VORPs for playoff teams
posted in Analysis, Sabermetrics |I just thought I’d take a quick look at the team VORPS — value above replacement players — as provided by Baseball Prospectus for the four (likely) American League teams. Three have clinched, the fourth ought to soon enough, despite Monday’s showing.
| Tigers | Yankees | Twins | A’s | |
| Pitching | 294.1 | 226.7 | 228.4 | 257.6 |
| Batting | 180 | 312.7 | 198.9 | 101.9 |
| Total | 474.1 | 539.4 | 427.3 | 359.5 |
All I did was add up the VORP for every player currently on the team’s active roster. Some of the guys who went into the figures probably won’t make the playoff rosters, which will change things slightly. I’ll revisit it when it does. Also, there is the problem that some players changed teams or did not play a full season. In the case of Sean Casey, his VORP is negative with the Tigers and positive with the Pirates. I only took his most recent team. (Besides, it seemed to be accurate enough). So, by no means is this a great study, but it’s a glance. I don’t know that this tells us all that much that we don’t know, of course.
Draw your own conclusions. Just off the top of my head, I’d say both AL Central teams are most balanced and have a good shot at making it to the World Series. When playoff time comes, you like to see teams with superior pitching. Minnesota’s pitching may not look that dominant, but when you consider some of the guys in the rotation haven’t been there all that long, and their VORPs reflect it, I’d say their pitching is fine. You look at New York’s batting VORP and your eyes pop out, but Detroit handled it pretty well in the Bronx and just couldn’t score. And if the Twins catch them in a short series, the Yankees are vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised if New York represents the AL. But I do think they’re no shoe-in.
Detroit and Oakland have the best playoff rotations. Detroit’s (Kenny Rogers, 45; Jeremy Bonderman, 37.2; Nate Robertson, 45; Justin Verlander, 47) totals 173 VORP by itself. Oakland’s — I have no idea if Rich Harden will crack it after his injury, but he might, which would make adding VORP as messy as reading this sentence — of Barry Zito, 48; Danny Haren, 41.4; Esteban Loaiza, 15.7; and Joe Blanton, 19.7 — totals 124. Minnesota’s Johan Santana obviously is the best pitcher, but he can’t throw every day. I’d probably rank them third behind Oakland in pitching, although the A’s have had their share of recent problems. Maybe it’s more of a tossup. Both teams have good bullpens, but Minnesota’s is probably better.
On paper, this seems like one of the better postseasons in recent memory. We’ll see if it turns out that way soon enough. I’ll come up with a closer analysis once the actual match-ups have been provided, but hopefully this kicked off some thinking.
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