Here you go:

http://www.halosheaven.com/2009/2/10/755014/baseball-prospectus-projec

I understand there will be a drop in production at 1B, but added ABs for Rivera plus the continued maturation of guys like Kendrick, Napoli and Aybar should make up some of that.

You seem to have dissed somebody.

is the handicap that we are spotting the rest of the West.

I wouldn’t be surprised with an 85 win season and losing the AL West to an A’s team that plugged some holes and will get better because they guys are a year older.

If the Halos sustain some injuries – 79 wins could happen. Without signing Dunn the Halos are counting on a lot of things going right to make 2009 successful:

1. Morales to step-up with the bat
2. Vlad to not be in decline
3. Napoli to be healthy and productive
4. Figgy to bounce back
5. Rivera to produce like a starter
6. One of Moseley/Ortega/Adenhart to not suck
7. B-Wood or S-Rod to produce if Figgy is traded
8. None of the top four starters getting hurt
9. GMJ returning and being useful if needed to fill in for an injured teammate

I think it is more likely this team wins 79 games than this team wins 95 games. But I predict something like 86 wins…we’ll see.

the NL West is projected better than us!! Now that is terrible. Secondly, the A’s will blow I have no worries about them. But as for projections…This is why they play the games.

I can easily see Morales out-producing Kotchman’s first 4 months of with the team, since he really sort of leveled off a couple of months in, and was producing about a 100 OPS+ by the time he was traded. So overall, we ended up with about a 120 OPS+ from our 1B spot over the course of the entire regular season. It’s not totally unreasonable to expect Morales to put up about a 110 OPS+ this season, which would be a step down to be sure, but hardly a dramatic tapering off.

I’m confused. What’s wrong with projecting 4 AL East teams to be above .500? 4th-place in the AL East had 86 wins last year, so it’s not like it’s some wacky thing that is quite unlikely to happen.

1. The AL east will be very good
2. The Cubs will be in the neighbourhood of 95 games
3. The A’s will probably win about 82 games (with a little luck and a following wind)

But, as others have stated, PECOTA has a hell of a time trying to pick the Halo’s. Having said that, they consistently miss by about the same amount, and in the same direction each year: an average of 10 games under for the last 5, with a spread of 8-12.

Apply that projection to PECOTA and it would give the Angels 89 wins in ’09 with a spread of 87-91.

I suspect that’ll be pretty close to the truth.

Mostly because of their consistently dominant bullpen. This projection is based off of a similar calculation, so I’d expect them to be about 5 games better than the projection, plus a few more after the Abreu signing.

Also, how could more AB’s for Juan Rivera ever help you guys? The guy was below replacement level the last two seasons and has had one or two good years his whole career. Then you signed him up for three years. This is why you are projected to win 79 games next year, though I think it will be closer to 85.

And few things are as irritating as the faux science of “well, he’ll probably add about two wins to the team” or whatever (note: not an actually quote). PECOTA is A) for people who don’t follow teams remotely as closely as fans do, and B) for people to get their biases confirmed. Oh yeah, and C) for Angel fans to laugh and laugh at in September.