2015 NL Wildcard Game Prediction

Tonight is the NL Wildcard game between the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park.  This is absolute pitching match-up pitting aces Jake Arrieta and Gerrit Cole against each other.  Gerrit Cole has had an absolutely outstanding season and I'm not trying to take anything away from him but I think Jake Arrieta gives the Cubs the advantage.  He finished the season 22-6 with an ERA of 1.77, an FIP of 2.35 and an fWAR of 7.3, second to only Clayton Kershaw.  But it is his second half that really shines considering it was one of the most dominate ever.  In 15 second half starts Jake Arrieta went 12-1 posting an ERA of 0.75, which is the lowest in baseball history.  And did I mention he struck out 28.3% of the batters he faced.  Since the beginning of August, spanning 12 starts, he has allowed all of 4 earned runs with a 0.41 ERA and the Cubs are 12-0 in those games.  In that same span 269 pitchers have allowed 4+ earned runs in an inning.  At the end of the day I think the Cubs win this game by a score of 3-1 because of Jake Arrieta.

Prediction:

Jake Arrieta: 8 IP, 11 Ks, 0 Walk, 3 Hits, 1 ER

Hector Rondon: 1 IP, 1 Ks, 0 Hits, 0 ERs

Gerrit Cole: 6 IP, 5 Ks, 1 Walks, 7 Hits, 3 ERs

Joakim Soria: 1 IP, 2 Ks, 1 Walk, 0 Hits, 0 ERs

Tony Watson: 1 IP, 1 K, 0 Walks, 0 Hits, 0 ERs

Mark Melancon: 1 IP, 1 K, 0 Walks, 1 Hit, 0 ERs

Cubs runs score on a Kris Bryant two-run home run with Dexter Fowler on base and an Anthony Rizzo solo home run.  Pirates score Polanco on a McCutchen double.

Postseason Picks

As the playoffs begin tonight with the AL Wildcard game I figured it was as good a time as ever to write up my postseason picks and update my award winners.  My preseason picks did not turn out awful overall as the majority of my playoff teams actually made it and I could possibly get 50% of the major awards correct (unlikely however) but I would like to make some changes and forecast the rest of the way.

My Preseason Picks:

AL Wildcard game: Indians over Houston

ALDS: Royals over Indians in 4

ALDS: Yankees over Angels in 5

ALCS: Royals over Yankees in 6

NL Wildcard game: Cubs over Pirates

NLDS: Cubs over Cardinals in 5

NLDS: Nationals over Dodgers in 4

NLCS: Nationals over Cubs in 6

World Series: Royals defeat Nationals in 7
            World Series MVP: Eric Hosmer

AL Cy Young: Chris Sale

AL MVP: Robinson Cano

AL ROY: Daniel Norris

AL Manager of the year: Ned Yost

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw

NL MVP: Bryce Harper

NL ROY: Kris Bryant

NL Manager of the year: Joe Maddon

My Picks as of October 6^th, 2015:

AL Wildcard game: Yankees over Houston

ALDS: Royals over Yankees in 5

ALDS: Blue Jays over Rangers in 4

ALCS: Royals over Blue Jays in 7

            ALCS MVP: Johnny Cueto

NL Wildcard game: Cubs over Pirates

NLDS: Cubs over Cardinals in 4

NLDS: Dodgers over Mets in 3

NLCS: Cubs over Dodgers in 5

            NLCS MVP: Kris Bryant

World Series: Royals defeat Cubs in 7

            World Series MVP: Eric Hosmer

AL Cy Young: David Price

            Guys like Sonny Gray, Chris Sale and Chris Archer will garner votes in this ratce and had extraordinary seasons in 2015 but this race eventually comes down to just two, David Price and Dallas Keuchel.  No one in baseball has been better than Dallas Keuchel was at home this season, going 15-0 across 129.1 innings while striking out 139 batters with a batting average against of only .186 and only allowing 4 home runs but in my opinion even those numbers aren’t enough for him to beat out David Price for this award.  Price finished the regular season 18-5 across 220.1 innings pitched with a FIP of 2.78 good for second best in the American League behind only Chris Sale, while leading all AL pitchers in WAR with 6.4.  When the Blue Jays acquired him at the deadline they did so to win the big games and he has.  Since becoming a Blue Jay he has pitched against the Yankees four times and in those starts he has gone 3-0, throwing 26.1 innings, allowing 5 runs and striking out 27.

