BP predicts the '07 records

[Drew Doughty]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

I wouldn't be surprised. There was only one last year, and that team took steps backwards imo. I don't think the Dodgers or Padres improved.

[imb]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

The Mets were the only 90 win team in the NL last year. Its not far fetched.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

Also, if I'm not mistaken most predictions gravitate toward the mean. It's not surprising that no team has an excessive amount of wins.

[BigbadB]

I wouldn't be surprised. There was only one last year, and that team took steps backwards imo. I don't think the Dodgers or Padres improved.

 

I'll have to disagree with you on the Dodgers.

[Drew Doughty]

I wouldn't be surprised. There was only one last year, and that team took steps backwards imo. I don't think the Dodgers or Padres improved.

 

I'll have to disagree with you on the Dodgers.

 

how did the dodgers improve? they went from drew and lofton to pierre and gonzalez.

 

here are their numbers by rotation spot last year:

--------1st------2nd----3rd----4th-----5th----total average (not actual ERA, though)

LAN---3.52-----3.76---4.34--4.65----5.75---4.40

 

here's what i think about their rotation. this assumes health.

player -- my opinion -- zips era

Brad Penny -- 3.80 -- 3.95

Derek Lowe -- 4.00 -- 3.83

Jason Schmidt -- 4.10 -- 3.94

Chad Billingsley -- 4.50 -- 4.38

Randy Wolf -- 5.00 -- 4.89

total average -- 4.28 -- 4.20

 

that's not a huge improvement at all, and their decline on offense balances that out imo.

[BigbadB]

A better rotation no matter what Zips says combined with full years out of Kent, Nomar (okay, maybe not Nomar), Betemit, Ethier, Martin, Saito, Brazoban, Billingsley is part of the reason they will be a better team. Pierre and Gonzalez were pretty stupid moves, but overall, they are a better team than they were last year.

 

I will agree that the Padres took a step back.

[Drew Doughty]

A better rotation no matter what Zips says combined with full years out of Kent, Nomar (okay, maybe not Nomar), Betemit, Ethier, Martin, Saito, Brazoban, Billingsley is part of the reason they will be a better team. Pierre and Gonzalez were pretty stupid moves, but overall, they are a better team than they were last year.

 

I will agree that the Padres took a step back.

 

I don't think the Padres took a step back, I just don't think they improved.

 

I don't think the Dodgers rotation improved. If anything, it was a very marginal improvement.

 

Billingsley is likely to regress over last year. Same for Ethier. Martin's improvement probably won't be huge, Nomar will likely regress, Saito will likely regress, Kent will either stay at the same level or decline, and Betemit is kind of a wild card. I think their offense took a step backwards and their pitching marginally improved. Overall, I think they'll be slightly worse than last year. They have tons of upside, but I don't think next year is their year.

[Ender]

Some teams will be better than expected, some will be worse. Predictions are supposed to be the middle of the road projections assuming nothing major goes wrong or right.

 

If Prior is healthy, Wood is healthy, Hill pitches like the 2nd half of last year and the offense hits up to its potential the Cubs will win 90+ games. But it certainly isnt' a safe bet to predict them to win 90 in my opinion, something is going to go wrong.

 

If Sheets stays healthy, Bush pitches like many expect him to, Weeks, Fielder, Hardy all grow up fast the Brewers could win 90+ games, its still a much safer bet to project in the mid 70's to mid 80's for them because its just not likely everything goes right... though it could happen.

 

Some team will have everything go right and they'll be 2005's white sox or 2006 tigers teams who way outproduced what they probably should have.

 

As for the Dodgers, they are batting Pierre 2nd so thats a downgrade. Kent, Garciaparra aren't very likely to stay healthy given their histories, that leaves a pretty weak lineup. Hard for me to be sold on them just yet.

[BigbadB]

Billingsley is likely to regress over last year. Same for Ethier. Martin's improvement probably won't be huge, Nomar will likely regress, Saito will likely regress, Kent will either stay at the same level or decline, and Betemit is kind of a wild card. I think their offense took a step backwards and their pitching marginally improved. Overall, I think they'll be slightly worse than last year. They have tons of upside, but I don't think next year is their year.

 

You're talking about all of these regressions, but not taking into account the players some of these guys replaced. The Dodgers had 9 different guys at 3b last year. A full season of Betemit at 3b should not be a regression. Jason Repko's injury opened the door to one of the kids. Martin replaced Toby Hall/Dionar Navarro. Ramon Martinez played 2b more than anyone else during Kent's injury. Marlon Anderson was getting starts in LF. Gonzalez is an improvement over Marlon Anderson.

 

Gagne and Brazoban made it tough on the Dodger bullpen early. They went into the season with Baez as their closer. It wasn't until later that Saito took over, and I think they gave a look to Broxton before Saito got the job.

 

Adding Schmidt and Wolf to their rotation makes their rotation stronger. Wolf and Schmidt will be better than Sele, Seo, Tomko and Perez.

