Will the Red Sox make the Playoffs? Pt 1

So, after these lats four fairly crushing defeats, I starting thinking about what seemed very, very unlikely three or four weeks ago- the prospect that the Red Sox will not make the playoffs. Starting with work by people a fair bit more statistically inclined, I checked out the Baseball Prospectus Playoff odds reports. These are a Monte Carlo simulations, where the season is played out 1 million times, and they have three versions of this, one unadjusted and based on run differential, and two others that are adjusted by PECOTA (BP's projection system), and another adjusted by ELO. ELO is a ranking system that applies a lot of different information, such as strength of schedule. If you want to learn more, here is a BP article describing ELO, an why it is useful for baseball.
Let's start with the unadjusted playoff probability (remember, this is based only on runs scored and runs allowed)

Team	%Div	%WC
Red Sox	12.64	35.36
Yankees	77.35	15.63
Rays	9.98	32.44
Rangers	22.50	9.24
Angels	77.43	4.92

Based on RS/RA, the Red Sox look good. Also, even though the Red Sox, Rays, and Yankees have beaten up on each other this season, their run differential is much better than the teams in the AL West, who only have about a 15% chance of taking the Wildcard. This projection has a couple of flaws in it, however. First of all, the Red Sox have improved their offense with the addition of V-Mart, who will help keep Lowell, Youkilis, and Tek fresh. I think overall, in my completely unscientific view, the Sox offense should improve a good bit, even if the team is currently mired in a terrible slump.
I think the bigger problem will be pitching. The Sox bullpen was down right unhittable early in the year, and that just wasn't sustainable, especially now that they are being asked to pitch more and more innings. On top of that, this isn't the same pitching rotation that did well early in the year.
All in all, I think this projection is pretty good, though perhaps on the low side. Using this projection, the Sox finish at 91 and 61, meaning they go 29-24 over the rest of the season. This seems lok, considering they have 30 home games left, and 26 road games, with the team playing much, much better at home.

Ahem.

It's time.

My team is for sale. No one is off limits. I can't take this anymore.

That's all.

Sam Fuld makes The Hardball Times

Kind of fun: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/give-fuld-a-chance/

TB announcers are awful

The Tampa announcers are such whiny little shits. It's unbelievable. There was a correct call in the 8th (involving runners advancing on a throw) in the 8th that basically cost TB a run, but they are still complaining about it in the 12th. At first ,they were bitching about how it was a bad call, then someone got a clue and let them know it was the correct call. But that doesn't stop them from saying how "the rule needs to be changed in winter meetings" and "that's the kind of call that changes a season." It's a fine rule that doesn't work particularly well in the given situation, but isn't any worse than the ground rule double. They're terrible homers to top it off, and make me long for Hawk Harrelson, he of "Git back JeMAINE" fame. Let's hope this game ends better than that one.

Other league changes

An interesting article in the Hardball Times today about encouraging teams to keep trying. I'm not sure how well their specific solution works, but it's something to think about. In addition to looking at changing keeper rules, we might want to consider ways to encourage teams to try to stay competitive all season.

Weekly update, August 2

Weekly Update		R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	W	SV	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	Total Pts	Net Pts
1	Oh Balls!!!	47	15	49	8	0.003	3	1	41	0.28	0.04	47	61.5	3
2	Mr Bill's Boppers	43	6	39	4	-0	3	2	40	0.03	0.01	47	58	0
3	I Ain't Got My Taco	46	14	55	6	0.003	1	0	32	0.1	0.02	45.1	48.5	-1.5
4	The Chones	40	9	36	2	0.003	3	1	52	-0.01	0	55.1	44	-0.5
5	Soap Box Yakkers	47	11	30	4	-0	2	5	24	-0.06	-0.01	37.9	43.5	-0.5
6	Smell The Glove	32	14	41	1	0.001	2	5	40	0.07	0.01	35	41.5	0.5
7	Soo Choo Train	38	5	30	3	-0	2	0	40	0.01	0	51.9	38.5	-3.5
8	A-Roid's RagingRotos	38	12	38	4	0.005	3	2	33	-0.09	-0.02	38	24.5	2.5

Despite a shitty week for Andrew's pitching, he gains a couple points (and a couple more today in runs). Trouble could be looming in the pitching stats, as his WHIP and ERA both ballooned this week and could quickly become competitive categories again.

Keeper rules

So can we decide on what we're going to do for keepers next season? The number of keepers, inflation, and keeper time limits are big factors for me in some trade discussions.

I've summarized the discussion from the earlier comments as best I can remember it, but if something is missing let me know.

1. 4 keepers? 5 keepers?
I think 5 is a reasonable number, Andrew and I have been winning because of contributions from the draft.

2. 10% inflation (current), 50% inflation? Always round up? Down? Round to nearest integer?
I think somewhere between 10 and 50% would be reasonable. A few examples, using a 20th round draft pick, rounding up:
10% 15 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
20% 10 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 16, 12, 9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
30% 7 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 14, 9, 6, 4, 2, 1
40% 5 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 12, 7, 4, 2, 1
50% 4 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 10, 5, 2, 1
Obviously a 10% inflation uncapped isn't a very good idea. Andrew shouldn't be able to keep Longoria in 2017 for a 7th round pick.

With the higher percentages rounding makes a large difference in time until a 1st round pick:
30% rounding up, 7 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 14, 9, 6, 4, 2, 1
30% rounding down, 9 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 14, 10, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

I think 50% rounding down seems reasonable - I think this was what Mark suggested. The very cheap players get expensive quickly, but if you end up with an elite player in later rounds you can hang on to them for awhile. That said, they're not preposterous bargains.
50% rounding down, 6 years until a 1st round pick: 20, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1

3. Stick with the year drafted plus 3 years as a keeper? Unlimited keeper time limits (proposed in conjuction with agressive player inflation)

4. Cost for undrafted players?
If we want to slightly increase the cost of undrafted players, I'd suggest having them be a 20th round pick but have them cost earlier rounds after that. I picked the 20th round because that is the last round you'd use to fill your starting lineup. I'd be fine with an earlier pick too - right now I think that cheap free agent players have the greatest potential to be unbalancing.

5. Number of 1st round keepers that can be kept?
Currently it is two, but Mark mentioned that we might remove that rule with aggressive inflation. I'd actually be OK with keeping this rule.