AL MVP: Mike Trout

            This race is truly just Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson and no one else is even close.  Many people are looking at this race and saying “Donaldson has run away with it” but if that is far from the truth.  They have the same number of home runs (41), and are both sitting around .300 in terms of batting average but that far from illustrates what is going on in this race.  The main arguments I have heard for Donaldson winning MVP is his RBI production and the Blue Jays making the playoffs.  Both arguments are ridiculous.  RBIs tell you nothing about an individual player’s performance but instead the production of the team as a whole.  Trout and Donaldson’s numbers with runners in scoring position are almost identical in general except Donaldson was provided this situation an extra 14 times.  In fact, with runners in scoring position with 2 outs Trout was much better, his slash line in this situation was .314/.556/.371 while Donaldson had a slash line of .254/.382/.444.  Mike Trout finished with a WAR of 9.0 compared to Donaldson’s 8.7 which is close but wRC+ (quantifies a player’s total offensive value) shows the true difference in their seasons.  Trout finished with a wRC+ of 172 second to only Bryce Harper while Donaldson ended the regular season at 154, good for 7^th in all of baseball and 4^th in the American League.  It is because of this that I say advantage Trout.

AL ROY: Francisco Lindor

            I previous blogged about this, see it here.

AL Manager of the year: Paul Molitor

            People had the Twins picked to finish last in the AL Central, it took a full 162 games for them to finally be eliminated.

NL Cy Young: Jake Arrieta

            Jake Arrieta was very good in 2014 and very good in the first half of 2015 but his second half is the greatest ever.  He finished 2015 22-6 with an ERA of 1.77 across 229.0 innings with 236 strikeouts.  He threw 107.1 innings in the second half, facing 399 batters and striking out 113 batters.  He only allowed 55 hits, a batting average against of .148 and a WHIP of 0.73.  Oh yeah and he only allowed 9 earned runs (12 total runs).  Since August he has thrown 88.1 innings, he only allowed 4 earned runs, in that same time period 269 pitchers allowed 4+ earned runs in an inning.  So while Greinke and Kershaw were also ridiculously good, I don’t see how Arrieta doesn’t win NL Cy Young.

           

NL MVP: Bryce Harper

            There is no need to explain this pick he was the best player in baseball in 2015 and produced one of the greatest offensive seasons ever, especially for a player who is still only 22.  He should win this award unanimously.

NL ROY: Kris Bryant

            This award like NL MVP should be unanimous considering he has produced one of the best rookie seasons ever.  According to fWAR his WAR of 6.5 ranks 13/14 all time tied with Dutch Zwilling in 1914.  Since 1990 the only players who produced better rookie seasons are Mike Trout (2012), Mike Piazza (1993) and Albert Pujols (2001).

NL Manager of the year: Joe Maddon

            People laughed at me when I had the Cubs picked to finish second in the NL Central and lose to the Nationals in the NLCS but here we are they won 97 games thanks in no small part to Joe Maddon.

The St. Louis Cardinals: 2015 vs. 2004 vs. 1944

The St. Louis Cardinals are 86-46 and sit at a whopping 40 games over .500 for the first time since 2005, when they finished the season with a record of 100-62.  Not only are they 40 games over .500, but they are with 30 games still to play and according to The Elias Sports Bureau this is only the third time in the history of their franchise that this has occurred with the other two years being 1944 and 2004 (both years they won 105 games).

In 1944 the St. Louis Cardinals (105–49) won the World Series by defeating the St. Louis Browns four games ­to two.  Then in 2004 they once again made it to the World Series but this time were swept four games to none by the Boston Red Sox, but we can excuse that because they were busy ended the "Curse of the Bambino”.  So now here we are in 2015 and the Cardinals once again seemed poised to finish the season with the best record in baseball.

