September 28, 2009

A Season in Review, NL East

This is a little early, as there's still a week left in the season, but I figure to have more time now than in a week, so I'm taking this opportunity to start looking back over my preseason picks. First up is my preseason picks, along with Keith Law's, BP's Pecota, and approximate predicted standings.

PB KLaw BP
NL East W L GB NL East W L GB NL East W L GB
Mets 91 71 --- Mets 89 73 --- Mets 92 70 ---
Phillies 89 73 1 Braves 85 77 4 Braves 87 75 5
Braves 81 81 9 Phillies 83 79 6 Phillies 87 75 5
Marlins 79 83 11 Marlins 78 84 11 Nationals 77 85 15
Nationals 69 93 22 Nationals 75 87 14 Marlins 71 91 21

Real
NL East (Current) W L (Projected) W L
Phillies 90 65 94 68
Braves 85 70 89 73
Marlins 83 73 86 76
Mets 67 89 69 93
Nationals 52 103 54 108

Obviously, everyone was well off on the Mets, due in large part to their injuries; I wrote of their weaknesses before the season started:
"SP overall could easily underperform; will be over the hill at C, 1B, 2B - if Delgado in particular regresses back to his first half stats from last year, the offense may not be able to score enough to overcome mediocre pitching. How would they overcome an injury to one of their big 4?"
I never saw them being as bad as this, but I think that pretty accurately sums up the Mets' season- lots of injuries to the stars, bad starting pitching after Johann, too old (besides their stars) around the diamond, and not much depth (which I didn't mention).

While I was still a bit low on the Phillies, I was the most optimistic of the three, though I can't say I saw the way they'd get there (ok, I was right on Utley, but that's hardly a tough one). Big seasons from Werth and Ibanez, as well as pleasant surprises in Happ and Blanton and the additions of Cliff Lee and Pedro, have all played their role.

I was clearly off on the Braves - I was apparently not terribly enamored with their pitching staff in March, but that appears foolish now. I do think I was absolutely right about the outfield being the major weakness of the team (though they improved it markedly by trading for McLouth reasonably early in the season), and if they can't catch Colorado, that's clearly to blame.

Everyone was a bit low on the Marlins; foolishly enough, I downgraded them 3 wins from my initial predictions after reading an article about how all the statistical analyses were killing them, pegging them in the low 70s. 82 wins would still have been low, but would at least have been a bit more respectable margin of error (and given me a bit more bragging rights on that pick versus the experts and the formulas).

Everyone's got the Nationals in the right spot, if more than a dozen wins too high - it's hard to pick a team to lose that many games. Obviously their pitching was just dreadful this year, both rotation and bullpen.