What just happened? (N.L. Edition)

What just happened? (N.L. Edition)

Published Aug. 4, 2015 12:37 p.m. ET

Yesterday, I looked at the six American League teams with huge differences between their projected playoff chances on Opening Day, and now (via Baseball Prospectus's Playoff Odds Report). That wound up being two teams in each division, but I didn't include the Blue Jays and could have. So, my apologies to Canada.

Today it's the National League's turn, but I'm afraid the math isn't nearly so dramatic. As much as any league we've seen in a while, the Nationals have played almost exactly according to form, with only two real exceptions: the Nationals haven't been nearly as good as we expected, nor have the Padres.

So for this edition, the bar for inclusion is significantly lower.

Still, there's drama!

ADVERTISEMENT

In the N.L. East, the Nationals opened the season at nearly 70 percent, the Mets around 30 percent. Both teams met at around 50 percent in late April and early May, before the Nationals went way ahead in late May and basically stayed way ahead until ... just the last week. And Monday night the Mets actually edged ahead on the graph. Which is a pretty incredible turn of events. So what happened?

Mets: You know about Thor and Harvey and deGrom, but Curtis Granderson's also done better than projected. And of course adding Yoenis Cespedes to a terribly weak lineup helps the Mets' projection.

Nationals: With each passing game that Ryan Zimmerman and Ian Desmond and Jayson Werth don't hit at all, it becomes slighly less likely that they will hit. Which hurts the Nationals' projection.

Marlins: I'll also mention the Marlins, because, like the Mets and Nationals, their playoff chances have changed by roughly 20 percent since Opening Day. Of course, in their case it's gone from around 20 percent to around zero percent.

In the Central, the Cardinals have leapt from strong favorites to overwhelming favorites. Surprisingly to me, the Cubs actually opened with significantly better chances than the Pirates. The Cubs are basically where they started (~35 percent) but the Pirates have passed them, moving from less than 20 percent to better than 40.

Cardinals: It's all about their historically impressive starting pitchers, which of course is all the more surprising with the season-long absence of Adam Wainwright. Just couldn't have seen this coming.

Pirates: Would you believe Jung Ho Kang leads the team in rWAR? Well, he does. And the projections certainly didn't see that coming. Also, Gerrit Cole's outperformed his projection some. Otherwise it's just a bunch of small things. Well, and Francisco Cervelli filling in ably for Russell Martin.

Out west, the Dodgers and Giants are both almost exactly where they started the season. Which leaves only the Padres as big then-to-now movers, going from better than 20 percent -- see, it really wasn't impossible! -- to practically zero. As for how that happened, here's the monograph.

 

 

share