September 2, 1944 NL Standings:

St. Louis Cardinals: 91-32

Pittsburgh Pirates: 74-50

Cincinnati Reds: 68-52

New York Giants: 58-69

Chicago Cubs: 55-66

Boston Braves: 53-75

Brooklyn Dodgers: 50-77

Philadelphia Phillies: 48-76

September 2, 2004 NL Standings (top 8 to match 1944):

St. Louis Cardinals: 89-44

Atlanta Braves: 78-54

Los Angeles Dodgers: 78-55

Chicago Cubs: 73-60

San Francisco Giants: 73-63

San Diego Padres: 71-62

Florida Marlins: 70-62

Houston Astros: 70-63

September 2, 2015 NL Standings (top 8 to match 1944):

St. Louis Cardinals: 86-46

Pittsburgh Pirates: 79-51

Chicago Cubs: 75-56

Los Angeles Dodgers: 74-57

New York Mets: 73-59

San Francisco Giants: 69-63

Washington Nationals: 66-65

Arizona Diamondbacks: 65-68

So looking at these standings the first thing that sticks out is that the 2015 Cardinals are three wins behind where they were in 2004 and five wins behind where they were in 1944, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.  So let’s look at Pythagorean expectation, a formula created by Bill James to estimate how many games a team should have won based off runs scored and runs allowed. ­­­­­­­

           

Based off this, at this point in the season in 1944 the Cardinals should have had 93 wins instead of 91, in 2004 the Cardinals should of had 84 wins instead of 89, and the current 2015 Cardinals should have 84 instead of 86.  The first thing about this that sticks out is that the 2015 and 2004 Cardinals are on the same track in terms of Pythagorean Win.  In 2004, the Cardinals should have won 100 games according to Pythagorean win, for this to be the case now in 2015 the Cardinals would have to go 16-16 the rest of the way which is very unlikely considering they still have 14 games to play against the Cincinnati Reds (55-77) and the Milwaukee Brewers (57-75) who both rank in the bottom half of the league in terms of runs scored, team batting average (BA), team on base percentage (OBP), team slugging percentage (SLG) and weighted on base average (wOBA).  But that is just in terms of offense, in terms of pitching they both rank in the bottom half for fielding independent pitching (FIP), walks allowed per nine (BB/9), home runs allowed per nine (HR/9), left on base percentage (LOB%), team WHIP and runs allowed.  That opposes the Cardinals who already walk 8.1% of the time which ranks in the top ten and rank seven in terms of offensive WAR.  They also have the best team ERA by a significant margin, it currently sits at 2.67 with the next closest team being the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 3.21, if broken down as a split between starters and relievers they are rank first in both with a 2.83 by their starters and a 2.34 by their relievers.  Part of this tremendous pitching success has come from their extraordinary left on base percentage (LOB%) of 80.3% which is 4.7% higher than the Kansas City Royals’ 75.6%.  I do have some concerns though, one that their LOB% will regress to league average of about 70-72%.  My other concern is that despite ranking second in team FIP they lead all of baseball in the difference between team ERA and team FIP at negative 0.68 which could lead to regression during this last month and the playoffs, but I have gotten slightly off topic so let’s get back to the comparison.

At this point in the season the 2015 Cardinals’ WAR of 19.7 ranks well behind the 2004 Cardinals’ WAR of 27.6 in terms of WAR and even further behind the 1944 team which put up a team WAR of 29.5.  But that is not the only area where they are well behind.  This year they have a slash line of .256/.323/.395 with a wOBA of .312, a wRC+ of 97 and are striking out 20.2% of the time.  Compare that to 2004 when their slash line was .278/.344/.460 with a wOBA of .344, a wRC+ of 107 and struck out 17.2% of the time and to 1944 when their slash line to end the year was .275/.344/.402 with a wOBA of .352, a wRC+ of 108 and struck out a miniscule 7.6% of the time (less than their walk percentage of 8.8%).

So while they not be hitting at the same clip that they did in the previous two years their pitching has been better than both.  This starts with their strikeout per nine of 8.00 which is significantly higher than the 6.45 they had in 2004 and almost double the 4.02 they had back in 1944.  Then if you compare ERA, in 2015 they have the same exact 2.67 they had back in 1944 and only a slightly higher FIP: 3.35 (2015) vs. 3.16 (1944).

So while the 2015 Cardinals might not be the same offensive juggernaut they were in 2004 and 1944 their pitching more than balances it out and if history tells us anything it’s that the Cardinals should at least make it to the World Series if not win the whole thing.

*WAR taken from Fangraphs calculations