An Estimation of the Win Total for the Astros in 2010
by Evan Hochschild on Feb 2, 2010 6:00 AM CST
in Stat Geeky
20 comments
Last week I read a post from DRaysBay, which attempted to predict the win totals for the Rays, Yankees and Red Sox this season using WAR to estimate how many wins the various eastern powers would accumulate in 2010.
I decided to do this for our Astros, but I didn't think enough of my rough calculations to post them. On Sunday though, in the comments section of another one of my posts, a handful of us got into a fairly spirited discussion about what fate would meet the team in the upcoming season.
I used the same method as the Rays' writer did and came out with anywhere from 77-80 wins, depending much like OremLK noted yesterday, on how well Myers/Norris/Paulino/Manzella/Feliz do. Injury concerns, young players on the rise and an older player on the decline all weigh heavily into how this quintet fare in the world of WAR.
Essentially, I counted up the WAR values for our starting rotation/closer/relief pitcher du jour and starting offensive lineup, added them together and got somewhere around 37.5 WAR. I realize that the AL has a DH and the Astros do not, so I subbed in a 1 WAR player for pinch hitters/rare DH opportunities, etc. This isn't the most scientific way to do things, I realize, but I figure that while the AL clubs get an extra win from offense, their pitchers lose a win by having to face that extra hitter rather than a pitcher. After that, I added 48 to this total to get 85.5 eW.
So, if the season goes according to CHONE/my own appoximation of WAR, Astro-life could optimistically look something like this:
Starting Offensive Lineup:
| Position | Name | WAR |
| C | J.R. Towles | 2.0 |
| 1B | Lance Berkman | 4.2 |
| 2B | Kazuo Matsui | 1.8 |
| 3B | Pedro Feliz | 2.0 |
| SS | Tommy Manzella | 1.0 |
| LF | Carlos Lee | 2.4 |
| CF | Michael Bourn | 2.5 |
| RF | Hunter Pence | 3.3 |
| BN | 1 |
Total: 20.2 WAR
These WAR values are either directly from CHONE or are an average of my own estimate and CHONE. The least reliable projection is that of Manzella. That 1 WAR reflect my belief that he will approach a .310 wOBA and play above average defense at shortstop. Of course, it remains to be seen whether he can do either.
| Position | Player | WAR |
| SP1 | Roy Oswalt | 3.7 |
| SP2 | W. Rodriguez | 4.2 |
| SP3 | Brett Myers | 2.4 |
| SP4 | Bud Norris | 2.2 |
| SP5 | Felipe Paulino | 2.1 |
| RP | 1.4 | |
| CP | Brandon Lyon | 1.2 |
Total: 17.8
Brandon Lyon's WAR value came from my looking at his past three seasons worth of work with Arizona and Detroit, toning down his walks a tad but also bringing up his peripheral stats that can be influenced by BABIP. Other relievers' is reflected by me looking at the values of the AL East clubs and knocking our guys down by 1/10.
Roy and Wandy, if healthy, should be able to produce those WAR values, as they are in my estimation extremely reasonable. Brett Myers' 2008 season with Philadelphia may be similar to what the Astros are getting in 2010. I gave him the benefit of a little better control, and fewer home runs allowed to get him to 2.4 WAR. Then again, betting that he hits 190 IP may be foolish.
As for Bud and Felipe, my hope is that they pitch injury free, beat out Brian Moehler and both pitch over 150 innings. My guess is that if they're able to pitch that many innings, their natural talents will shine through and boost them to those WAR values.
| eWAR | eW |
| 37.5 | 85.5 |
This is 9 more wins than PECTOA has projected for the Astros. Of course, their data probably has Oswalt and Myers as regressing with age, ditto for Berkman, Matsui, Feliz, and Carlos Lee. Michael Bourn's game is so influenced by "placing" the ball in certain areas of the field, that his BABIP may decline, and along with it his WAR.
The other side of the coin has players like Manzella, Norris, and Paulino are younger players ho haven't had a tremendous amount of success in the minors. Their methodology almost certainly will mean rather low projections for all three. However, with Paulino and Norris, their peripheral statistics are solid. Combine this fact with the relative youth of the duo, and they may see favorable numbers from PECOTA when it is all said and done.
Hunter Pence may be the one offensive player I listed above (maybe J.R. Towles as well) who PECOTA projects as seeing improvements from 2009. Both are entering their age 27 seasons which for many players means peak seasons are approaching.
