The need for sports is real as the United States deals with quarantines and work closures. Hell, even national leaders are calling for the return of sports like baseball to help improve morale. NASCAR rolled out its plan to resume their 2020 season this month. MLB followed that with another conceptual plan to get its season off the ground, one that blessedly appears to be more implementable than previous versions. With this plan gaining ground, there’s no time like the present to start adjusting MLB win totals.
MLB’s “Plan B”
What exactly is the latest plan to launch the MLB season? The current proposal involves an early July start date and two major changes: First, the season will be shortened to 100 games, all played in the home team’s ballpark. Second, the typical league and division structure will be reconfigured into three divisions: West, Central, and East. The AL & NL counterpart divisions will be combined with the exception of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves, who will swap between the Central and East. Additionally, all 30 teams will adopt the American League’s designated hitter rule for uniformity.
Divisional Consolidation
[ninja_tables id=”9016″]Our Original Projections
I spent the first ten weeks of the year assessing changes to each MLB team. The purpose was two-fold: 1) create adjusted metrics to use in early season game handicaps, and 2) project a win total range for each team. This is the “secret sauce” that data-driven baseball handicappers brew up, and developing it is usually a long and winding road. These results are posted in our six divisional previews. Let’s take a look at a graphical summary of our preseason analysis:
2020 MLB Win Total Ranges (162 Games)
Based on these projections, we built a portfolio of season win total futures bets earlier this year through our divisional previews. Obviously, all that flew out the window when the 162-game season went by the wayside. Our futures positions will eventually be cancelled and refunded as the revised season rolls out. So how does a handicapper looking to carve out an edge respond to a new scenario? Adjust and reload.
The Adjustment Process
That the reduced number of games makes the biggest impact on win total projections should go without saying. But I’m saying it. Just in case. Erasing 62 games from each team’s schedule requires a global reduction of 38.3% total wins across the league. The number of contests shrinks, as does the win total ranges for each team. For instance, a six-game win total range for a team shrinks to a three- or four-game range. This is based on a rule of thumb that says fewer games, smaller variance.
If you want to skip the details, the last two charts illustrate the win total projections.
The Universal Designated Hitter
Universalizing the designated hitter rule should have nuanced effects on National League teams over the course of 100 games. My initial take was that it’s a wash. In the win total context, a slight improvement in production at the plate should be negated by a corresponding diminishment of pitchers’ effectiveness. Then this nugget dropped Wednesday on FanGraphs.com, twisting my perception on the topic:
In a season where teams are not normally equipped with a designated hitter, but using a designated hitter every day and competing for a playoff spot against teams prepared for the DH presents a pretty significant disadvantage. It is an advantage that teams might just have to live with in a very unusual season, but a universal DH would most definitely confer an advantage on the traditional AL teams against their NL counterparts.
Craig Edwards, FanGraphs.com (May 6, 2020)
Edwards’ concluding statement succinctly wraps up the article’s thought process. However, it also reveals that his projections are not uniform across all 15 NL teams. My win total adjustments for the 100-game season adapt some of Edwards’ projections. Additionally, I’ll tweak our daily handicapping metrics to reflect a tick up in offense both for and against the NL clubs.
Realignment = Division “Equality”
In a typical season, baseball teams square off against divisional opponents in 76 of 162 games. The current 2020 season proposal has each team playing all 100 games of their season within their new ten-team division. This shifts the proportion of divisional games from 47% to 100%. In a curious turn of events, this actually “equalizes” each of the three new divisions.
If each team plays all of 100 their games inside their division, each division will share exactly 500 wins (barring cancellations). This is a significant departure from a typical season where over half of a team’s games are played outside of its division. This leads to the notion of “stronger” and “weaker” divisions. Take for example our total projected number of wins for the 162-game 2020 season. (Note that projections for several teams in the AL East and NL East have changed slightly since releasing our division previews due to the Noah Syndergaard and Luis Severino injuries).
[ninja_tables id=”9065″]We projected a significant 37-game gap between the outlying 381-win AL Central and the 418-win NL East. In fact all three NL divisions projected at or above the 405-game average (2,430 games / 6 divisions), implying that the AL – specifically, the AL Central – would end up on the short end of the interleague play stick. The proposed 2020 plan crumples this structure into a ball and smacks it into the left field gap. Ok, that’s dramatic but you get the point. Realignment forces us to reevaluate teams from the perspective of “divisional confinement”. This involves taking a team’s relative strength and jamming it into their new division. Here’s our results:
2020 MLB Win Total Ranges (100 Games)
It turns out the general MLB team hierarchy at 100 games is the same one at 162 games. It would take a force along the lines of reversing the earth’s rotation for the Tigers and Orioles to trade places with the Dodgers and Yankees. The following chart and table organize the clubs in the proposed divisions in preparation for futures markets to reopen. After all, the current three-division proposal emphasizes how a team fares against nine other teams.
[ninja_tables id=”9121″]When Push Comes to Shove…
…there’s a solid chance that the 2020 MLB season never happens. The current plan could change yet again, ushering in a different framework to evaluate. That’s the nature of the beast in this climate of uncertainty, but it’s our job to adapt and be prepared to move wherever an edge presents itself. Stay tuned for our MLB Futures Portfolio v2.0 when the time is right by following us on Twitter or subscribing below:
