2012 MLB Baseball Season Predictions

Well it’s Spring, baby! Time for some MLB predictions…

AL East Final Standings
New York Yankees 96-66
Boston Red Sox 92-70
Tampa Bay Rays 90-72
Toronto Blue Jays 81-81
Baltimore Orioles 65-97

Post-Season Predictions
AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Tigers
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Cards: Red Sox, Rays
Just Missed: Rangers

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Giants
NL Wild Card: Diamondbacks, Marlins
Just Missed: Nationals

ALCS: Yankees over Angels
NLCS: Phillies over Diamondbacks

World Series: Yankees over Phillies

2011 MLB Baseball Season Predictions

Well, actually got them in on time this year! Here are my annual pinstriped-biased predictions for the 2011 MLB season… LET’S GO YANKEES!!!

AL East Final Standings
Boston Red Sox 100-62 (61.73%)
New York Yankees 97-65 (59.88%)
Toronto Blue Jays 82-80 (50.62%)
Baltimore Orioles 78-84 (48.15%)
Tampa Bay Rays 76-86 (46.91%)

Post-Season Predictions
AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Twins
AL West: Rangers
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Reds
NL West: Giants
NL Wild Card: Brewers

ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox
NLCS: Phillies over Reds

World Series: Yankees over Phillies in 7

Best of luck to Don Mattingly in his first year coaching the Dodgers!

Update #1: 2010 MLB Baseball Season Predictions

Well not bad I must say. The AL East is tightening up although with news that Youkilis might be out for the season, the Red Sox seem to be fortunately getting farther away from the playoffs. Here’s how my predictions have looked so far:

Current AL East Standings (08/02/2010)
New York Yankees 66-39 (62.9%)
Tampa Bay Rays 66-39 (62.9%)
Boston Red Sox 60-46 (56.6%)
Toronto Blue Jays 55-51 (51.9%)
Baltimore Orioles 32-73 (30.5%)

Predicted AL East Standings (04/10/2010)
New York Yankees 101-61 (62.3%) -0.6%
Tampa Bay Rays 94-68 (58.0%) -4.9%
Boston Red Sox 92-70 (56.8%) +0.2%
Toronto Blue Jays 78-84 (48.1%) -3.8%
Baltimore Orioles 76-86 (46.9%) +16.9%

Average difference in prediction (absolute value, all teams) = 26.4% / 5 teams = 5.3%
Average difference in prediction (absolute value, w/o Orioles) = 9.5% / 4 teams = 2.4%

Predicted Playoff Bound (04/10/2010)
AL East: New York Yankees (Very Good Possibility)
AL Central: Minnesota Twins (Good Possibility)
AL West: Seattle Mariners (Not Possible)
AL Wildcard: Tampa Bay Rays (Very Good Possibility)
NL East: Philadelphia Phillies (Good Possibility)
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals (Good Possibility)
NL West: Colorado Rockies (Slight Possibility)
NL Wildcard: San Francisco Giants (Good Possibility)

Predicted Most Valuable Players (04/10/2010)
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez (Possible as he’s 2nd in RBIs, although it’s probably going to Miguel Cabrera)
AL Cy Young: CC Sabathia (Possible as he’s got 13 wins and a 1.36 WHIP, although David Price might be the best candidate right now)
NL MVP: Albert Pujols (Good Possibility)
NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay (Good Possibility)

2010 MLB Baseball Season Predictions

Okay okay I know I’m very late with this, but it’s time for my baseball season predictions. I had these in a file on my desktop for a couple weeks now and unfortunately I’ve been very slow to post. So, here goes…

AL East Standings
New York Yankees 101-61
Tampa Bay Rays 94-68
Boston Red Sox 92-70
Toronto Blue Jays 78-84
Baltimore Orioles 76-86

Playoff Bound
AL East: New York Yankees
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL West: Seattle Mariners
AL Wildcard: Tampa Bay Rays
NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Colorado Rockies
NL Wildcard: San Francisco Giants

Most Valuable Players
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
AL Cy Young: CC Sabathia
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay

World Series will be the Cardinals and the Yankees and will stretch to 7 games, being won by the Yankees. 28th world championship.