 

And I'm not sure why you think all those guys will regress.

[Yestheydo]

I don't see how the Reds are going to allow 40 more runs than they did last year.

[treebird]

I don't see how the Reds are going to allow 40 more runs than they did last year.

 

i could see arroyo by himself allowing 30 more runs than he did last year. same innings

[imb]

I don't see how the Reds are going to allow 40 more runs than they did last year.

 

i could see arroyo by himself allowing 30 more runs than he did last year. same innings

 

I was gonna say, Harang and Arroyo could easily regress 40 runs

[soccer10k]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

The Mets were the only 90 win team in the NL last year. Its not far fetched.

 

Q: When was the last time, in a non-strike shortened season, that no team in the NL has won at least 90 games?

 

A: 1959 when the Dodgers won 88. But they only played 156 games that year also so it's never happened in a 162 game schedule.

[soccer10k]

Can somebody post the AL predictions also?

[Drew Doughty]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

The Mets were the only 90 win team in the NL last year. Its not far fetched.

 

Q: When was the last time, in a non-strike shortened season, that no team in the NL has won at least 90 games?

 

A: 1959 when the Dodgers won 88. But they only played 156 games that year also so it's never happened in a 162 game schedule.

 

Q: When was the last time the NL was this pathetically weak.

 

A: Never.

 

As for thinking the Dodgers will regress...several factors.

 

Martin -- won't regress, will likely improve a little bit.

Nomar -- terrible second half, aging, injury prone, etc.

Kent -- old and injury prone

Betemit -- never said he would regress, just that he was a wild card

Furcal -- will probably regress slightly, though just because last year was a bit of a career year.

Ethier -- Numbers were inflated by hot start, was pretty bad at the end of the year (132/303/151 in Sept/Oct).

Pierre -- we all know about pierre

Gonzalez -- we all know about gonzalez

 

Penny -- I don't see a regression here; i think he'll improve slightly over last year.

Lowe -- predictability of contact/groundball pitchers is tough, wouldn't be surprised by regression.

Schmidt -- going from park that suppresses home runs to a park that inflates them, general regression from age/declining stuff.

Billingsley -- might not regress, but has tons of work to do to fix 1.67 WHIP last year. Could pitch better and have a worse ERA.

Wolf -- meh.

 

Saito -- 37 years old.

[soccer10k]

Rest of the NL

 

East

Philadelphia 87-75

New York 85-77

Atlanta 81-81

Florida 79-83

Washington 66-96

 

West

Arizona 88-74

San Diego 86-76

Los Angeles 80-82

Colorado 80-82

San Francisco 78-84

 

With their payroll if the Cubs fail to contend in a league this crummy then Hendry should be shot out of a cannon

 

Do you honestly believe every single one of those predictions and believe there will not be one single 90-win team in the whole darn league?

 

The Mets were the only 90 win team in the NL last year. Its not far fetched.

 

Q: When was the last time, in a non-strike shortened season, that no team in the NL has won at least 90 games?

 

A: 1959 when the Dodgers won 88. But they only played 156 games that year also so it's never happened in a 162 game schedule.

 

Q: When was the last time the NL was this pathetically weak.

 

A: Never.

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

[David]

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

 

Cobs.

[soccer10k]

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

 

Cobs.

 

We can only hope.

[A New Era]

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

 

Cobs.

 

We can only hope.

 

Can we stop calling them the cobs? Do they deserve that now? Or do they have to go win the 90 games first.

[David]

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

 

Cobs.

 

We can only hope.

 

Can we stop calling them the cobs? Do they deserve that now? Or do they have to go win the 90 games first.

 

:?:

[TB_11]

 

1. How do you know the NL has never been this "pathetically weak"? I don't understand how you can make that assertion.

 

2. I'll take 40+ years of the NL playing a 162 schedule with at least 1 team winning at least 90 games each year. Every single year there are teams that perform better or worse than they are expected to. I guarantee at least one of the 16 NL teams will win 90 games in 2007.

 

Cobs.

 

We can only hope.

 

Can we stop calling them the cobs? Do they deserve that now? Or do they have to go win the 90 games first.

 

Moran.

[Soul]

Wow, BP really thinks were going to score that many runs? I wouldn't have guessed that.

[badger1679666666]

How bout the AL predictions?

[JGalt73]

Yankees 93-69

Red Sox 93-69

Blue Jays 80-82

Devil Rays 77-85

Orioles 74-88

 

Twins 91-71

Indians 89-73

Tigers 85-77

White Sox 72-90

Royals 67-95

 

Angels 87-75

Athletics 81-81

Rangers 80-82

Mariners 73-89

 

All the projected records are usually updated a few times throughout the spring with new playing time forecasts.

[Drew Doughty]

the only prediction that i definitely disagree with so far is the one for the D'Backs, but even that's not a total stretch.

 

White Sox seem really low too.