To sum this all up, do I think the Astros will win 85 games in 2010? No. This is a glass half full, rose colored glasses, homer, grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face, projection. It's optimistic (overly so perhaps) and not precise in it's calculations. However, I hope that this post helps continue the discussions we've had going the past few days.
I can't emphasize enough that this is the just the first attempt by the Crawfish Boxes' "staff", to do project the team's win total for 2010. DQ is in his lab tinkering with an Excel spreadsheet which will yield a much more scientific result to this question. Until he's ready to roll, I thought I would throw this out there as an appetizer of sorts.
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I hope you're right
An 85-win team is a postseason contender, and all it takes is a little luck and/or an impact mid-season trade to get in… especially in the troubled NL Central. I’m still inclined to predict a record a little below .500, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
By the way, Bernardo Fallas discusses Ed Wade’s expectations for Feliz. He says Wade expects 20 HRs and 85 – 90 RBIs from Feliz. That seems on the optimistic side to me. I wonder if Wade tells the players “this is what we expect…”
CLASSIC!! Somebody turn his post green, please?
And then we all came out of our dream sequence (insert wavy lines here), and we realized that if Meyers is the ONLY answer that the F.O. has this off season, to our starting pitching woes that KILLED us last year…then, if we are realistic here, we can expect a few more wins than last year, but that’s about it. :-(
by titansfan4ever on Feb 2, 2010 9:55 AM CST up reply actions
To be fair, part of the rotation fix will be a full season of Bud Norris. I don’t know how good he’ll be, but I do know that I’d rather plug a prospect or two into the fourth and fifth spots rather than overpay for a guy like Joel Piniero or Jon Garland.
by David Coleman on Feb 2, 2010 10:06 AM CST up reply actions
I think...
you’re underestimating the value of a better defense, Titansfan. Pitchers perform better when they’ve got good defensive players behind them. ERA can’t be your main source of how good or how bad a pitcher is (or wins and losses, even), because it doesn’t tell the whole story. In theory, every one of our pitchers will have a better defense behind them, so in theory, they should be pitch better.
Guys, you don't know much I hope you're right!!
But I’ve seen this movie before. When we had the chance to get pitchers like Lee…or Peavey…or Sheets…etc….over the years, we didn’t want to spend the $$ to do it. Drayton says he’s not “actively seeking” someone to buy the team. Well Drayton, what the hell are you actively seeking….MEDIOCRITY??
by titansfan4ever on Feb 2, 2010 10:36 AM CST up reply actions
What does that have to do with
The proposition that better defense and better pitchers make for a realistic expectation that the Astros will perform better?
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Feb 2, 2010 2:32 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
Well, I’m optimistic about both Norris and Paulino in the rotation. You can’t really look at what they did last year and say the same can be expected this year. Both guys are on the upward part of their career curve. Sure, they could crater; that’s the downside to relying on young players. But the good side is that young pitchers should be capable of improving at this point in their career. Paulino has a ton of upside potential; his ceiling could be a top of the rotation type of pitcher. Norris’ ceiling realistically might be middle of the rotation, but that’s still good. Go look at Johan Santana’s ERA in his first ML season (6.49 ERA in 86 IP).
I completely agree with you, Clack. I like referring to this article when thinking about what Paulino could be: http://www.bbtia.com/home/2009/7/1/fastball-velocity-pitching-performance-and-rangers-starting.html
With that kind of fastball velocity, if he can harness that potential, he clearly could be a top-of-the-line starter in this league.
So, a question
If we are actually sitting at 75-85 wins right now, as we’ve been discussing lately—have Wade and McLane done enough this off-season to improve the team?
A team at our level (roughly .500 or just a little bit under) is very close to playoff contention. Probably just a little out of the race, needing to add a couple wins to be in serious contention for the muddled NL Central or the Wild Card.
So would it be advantageous to spend that extra money, at this point? Financially, being in serious contention throughout the season would be a big revenue booster, and if you just need to add two, three, maybe four wins to do it, that’s probably a good idea if you’re Drayton McLane.
Of course, the biggest problem is the question of how we could add those wins—not financially, but in terms of the roster situation. Who would we displace to do it? There are no impact shortstops left, and there were no impact catchers in the first place. Those are realistically the only potential holes we have left, after the signings of Feliz and Myers.
The only other option would be to sign a second baseman; Orlando Hudson and Felipe Lopez are still on the market, and they’re still potential 3-win players. Kazuo Matsui and the loaded roster make this a problematic notion, and much depends on what they’ll cost and what you think we’re going to get out of Kaz. If you think Matsui is a 1 WAR player going forward, and Hudson is going to cost $5 million, that’s spending an extra $5 million for 1.5-2 wins; not a bad deal. On the other hand, if Matsui is good for 1.5 wins and Hudson costs $8 million, that’s not such a good deal.