Update #4: This Year in Baseball

Well it was Yankees in six games. Pretty unreal feeling. Couple notes:

Pettitte closed out all three playoff series (Derek Lowe also did it in 2004).
I am extremely happy for Joe Girardi, even though I wish Mattingly had his spot.
Teixeira gave the last out ball to Johnny Damon who had a few crucial hits this series but went out early with a strained calf.
Matsui is a great MVP, going 8-13 with 3 HRs and 8 RBIs in only 3 starts in the World Series. As a note, he was also the MVP of the Japan Series in 2000, going 8-21 with 3 HRs and 8 RBIs in that series (2-2 with 4 RBIs in the game 6 clincher too).
That was the fifth ring for Mariano Rivera, and the fourth time he got the final out. His 39 postseason saves are by far the most all time (#2 is Brad Lidge at 16).
Damaso Marte pitched 4.0 postseason innings, giving up 2 hits and 0 ERs with 5 Ks and 0 BBs. Stellar.

“Why wear the pinstripes if you’re not going to win championships?” – Mark Teixeira

“The Yankees won. The world is right again.” – Randy Levine (Yankees President)

update #3: this year in baseball

Well, here we are. Two days away from game 1 of the World Series. It’s about time I wrap up my predictions for the year and let you in on what to expect over the next week and a half.

My playoff predictions were filled with rights and wrongs. In the AL, although I predicted the Red Sox would have taken the Angels deeper than three games, I had the ALCS match up and result correct (Yankees in 6). In the NL, I was way off. I missed the NLCS match-up entirely. Part of that must have been my desire for the Yankees to avoid the Phillies. Silly me.

But here we are, Yankees vs Phillies. The first known is that the series will conclude in New York (Game 6 or 7). Neither team will let this be a short series. Therefore our options are now narrowed to four possibilities: Phillies in 6, Phillies in 7, Yankees in 6, Yankees in 7. The second known is that my love for the Yankees means more than any statistical analysis at this point. And so, my predictions:

Result: Yankees in 7
MVP: A-Rod (two game-winning hits)
Runner-Up: Cano (he’ll bat 0.450 with 5 RBIs)
Total Runs: Yankees 27 – Phillies 22
Other: Mattingly pinch hits in game 7 for a nice sac bunt.

Go Yanks!

update #2: this year in baseball

Note: This post is related to my February 22, 2009 post on baseball predictions and the mid-season update of those predictions from July 24, 2009.

Well the regular season is over (minus a 1-game AL Central playoff game) and this means the results are in. Here’s how my predictions for the AL East standings turned out:

Predicted AL East Standings
(February 22, 2009)
Yankees 101-61 (62.4%)
Red Sox 95-67 (58.6%)
Rays 84-78 (51.9%)
Blue Jays 80-82 (49.4%)
Orioles 72-90 (44.4%)

Current AL East Standings
(October 5, 2009)
Yankees 103-59 (63.6%)
Red Sox 95-67 (58.6%)
Rays 84-78 (51.9%)
Blue Jays 75-87 (46.3%)
Orioles 64-98 (39.5%)

The order is correct, the Red Sox and Rays are exactly right, the Yanks are off by 2 games, the Blue Jays are off by 5 games, and the Orioles are off by 8 games. Collectively, the predictions are off by an average of 1.8% which is very good. If only I knew that the Blue jays would tumble and the Orioles were going to fight the Nats and the Pirates for the worst team in the league.

So the playoffs are coming up, and the match-ups are set (except for the AL Central division winner). The Yankees shouldn’t have a preference between the Twins or Tigers because they will most likely whoop either of them. The Yanks were 7-0 vs the Twins this year (although five of the games were decided by 2 runs or less) and were 5-1 vs the Tigers this year (with a combined score of 30-15). It would be nice to avoid Verlander for two games in a match-up vs the Tigers, but it’s safe to say the run production and grit of the Yanks will definitely put them into the ALCS, regardless of their opponent.

I think it’ll be against the Angels. Sure, everyone roots for a NY-Boston match-up, and Boston typically does well against the Angels, but I think we’ll see a long series end with the Angels moving on.

And despite struggles versus the Angels, the Yanks silence the haters and beat them, winning the ALCS in 6.

In the NL, we’ll see the Cards beat the struggling Dodgers (sorry Torre & Donnie!), and the surging Rockies knock off the Phillies. Cardinals beat the Rockies in a great 7-game series to win the NLCS.

