We're halfway through the 2015 Major League Baseball season, which means wins have been banked, the St. Louis Cardinals are dusting off the playoff-ticket printing press and the Philadelphia Phillies have confirmed tee times for the first week of October.
But most importantly for our purposes, spring training projections can be evaluated because history tells us at least 70 percent of October's participants have been identified. MLB's 10-team postseason is only four years old, but each year from 2012 to 2014, a minimum of seven of the 10 teams slotted for the playoffs at the All-Star break made the postseason. Overall, 22 of 30 teams that made the playoffs would have made the playoffs if the season ended at that year's All-Star break.
Of course, attempting to identify the other teams is the fun part of handicapping, so let's dig into the first half of the 2015 season, compare results to expectations and find some over- and undervalued teams for the next three months.
Note: Records are reflective of all games played through Sunday. All statistics are through each team's 81st game.
Season-to-date pricing adds the implied win probability from the money line of each team's first 81 games and converts it to 162 games. For instance, a team that was minus-150 (60 percent win probability) in each of its first 81 games would be valued as a 97.2-win (60 percent x 162) team.
Seattle Mariners
Vegas projection: 87.5 wins
My projection: 92 wins
Current record/pace: 41-48 (75-win pace)
Season-to-date pricing: 85.9 wins
What has gone right: The signing of Nelson Cruz was derided by many as an ill-conceived acquisition of an aging player with a skill set not well matched to Safeco Field. But Cruz has been a top-10 MLB performer in terms of slugging and home runs, and he's the primary reason Seattle's season isn't entirely lost yet.
Cruz might not get to as many fly balls as his counterparts across the league, and thus he allows more baserunners, but the Mariners infield is No. 2 in the American League at turning double plays. Taking the entire unit into account, the Mariners have had just a marginal reduction in the runs saved above average by the defense, and that has been more than replaced by Cruz's added offensive production.
Although it doesn't feel like much else has gone right, that's only because of the expectations bar set by the sustained brilliance of Felix Hernandez. He is putting together another sub-3.00 ERA season, and the only reason he is allowing that many runs is an eight-year high of 13.3 percent in the volatile HR/FB rate. He remains the best pitcher of the past few generations to never pitch in the postseason.
What has gone wrong: Critics of the Cruz signing got one element of their argument correct. In an attempt to generate more runs scored, Seattle, they pointed out, was addressing the wrong element of offense. The Mariners didn't need more power; they needed guys to get on base more. That's absolutely true, and after years of bottom-tier ranking in OBP, it's fair to wonder whether the front office realizes this. Through 81 games, Seattle ranked dead last in OBP, at .291. That is even behind the Phillies, who send a pitcher to the plate 11 percent of the time. How low is a .291 on-base percentage? Pitcher Dontrelle Willis had a lifetime OBP of .289.
Contributing to the team's year-over-year OBP decline from bad to abysmal is Robinson Cano. Driven by a walk rate that has mysteriously nearly halved, his OBP has dropped roughly 90 points from 2014 and is team-average this year. "Team-average" on Seattle is well below league average.
The Giants' even-year World Series streak gets the headlines, but the Mariners have their own every-other-year thing going. As mentioned in Seattle's preview in April, bullpen variance can be crushing, and last year's win increase for the Mariners coincided with the bullpen's going from No. 28 to No. 1 in runs allowed from 2013 to 2014. This year, the bullpen is back to below-average, and those extra runs allowed are crushing to a team that has trouble scoring runs.
Second-half outlook: There aren't many spring training calls I'm backing away from, but after the satisfaction of foreseeing the Mariners' 87-win season in 2014, I got carried away this year. The Mariners have a massive fundamental flaw on offense, and though a return-to-form by Cano would help, they simply don't have the right collection of skills to compete with the Angels or -- gasp! -- the Astros. Seattle earned its 74-win look in the first half of the season while being treated as a postseason contender by oddsmakers. The Mariners will almost certainly be overvalued on a daily basis the rest of the season.