	0.733	0.445
Ian Stewart	3.864	1.235	0.698	0.326	0.037	0.175	0.76	0.436	0.907	0.406
Jose Lopez	3.946	1.269	0.819	0.317	0.02	0.113	0.634	0.197	0.554	0.368
Chris Iannetta	3.656	1.099	0.685	0.279	0.016	0.119	0.563	0.382	0.775	0.37
Ubaldo Jimenez	3.784	0.593	0.474	0.098	0.006	0.015	0.216	0.162	1.694	0.178

And the pitchers boxscore

Name	IP	SO	BB	Hits	HR	PC	FIP
Ubaldo Jimenez	6.201	7.387	2.245	6.195	0.435	102.776	2.816
Huston Street	0.411	0.507	0.076	0.399	0.036	6.429	2.416
Matt Belisle	0.39	0.442	0.062	0.404	0.039	6.07	2.718
Rafael Betancourt	0.728	1.073	0.135	0.674	0.102	11.565	2.634
Matt Lindstrom	0.38	0.361	0.128	0.441	0.045	6.3	3.857
Matt Reynolds	0.77	0.781	0.254	0.917	0.104	12.898	3.918
Matt Daley	0.253	0.261	0.088	0.287	0.032	4.219	3.834
Franklin Morales	0.004	0.004	0.002	0.005	0.001	0.068	4.607
Ian Kennedy	5.214	5.088	2.034	7.062	0.839	91.367	4.51
J.J. Putz	0.326	0.411	0.099	0.351	0.03	5.424	2.796
Juan Gutierrez	0.425	0.407	0.158	0.57	0.076	7.372	4.722
David Hernandez	0.724	0.716	0.354	0.976	0.138	13.056	5.172
Esmerling Vasquez	0.476	0.484	0.312	0.61	0.07	8.909	5.058
Aaron Heilman	0.813	0.742	0.368	1.132	0.145	14.522	5.049
Joe Paterson	0.449	0.368	0.217	0.629	0.069	8.032	4.999
Mike Hampton	0.017	0.013	0.007	0.024	0.002	0.303	4.634

Simulated 2011 NL West Projected Wins

Using my simulator to play out the 2011 schedules for NL West teams. Each game of each team's actual schedule was simulated 10,000 times. There is obviously some margin of error in these numbers. But they should be as good as anything anybody else puts out there.

Team	Wins	Losses	WPct
Giants	88.2	73.8	.544
Rockies	86.8	75.2	.536
Dodgers	85.2	76.8	.526
Padres	81.0	81.0	.500
Diamondbacks	68.9	93.1	.425

Notes: My simulator uses a proprietary set of player projections as input. It also takes into consideration defense, home field advantage, park factors, splits, bullpens, speed, among many other things.

NL Centra/East, Saves Over/Under

On the heels of the NL West saves over/under numbers, here are the saves over/unders for the NL Central and East. Once again, feel free to provide any feedback on numbers you feel are too high or low.

NL Centra/East

Player	Team	Saves Over/Under
Brandon Lyon	HOU	31.5
Wilton Lopez	HOU	2.5
Mark Melancon	HOU	2.5
Craig Kimbrel	ATL	21.5
Jonny Venters	ATL	9.5
John Axford	MIL	24.5
Takashi Saito	MIL	4.5
Ryan Franklin	STL	34.5
Jason Motte	STL	3.5
Carlos Marmol	CHC	40.5
Kerry Wood	CHC	2.5
Leo Nunez	FLA	32.5
Clay Hensley	FLA	4.5
Francisco Rodriguez	NYM	34.5
Bobby Parnell	NYM	3.5
Drew Storen	WAS	22.5
Sean Burnett	WAS	3.5
Tyler Clippard	WAS	3.5
Brad Lidge	PHI	36.5
Ryan Madson	PHI	3.5
Joel Hanrahan	PIT	20.5
Evan Meek	PIT	9.5
Francisco Cordero	CIN	24.5
Ardolis Chapman	CIN	7.5
Nick Masset	CIN	2.5

NL West Over/Under On Saves

There is a science behind baseball player projections. But one of the more difficult stats to project is one of the more important one for fantasy baseball enthusiasts and that is saves. Saves by itself is not a great indicator of a pitchers talent, but nonetheless it is important for this niche of fantasy baseball managers to have a good swag on how many saves a closer or closer in waiting will likely get. There is obviously a large margin of error on any projection of saves but a good over/under (or mean average) number shouldn't be too difficult to publish. I am beginning publishing some save over/under numbers, starting with the NL West. I would like to get as much feedback as possible, so these numbers can be as representative as possible of a "Vegas type" over/under number. Please provide your thoughts below.

NL West

Player	Team	Saves Over/Under
J.Broxton	LAD	34.5
H.Kuo	LAD	4.5
M.Guerrier	LAD	2.5
K.Jansen	LAD	2.5
B.Wilson	SF	41.5
S.Romo	SF	2.5
J.Affeldt	SF	2.5
J.Putz	ARI	26.5
J.Gutierrez	ARI	4.5
D.Hernandez	ARI	2.5
H.Street	COL	32.5
R.Betancourt	COL	4.5
M.Lindstrom	COL	2.5
M.Belisle	COL	2.5
H.Bell	SD	42.5
M.Adams	SD	2.5
L.Gregerson	SD	2.5