Early 2014 Standings Projections Via Davenport
Who doesn’t like a look at some 2014 standings projections?
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Not sure if everyone is familiar with Clay Davenport and his projections. If you aren’t, then now’s that opportunity to acquaint yourself with his work.
Well, Davenport released his early look into the upcoming season yesterday and here’s what we have as far as division winners and the postseason (win totals in parenthesis).
AL East: Tampa Bay Rays (90)
AL Central: Detroit Tigers (91)
AL West: Oakland Athletics (88)
AL Wild Cards: Texas Rangers (87), Boston Red Sox (86)
Just miss: Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees (85)
NL East: Washington Nationals (87)
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals (90)
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers (88)
NL Wild Cards: Atlanta Braves, San Francisco Giants (85)
Just missing: Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres (83)
So, the AL WC winner will face the Tigers and the Rays and A’s will square off in the ALDS. In the NL, it’s the Cards against the WC winner, while the Nats and Dodgers meet.
A few eyebrow raisers and additional notes:
– Yep. The Tigers finish with the most wins. Is this the year?
– The Miami Marlins will not finish in last in the NL East. That “honor” will fall to…the Philadelphia Phillies, 3 games behind the Fish.
– The Kansas City Royals will win 77 games? The Chicago White Sox project to 79 wins.
– The AL West has four of its five teams finishing above .500. Bet you can guess the team that’s not projected to have a winning record.
– The worst projected record: the Chicago Cubs at 67-95.
– The AL will sport nine teams over .500, and the NL will show 7.
– And I know you’re wondering about Masahiro Tanaka. Here’s his projected line: 15-9, 2.92 ERA, 1.126 WHIP, 6.6 WARP, 216.2 IP, 41 BB, 202 SO
Do head to Davenport’s site. The provided link will take you to the projections and that page has a link to each team as well as a link to download batters and pitchers.
If you decide to go to the home page, Davenport explains how he devised his projections. Make sure you have a few minutes of time before you do (maybe more than a few). After reading this post and you don’t have the time, bookmark it. You won’t regret it.