The wild card in this scenario is next season; will there be good free agent second basemen available? Who will play the position for us in 2011, and how much will it cost? You have to think about next off-season’s market and the potential of getting saddled with another Matsui because you passed up this year’s second baseman surplus.
Should the Astros be looking to buy a couple more wins?
Again, this is example why the Astros signed up Blum to quickly. Hudson or Lopez could easily take Blum’s role on the team, or take over 2d base, with Kaz Matsui take the Blum utility player role. Hudson is being pursued heavily by the Nationals:
Since becoming a free agent, Hudson has asked for $9 million, but the Nationals are not willing to give him that kind of money.
This past season, Hudson, 32, made a base salary of $3.38 million, but with incentives, he received close to $7 million as a member of the Dodgers.
According to a published report, the Nationals have offered Hudson $3 million, with incentives that could bring the value of the contract to $4 million.
(source: mlb.com)
The Nats will turn their attention to Adam Kennedy if Hudson doesn’t sign, according to the article. (Along with Hudson and Lopez, Kennedy is another unemployed infielder who had a nice year last season.) I expect a rebound season by Matsui; so I would say 1.5 – 2.0 WAR is a good range for him. At that performance level, I doubt that the incremental value is enough to justify DFA’ing Matsui and signing Hudson or Lopez. It’s too bad we can’t find a team which would trade for Matsui—but given the low prices on these free agent 2d baseman, why would someone trade for Kaz?
Russ Branyan is another guy who is without a job (Garko signing with the Mariners ends his chances of returning there). He has plenty of power and good OBP…had a terrific season last year. He can play corner outfield positions, first base, and 3d base. He is a LHB who could PH and play a back up role at the infield and outfield corners. If we can use Michaels as the back up for CF, then I would like the idea of replacing Corey Sullivan with Branyan.
In the end, we know nothing will happen, because Wade will not want to change the packed roster right now.
Just curious, why do you think 1.5-2.0 WAR out of Matsui? Most projection systems seem to have him closer to 1 win, maybe a run or two above that. I just don’t have any confidence in him to come close to that 2008 performance. I do think he’ll be better, but not that much better.
When you have numbers like $3-4 million being tossed around for Hudson, and Lopez apparently even lower on teams’ lists, you have to think it wouldn’t take much to make such a replacement pay off.
Several months ago I wrote an article applying the Hardball Times’ BABIP Predictor formula to the Astros’ hitters. Matsui was the unluckiest Astros’ hitter by a wide margin. Fangraphs had an article a few months ago which used a slightly different BABIP regression analysis on all major leaguers, and Matsui was in the top 3 or 4 unluckiest players in the majors, if I recall. Matsui was a 2 WAR player for the Astros in 2008. So, I could see him rebounding this year back to the 1.5 – 2.0 WAR range, assuming his health doesn’t fall apart. Also, based on watching him the last two years, I don’t think his range has deteriorated very much. The negative UZR results last year surprise me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could improve that part of the WAR.
Fair enough.
One last question on my mind is how inexpensive Felipe Lopez is going to get. I wonder if there’s any chance of picking him up and carrying four outfielders? He plays a better shortstop and has a better bat than Keppinger, too, so he could be an effective backup for Manzella.
If Matsui gets injured and Manzella doesn’t pan out, we could be in a tough position in the infield.
I like Felipe Lopez. I wouldn’t mind if the Astros made room for him as a utility player. But it’s pretty clear that GMs seem to believe he has an attitude problem, whether that view is well founded or not. (I didn’t hear anything to indicate he was a problem with the Brewers.) From what I can pick up, this view came out of his tenure with the Nationals. Wade seems to weight the “clubhouse attitude” heavily, so I doubt it happens.
I guess having a guy throw you to the ground by the throat makes you wary of ‘clubhouse attitude’ problems. To each his own, I guess.
by David Coleman on Feb 3, 2010 1:06 PM CST up reply actions
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
|
78 | 55 | .586 | 0 | Won 4 |
|
St. Louis
|
69 | 62 | .526 | 8 | Lost 5 |
|
Houston
|
62 | 71 | .466 | 16 | Won 3 |
|
Milwaukee
|
62 | 71 | .466 | 16 | Lost 3 |
|
Chicago
|
57 | 77 | .425 | 21.5 | Won 1 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
44 | 89 | .330 | 34 | Lost 1 |
(updated 9.2.2010 at 9:47 AM CDT)
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