Predictive analysis is a fun exercise. The Major League Baseball regular season does not start for a few weeks. So we have some time to fill between our auction draft this past weekend and the start of countable events. The next few posts will qualitatively analyze the auction draft of each team on a team-by-team basis.
Each team will be reviewed by me, and purely on conjecture. I’m using various projection systems to rate these teams and surmise my opinions. But, the ratings are based on how I feel about the core of each team. I’m using my experience with the league setup, so comments both positive and negative should be taken with a grain of salt.
Each team will be rated on their offense, pitching and their depth. Here’s the scale from best to worst: Outstanding, Great, Very Good, Good, Alright, Not quite, Uh-oh, Whoops.
- Outstanding – Outstanding was reserved for a few special cases where almost anyone in the league would prefer this group over their own group. There’s room for failure and the group should still be great.
- Great – Great squads have good balance or at least a good strategy poured into their group, most teams would trade their group for these groups, but it is not perfect.
- Very Good – Everything about this group is good, I just prefer it to the other good groups.
- Good – Better than average as a whole, if things go well things will be great, but there’s enough reason to see the downsides.
- Alright – Everything about this group is good, I just prefer the other good groups.
- Not quite – There are some holes here that are for concern. I could be surprised, but those holes…
- Uh-oh – Well, all is not lost! I am sure most can agree with the lack of excitement about this group. Where’s the bang?
- Whoops – I mean punting a whole group is a God damn bold strategy and I respect the hell out of you for trying it. I for one cannot wait to see how it works out.
I gave ratings to each team’s Hitting, Pitching and Depth. The first two groups being more important than the third.
For each hitting group I focused on the ten hitters most likely being the everyday starter while peaking at the bench behind them all.
For each pitching group I focused on your first four starters, gave bonuses for good bullpens, and then peaked at the remaining starters available.
For the depth group I rated your team for positional flexibility and basically imagined a couple of bad injuries to your starters and how would your team flesh out. Good depth is great if you have to use it, but you probably would prefer to not break the glass.
Finally I break down in a few short sentences what has to go right for the team to be viable for the final four. Then a few short sentences of what goes wrong and you’re looking at the basement four (anyone have a better name for these brackets? please?).
I plan on releasing three or four teams each day as I edit them. While, things may change between now and then; the reviews will stay focused as if the draft had just occurred. For a teaser here’s how my ratings broke down:
Hitting:
(1) Outstanding
(2) Great
(2) Very Good
(4) Good
(4) Alright
(1) Not Quite
(1) Uh-oh
(1) Whoops
Pitching
(2) Outstanding
(3) Great
(2) Very Good
(2) Good
(2) Alright
(3) Not Quite
(1) Uh-oh
(1) Whoops
Depth
(0) Outstanding
(2) Great
(2) Very Good
(5) Good
(3) Alright
(3) Not Quite
(1) Uh-oh
(0) Whoops