Where We Stand Now (8-3-15)

In Major League Baseball, Playoffs, Projections by dmick89

I’m going to try and do these every Monday from now on. The Cubs are coming off a very nice 4-game sweep in Milwaukee with a chance to do even more damage in the next week. They’ve got 3 in Pittsburgh starting tonight and then return home for four against the Giants.

Team W L PCT RS RA GB
Cardinals 67 38 .638 418 308 –
Pirates 61 43 .587 429 377 5.5
Cubs 57 47 .548 400 393 9.5
Reds 47 56 .456 413 455 19.0
Brewers 44 62 .415 411 466 23.5

Baseball Prospectus’ Adjusted Standings

The Cubs have only scored 7 more runs than they’ve allowed so the 1st Order Standings will show the Cubs have been quite lucky. The Cubs have scored the fewest runs in the NL Central.

Team W1 L1 PCT1 RS RA D1
Cardinals 66.1 38.9 .630 418 308 0.9
Pirates 58.0 46.0 .558 429 377 3.0
Cubs 52.8 51.2 .508 400 393 4.2
Reds 46.9 56.1 .455 413 455 0.1
Brewers 46.9 59.1 .443 411 466 -2.9

2nd Order records replace actual runs scored and allowed with projected runs based on the team’s statistics.

Team W2 L2 PCT2 RS2 RA2 D2
Cardinals 60.8 44.2 .580 439 367 6.2
Pirates 56.0 48.0 .538 428 393 5.0
Cubs 55.9 48.1 .538 409 376 1.1
Reds 51.3 51.7 .498 445 447 -4.3
Brewers 44.6 61.4 .421 393 468 -0.6

The Pirates and Cardinals have both been rather lucky.

3rd Order records further adjusts the standings to reflect the quality of the opponents. It attempts to be the best indicator of how well a team has actually played.

Team W3 L3 PCT3 RS3 RA3 D3
Cardinals 60.4 44.6 .576 449 379 6.6
Cubs 55.5 48.5 .534 428 397 1.5
Pirates 54.3 49.7 .522 432 412 6.7
Reds 50.4 52.6 .489 452 462 -3.4
Brewers 45.0 61.0 .425 389 460 -1.0

While the Cardinals still maintain a solid advantage over the rest of the division, the Cubs move up to 2nd place. Were these the actual standings, we wouldn’t be talking about winning a playoff spot that didn’t exist a couple seasons ago. We’d be talking about possibly winning the division, with a little luck though the Cubs would have a lesser win-loss record.

Below are the rest of season standings with PECOTA’s projections.

Through 8-2-2015 PECOTA Total
Team W L PCT3 pW pL tW tL
Cardinals* 67 38 .548 31 26 98 64
Dodgers* 60 45 .584 33 24 93 69
Pirates 61 43 .518 29 29 90.3 71.7
Cubs 57 47 .539 31 27 88.3 73.7
Nationals* 54 49 .546 33 26 86.6 75.4
Mets 55 50 .522 30 27 85.4 76.6
Giants 57 47 .531 30 28 87.1 74.9
Padres 51 54 .479 28 29 79.3 82.7
Diamondbacks 50 53 .483 28 31 78.4 83.6
Braves 47 58 .446 26 31 72.7 89.3
Marlins 43 62 .492 29 29 71.5 90.5
Reds 47 56 .472 27 32 74 88
Rockies 44 59 .452 26 33 70.3 91.7
Brewers 44 62 .457 26 30 69.6 92.4
Phillies 41 65 .420 24 32 64.6 97.4

The Cubs win the Wild Card, but it goes down the last day of the season.

There are essentialy three playoff spots up for grabs at this point. The Cardinals and Dodgers would have to collapse down the stretch to not win the divisions they’re in. The Pirates probably have to do the same to not win one of the Wild Card spots leaving 2 playoff spots with one of them guaranteed to go to a team in the NL East (Nationals or Mets). This leaves the Nationals/Mets and the Cubs and Giants left fighting for that last spot.

Team Div% WC% Playoff%
Cardinals* 88.8% 10.8% 99.6%
Dodgers* 84.8% 9.2% 94.0%
Pirates 8.3% 72.0% 80.3%
Cubs 2.9% 59.7% 62.6%
Nationals* 56.1% 5.5% 61.5%
Mets 43.6% 5.7% 49.3%
Giants 14.8% 34.2% 48.9%
Padres 0.2% 1.7% 1.9%
Diamondbacks 0.2% 1.3% 1.5%
Braves 0.2% 0.0% 0.2%
Marlins 0.1% 0.0% 0.1%
Reds 0.0% 0.0% 0.1%
Rockies 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Brewers 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
Phillies 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

 

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