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 in 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 from 2012 to 2014, a minimum of seven of the 10 teams slotted for the playoffs at the All-Star break each year have made it to the postseason. Overall, 22 of the 30 teams that made the playoffs would have also 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 with expectations and possibly 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 (60 percent x 162) win team.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Vegas projection: 92 wins
My projection: 98 wins
Current record/race: 51-39 (92-win pace)
Season-to-date pricing: 97.4 wins
What has gone right: Baseball fans might not realize this because four different teams won more games, and because injuries and personnel changes caused some instability in the lineup, but the Dodgers were the best team in baseball over the first 81 games by a healthy margin. Despite ranking third in the majors in OBP, second in SLG and third in ISO, the Dodgers were just 13th in runs scored. In fact, take a look at these two teams in those three categories through 81 games:
They are pretty similar. Team B gets the edge in every category, but these aren't big differences. Team A is the Dodgers, who scored 341 runs with that underlying production, and Team B is the Toronto Blue Jays, who scored 441 runs with only marginally better production. Throw in the Dodgers' pitching staff, with its fourth-best ERA and best SIERA in the majors, and it's not even close. The Dodgers have played the best baseball so far, they are the best team in the majors and, regardless of what futures markets may say, they are the favorites to win the 2015 World Series.
I mentioned in their preview that the Dodgers knew exactly what they were doing in trading Matt Kemp for Yasmani Grandal. Not only did that free up an outfield spot for rookie of the year favorite Joc Pederson, but it's very possible that a contributing factor to L.A.'s success on the mound is Grandal's pitch-framing ability. According to Baseball Prospectus, Grandal leads all catchers in extra strikes earned.
What has gone wrong: As touched on above, luck certainly hasn't gone the Dodgers' way on the offensive side of the ledger, and from a run suppression standpoint there's an impression the Dodgers have a lousy bullpen. There are some surface stats that support that.
The unit's 3.59 ERA is middling (ninth in the National League) and the Dodgers are currently 13-15 in one-run games. Injuries have changed the profile of the pen for stretches of time, but in the end there is no disputing this fact: No other bullpen in baseball strikes out a higher percentage of batters, and the Dodgers do it while walking a below-average amount of hitters. There are a few teams in the majors that have sub-3.00 ERA bullpens, but the Dodgers have the only pen that profiles to do that. The rest is just uncontrollable variance.
There's nothing wrong with the defense, either. After ranking seventh, 11th and 10th from 2012 to 2014, respectively, in adjusted defensive efficiency, the Dodgers are ranked eighth this year.
Second-half outlook: Oddsmakers adjusted their low-90s win expectations for the Dodgers to the high 90s very quickly. Given that their game-by-game pricing is so much higher than any other team in baseball, it amazes me that you can find World Series and NL futures markets that have the Dodgers even with, or in some cases behind, the Cardinals and Nationals. For now, there's clearly not much value betting them on a daily basis, but the playoffs may be a different story.