Yankees vs Cardinals World Series: I’ll keep this one simple. Yankees prove they are once again they are the most dominant team in the history of the universe. Carpenter gets a win in a thriller but the Yankees dominate the rest, winning the series 4-1. If you think anything different will happen, then you are crazy. The Yankees are unbeatable now, and will be for the rest of time.

dynamically-weighted surveying

There are plenty of websites that try to characterize you based off a set of responses. Some surveys come via email and ask you to tally up your own score and see how you compare to the rest of the world. Some just try and answer a simple question such as what personality type or how happy or how outdoorsy you are. They’ll give 10 questions and based off how many you answer correctly, you fall into some category. Some more sophisticated applications may weight questions by importance and mathematically calculate a percentage that represents your characterization. For simplicity sake, I guess they do the job.

But here’s another idea…
One more method of weighting questions in a survey might be based off global survey or consensus results. For example, if I was to compute a score that asked, “How much of a Yankees fan are you?” two questions might be:

1) Do you hate the Red Sox?
2) Have you been to a game this year?

If a large survey was given, possible/expected results for these questions might be:
1) 99% Yes, 1% No
2) 20% Yes, 80% No

Based off these responses for a relatively large population, we can weight how much each question should factor in to the final result. For our example, since practically everyone hates the Red Sox, responding Yes should not play a majority factor in calculation of the final characterization. But since going to a game this year is a bit more of a rarity, perhaps it should contribute a higher amount to your final score. The trick is that for binary responses, you must denote which response increases the score and which decreases (it would be smart to gear the questions so that the affirmative case is always the increaser).

Taking this a step further, a lot of times the consensus of a larger group may not be known. In that case, your answers should become dynamic inputs to the weighting algorithm. They start at 50/50 and dynamically shift based on each new, incoming response. In a sense, the sensitivities are set by each new instance of that survey. Additionally, for non-binary / categorical / multiple choice responses, it would just require a bit more careful examination of weighting constituents.

Ill hopefully have an example of this weighted implementation in a near-future post.

update: this year in baseball

On February 22, 2009, I posted my baseball predictions for this year. Today I went back to see how those predictions were turning out and was pleasantly surprised. Here’s how I stand:

Predicted Final AL East Standings (February 22, 2009)

Yankees 101-61 (62.35%)

Red Sox 95-67 (58.64%)

Rays 84-78 (51.85%)

Blue Jays 80-82 (49.38%)

Orioles 72-90 (44.44%)

Current AL East Standings (July 24, 2009)

Yankees 58-37 (61.05%) –> 99-63

Red Sox 55-39 (58.51%) –> 95-67

Rays 52-44 (54.17%) –> 88-74

Blue Jays 47-49 (48.96%) –> 79-83

Orioles 41-53 (43.62%) –> 71-91

The order is correct and collectively the winning percentages are off by an average of 1.00%. If calculating a final win count off current winning percentages, Yanks are off by 2 wins, Red Sox are exactly right, Rays are off by 4 wins, Blue Jays are off by 1 win, and Orioles are off by 1 win. Not too bad I must say… but reveal my methods? Hah!

The other prediction of Cubs playing the Yanks in the World Series may be a bit of a stretch, but they are only 3 games back in the NL Wild Card and are 5-2 out of the All-Star break. Still a possibility.

Finally, I hope I don’t jinx myself here but I’ll pass along a post of why the Bronx Bombers will be winning the AL Pennant. I agree with the power, health, and depth, but it’s too soon to make predictions off current streaks coming out of the all-star break.

“A humble man of grace and dignity. A captain who led by example. Proud of the pinstripes tradition and dedicated to the pursuit of excellence. A Yankee forever.” – Don Mattingly’s plaque in Monument Park

this year in baseball

i just wanted to throw out some predictions for this coming year in baseball. to start, here are three small reasons the yankees will win the world series this year.

1. the numbers
39 appearances (26 wins) in 106 years = in world series once every 2.7 years and a championship every 4 years. last appearance was in 2003. bound to happen.

2. the stadium
thing is awesome. no better way to bless the place than with a championship.

3. the young guns
more big names means deflected pressure and attention from cano, melky, damon, nady (if they are all still around for the year). if they can each put together some decent season numbers, the support is in place for those big names and the success runs full circle (or diamond).

Another thought: Cubbies make the World Series (but lose it to NYY)

2009 Predicted AL East Regular Season Standings
Yankees 101-61
Red Sox 95-67
Rays 84-78
Blue Jays 80-82
Orioles 72-90

kevin berardinelli

Tag: yankees