The rotation appears set. The position battles are about over. The crowded bullpen, it seems, will sort itself out when the roster is whittled to 25.
Since the April 6 season opener against the Los Angeles Angels at Safeco Field draws near, it’s time to offer up predictions for the Seattle Mariners 2015 season.
Ready to buy in? Hop on the bandwagon? Perhaps break out some teal? Etc. etc.
A number of national media outlets are choosing the Mariners to make a deep run in the playoffs. Computer simulations are optimistic, too.
Earlier this month, PredictionMachine.com, which “strives to be the most accurate and trusted source for predicting sports outcomes,” released results that simulated the 2015 MLB season 50,000 times using its “Predictalator.”
The loaded Washington Nationals win the World Series a league-high 16.4 percent of the time, the Los Angeles Dodgers come in second at 11.7 percent and the Mariners finish third with a 9.8 percent chance. The St. Louis Cardinals are the fourth-likeliest team to win it all (9.7 percent) and the Boston Red Sox are fifth (8.2 percent).
According to the forecast, no team has a greater than one-in-six chance of winning the World Series and 17 teams have a better than one percent chance.
That parity apparently is good news for the Mariners, who have a 67.6 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to the website.
It also projects that the Mariners will win the American League West, beat the Kansas City Royals in the ALDS, then top the Red Sox in the ALCS, before losing to the Nationals in the World Series. Seattle is ranked fifth in the site’s power rankings.
Here’s a breakdown of the site’s playoff projections. This exact scenario, it should be noted, occurred 211 times of the 50,000 simulated seasons.
American League
Wild card: Los Angeles over Cleveland
Divisional: Boston over Los Angeles
Divisional: Seattle over Kansas City
League: Seattle over Boston
National League
Wild card: Pittsburgh over San Francisco
Divisional: Washington over Pittsburgh
Divisional: Los Angeles over St. Louis
League: Washington over Los Angeles
World Series
Washington Nationals over Seattle Mariners
If that sounds far-fetched, know this: The Prediction Machine was created by University of Cincinnati professor Paul Bessire, a statistician and veteran sportswriter.
It plays out each team’s regular season and potentially postseason schedule individually 50,000 times, taking into account factors such as player statistics, roles, health, playing time, managerial styles and ballpark effects.
The site describes the methodology:
“In general, we apply ballpark and level-adjusted, relevant statistics from every game a player has played in his professional career to a fairly traditional player development curve that considers age and previous playing time.Not only does this curve help to set average inputs, it combines with health and dictates the variance (boom or bust potential) of a player’s inputs.”
Convinced yet? Time to take on the Predictalator.
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12 Comments
Love watching the M’s and going to games, and hope they finally come through, but its hard for me to get past the feeling that this team is snake bit. Howie is still in charge and his conniving influence could still cast a shadow. I’m keeping my fingers tightly crossed and hoping for the best!
Jack has to do everything he can to keep ahead of the Angels. If they do a deal, he’s got to match it. Maybe even pulls a page from Steinbrenner and acquire a player to keep them from getting that player. Right now the M’s are the sexy choice but if the Angels or other teams do a deal that makes them better than the M’s he can’t sit and do nothing.
Eh. Jack would do well to concentrate on keeping his own house in order, not worrying so much about what the Angels might foolishly spend their money on.
For a recent example, see the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. While the Dodgers threw money away like Michael Jordon on a golf course, the Giants quietly won three rings in 5 years. The one year they added a superstar before the trading deadline (Carlos Beltran), they didn’t make the playoffs.
Have a plan and execute it.
Don’t forget the deals of ’95 and how they helped the M’s.
Yes, but none of those were really blockbusters, and the trades filled a need. They weren’t reactionary. Benes was no better than serviceable (yes, he won 7 games for the Mariners, but his ERA was almost 6.00). Vince Coleman did a nice job, hitting well above his career average. Charlton was excellent, but no one had reason to expect that based on his first half of the season with Philly.
The most important part of that season was keeping the core group of players instead of trading them off and dumping payroll. That, and catching fire in September while the Angels barfed on their collective shoes.
Doesn’t matter what their stats were. M’s wouldn’t have made the playoffs without those players.
First of all, that’s ridiculous on its face. Of course their stats matter. Are you saying that Benes and Coleman and the Sher’f added some magical intangible winning potion through their mere presence? Maybe they don’t make the playoffs without Andy Benes giving up six runs per 9, or maybe they do. Hard to say.
Second, you’ve wandered way off your original point, which had something to do with supporting preemptive, mindless spending. Which I still think is a bad idea, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that it is.
The talent to go all the way is definitely there, this year. However, the M’s glaringly lack playoff experience, especially on the mound. Should they come through and win the AL West, I think it will be really interesting to see how they perform under that kind of pressure with a 162 games behind them. But, hey, just to make it to the post-season would be a treat, all things considered.
I think the M’s can get as far as the ALCS, which is pretty damned good considering where they were two years ago. The talent’s there and they’re believing in themselves.
“Divisional: Seattle over Kansas City”
Seriously? Based on what? Getting no-hit for seven innings yesterday by Yordano Ventura? Getting completely shut down by Guthrie the day before? Scoring one run in two games against KC?
“You fans know better than to trust a strange computer.”
Loads of talent on the team. But not loads of players who proved just last year that they could perform at a high level through an entire season. In fact, they are short in that evaluation. I think the injury bug will bite them and they’ll fall just short of the playoffs again.
They’ll regress to the mean and finish four games over .500 and miss the playoffs.