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 it to the postseason. Overall, 22 of 30 teams that made the playoffs would have made the playoffs if the season ended at that year's 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.
Washington Nationals
Vegas projection: 94 wins
My projection: 94 wins
Current record/pace: 48-39 (89-win pace)
Season-to-date pricing: 91.4 wins
What has gone right: Unlike some things in life, such as the order of cards in Texas hold 'em or the pricing of options in the financial industry, a team's results over a full baseball season are not path-dependent. Although seeing the team everyone thought had wire-to-wire talent spend more days out of first place (56) than in it (33) through the first 81 games was upsetting to many Nationals fans, it shouldn't be. After 81 games, the Nats were on a pace to win 90 games. They were playing at the level of a 90-win team and sporting a 4.5-game lead with no credible threat in the NL East to keep Washington from winning its third division title in four years.
It has been quite some time since MLB's best hitter and best pitcher over the course of a season played on the same team, at least measured by WAR. (The most recent time was likely 1980, with Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton of the Phillies.) However, I don't think many would argue that in the first half of 2015, anyone other than Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer have been the top hitter and pitcher in baseball. (If you want to argue Mike Trout is the best hitter based on his WAR approaching Harper's, remember Trout gets a 1.0 WAR bump over the course of the season, invisible to all, for playing center field versus Harper in right field. That's a scarcity factor, not value of production.) In the case of Scherzer, there is no argument. I wrote an article on the underappreciated Zack Greinke back in 2011, but despite his current, sparkling ERA of 1.39, the best pitcher this season has been Scherzer, who has a better chance of finishing the 2015 season with an ERA under 2.00 (he's currently at 2.12).
What has gone wrong: Defense. Don't underestimate this factor, as it's a whopper, and despite the presence of Harper and Scherzer, it's the reason I can easily see the Nationals bowing out of the playoffs as soon as the NLDS.
The Nationals' defense, which has hovered around league-average in the three years the team has been a playoff contender, is absolutely abysmal this year. This is why Stephen Strasburg has an ERA over 5.00, and this is what prevents the Nationals from being a threat to win 100 games and cement home-field advantage in the playoffs.
Here's why the defense is so damaging: Through 81 games, the Nationals had allowed 746 base runners on balls hit into the field of play. On the surface, that's not so bad, as the league average was 733, but the Nats face significantly fewer batters than the average team (second-lowest) and a smaller percentage of those batters put the ball in play, due to Washington's above-average strikeout rate (11th in MLB). Put it all together, and there is leakage to the tune of 50 extra runs allowed over the course of a season, versus just a league-average defense (approaching six wins worth of damage over the year). Scherzer, perhaps after playing in front of the Tigers' infield for so many years, has figured out how to minimize the defensive deficiencies behind him -- strike out as many batters as possible -- but for an entire staff, that's just not reasonable, and it's going to be what keeps the Nationals from raising a pennant or trophies in October.
Second-half outlook: The Nationals are going to win the NL East and, thanks to a massive strength-of-schedule advantage, might end up with home-field advantage throughout the NL playoffs. But in their status as league favorites, there is value in backing Washington's opponents.