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.
St. Louis Cardinals
Vegas projection: 88 wins
My projection: 92 wins
Current record/pace: 56-33 (102-win pace)
Season-to-date pricing: 90.4 wins
What has gone right: To maintain their first-place profile from 2014, the Cardinals needed improvement in two areas: relief pitching and extra-base hits production. They got both, as the offense has moved up to 14th in the NL in Isolated Slugging (ISO), a measure of extra-base hits per at bats. (The Cardinals ranked 28th in ISO last season.)
The 2011 Philadelphia Phillies pitching staff, probably the best we've seen this century, gave up 529 runs -- the fewest number in a non-strike year since 1969. Through 81 games, the Cardinals are on pace to better that figure by 71 runs. How has their pitching staff done it? By stranding more people than a mid-winter Nor'easter.
Although the Cardinals aren't spectacularly good at keeping runners off base (eighth in MLB in baserunners allowed) and are just below average at removing them on the basepaths via double plays, outfield kills, etc., they are incredibly adept at leaving them there. The Cardinals have stranded 81.2 percent of the runners that have gotten on base, and are better than the second-best team (Pittsburgh) by 4.1 percent. That's notable because Pittsburgh is better than the league average by just 3.8 percent. When it comes to stranding baserunners, the Cardinals aren't merely breaking the normal curve in 2015; they're stranding, by far, a higher percentage of baserunners than any team ever since the divisional era began. (The 1972 Indians, at 78.8 percent, currently own the best season strand rate in the divisional era.)
What has gone wrong: Read that last sentence again, and then balance it against the fact that St. Louis leads its division by just four games. Alone in first place, and with baseball's best record nearly since Opening Day, the Cardinals have significant weaknesses that have been masked by their results. It starts with the roster.
It's unrealistic to think that St. Louis can continue its pace of winning with injuries mounting. Carpenter and Matt Adams are lost for the season while Garcia, Jon Jay and Matt Holliday currently reside on the DL. The shuffling of players on the field has taken its toll on the defense as well, despite perception. Ranking the defense as the best in baseball, as FanGraphs does (based on UZR) is absurd; St. Louis' defense has not even been league-average at converting batted balls into outs and erasing existing baserunners. Alarmingly, they've been worse after 81 games than they were after 41 games, which was worse than after 20 games. (It must be noted, however, that Yadier Molina still shuts down the running game. The Cards allowed the fewest stolen bases, by far, during the first half of the season.)
Second-half outlook: There is significant value in betting against the Cardinals in the second half of the season. The entirely unsustainable results the bullpen is posting (18th in strikeout rate, 10th in walk rate and 17th in groundball rate somehow equals the best bullpen ERA in the modern era) masks some significant weaknesses. In what will be the boldest call of this second-half preview, I foresee the NL Central slipping from the Cardinals' grasp.