Read: BP Projects Mets 1st In NL East
Baseball Prospectus have unveiled their PECOTA projected standings for the 2008 season.
They predict the Mets to finish first in the NL East with a 96-66 record, while the Braves (86-76) and Phillies (84-78) are projected to finish second and third, respectively.
The team depth charts also project runs scored, runs allowed, team batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
In BP’s Unfiltered, Nate Silver writes, “The Mets really might be the best team in baseball, regardless of what league they happen to play in.”
…yikes…no pressure, right…
…just a point of reference to the potential value of Johan Santana‘s addition…the pitcher with the highest VORP (value over replacement player) of any Met last season was John Maine, with 33.7….Santana’s VORP, in what many called on “off-year,” was 57.7…wow…needless to say, BP predicts pitching to be the difference between the Mets and the rest of the division…
…by the way, if VORP sounds like a foreign language to you, check out this column Rob Neyer wrote for ESPN.com, which does an excellent job of explaining it for the layman…i know i’m making it a goal of mine to better understand how it works…my first step is picking up the new Baseball Prospectus book for the 2008 season, which is supposed to ship next week…
