The magic robots over at Diamond Mind have released their annual player projections disc, in advance of their 2006 version of their game. Over at the Baseball Primer, a guy named SG ran 100 seasons with their projections, which Diamond Mind tends to do itself at some preseason point. The average number of wins they come up with over 100 seasons tends to be a reasonably good predictor of the actual season.
SG’s top teams?
AL East: Toronto, with 86 wins, tops the Yanks by 1
AL Central: Cleveland takes it with 92
AL West: Oakland with 96, the best total in baseball
NL East: Mets. Really. The Mets, with 93
NL Central: The Cardinals, falling a bit to only 94 wins.
NL West: Padres, climbing to 85 wins
The Cardinals make the playoffs 80 out of 100 seasons, either via a title or the Wild Card. Cubs win 85 and make the playoffs 38 times. Dodgers come in at 83 wins and 30 playoff appearances. Special to Toby: Pittsburgh averages 82 wins and makes 20 playoff appearances!!!
Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Florida
are the only three teams never to make the playoffs. But I suppose their fans didn’t need magic robots to tell them that, did they?
You can see SG’s table here, scrolling down to comment #76.
Oh, this means the season’s getting close. Time to hie myself to my local bookstore and order Baseball Prospectus 2006.