Playoff predictions:
1980: MIN over TOR, LAN over MON. WS: MIN over LAN.
1981: MIN over TOR, LAN over MON. WS: MIN over LAN.
1982: MIN over TOR, LAN over MON. WS: MIN over LAN.
1983: MIN over TOR, LAN over MON. WS: MIN over LAN.
In case you're wondering, this is not a copy-and-paste mistake. Minnesota is locked in at #1 for a few more years, even though age is finally beginning to show in their roster. My Yellowjackets appear to top out at a slightly lower level, unable to catch up to the Mavericks until they start to decline. Los Angeles and Montreal are the best teams in the NL, though less dominating than Minnesota, both with a sound age structure that gives them the inside track to the world serious for the next 4 seasons. And even though there is plenty of movement in the remaining spots in the leagues, the top 4 teams remain unchanged for the next years.
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AL outlook
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The AL East is the strongest division in the league, with the teams ranked #1, #3, #5 and #7 residing here, which means that a team ranked #7 or higher will miss the playoffs. The Mavericks are stronger than the other teams but no longer as dominating as before. Toronto should make the playoff, Chicago and Baltimore will fight for the #3 spot.
Long term, Seattle and New York have both done a very nice job rebuilding the team and will become very strong in about 5-6 years.
The AL West is the weakest division in the league. Detroit and Oakland have the strongest teams, but Anaheim, Washington and Boston are close enough to steal the title. All of these teams would struggle mightily to reach the playoffs if they were in the AL East though. Boston is a young team to watch, setting themselves up for some very good seasons down the road.
AL East
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1. Minnesota
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The Mavericks added another championship, making it 4 out of the last 6. No less than 4 elite starting pitchers and an elite closer spearhead the pitching staff. Their batting lineup doesn't have any holes either, with just one spot occupied by a young future all-pro. That equates to the strongest pitching staff in the league and the second strongest batting lineup.
The only good news for the other teams is that 3 of their starters and 5 of the starting batters are OS32 or older - the Mavericks even managed to draft and develop some good young batters to step in for declining players, but their pitching staff will go downhill quickly once these oldsters are gone.
And make no mistake, the CDL (and formerly the Brett Butler league) is the strongest Dynasty league I have ever seen, making the Mavericks achievements look even more impressive.
2. Toronto
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Despite a dismal playoff performance last season (losing 0-4 in the first round), my Yellowjackets are back in the thick of it. We do have the strongest batting lineup in the league (struggling a bit in a huge pitchers park we call our home), but the pitching is fairly pedestrian, with no clear #1 ace. Still, 3 good and 2 average starters should get us to the playoffs once more. The outlook is mixed - we do have enough young players to keep us in the playoffs for a few seasons, but the development of those young players is offset by the decline of older players. We probably have about 5 seasons to reach for the stars, after that it's rebuilding time again.
3. Chicago
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Chicago is ranked #5 in the league but only the third best team in the division, and only a hair above Baltimore. They do have 3 very good starting pitchers and a mostly solid batting lineup, with a core group of players just about to enter their prime. However, two starting batters are below average, and they might have to do something about their catcher situation though, as their only good catcher is OS34.
The age structure is healthy for a 5-year run too, after which most starters will be in decline.
4. Baltimore
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The Skipjacks are another very strong team in the AL East. They have a very good starting rotation with a clear ace in Miguel, and a pretty solid batting group. They would easily reach the playoffs in any other division, but will have to upset Chicago or Toronto in the AL East. Some of the core players are in that nice OS28 region, but unfortunately not enough - most of the other players are getting old, and there is few young talent on the roster. The team will remain very strong until 1982, but will have trouble patching the holes in the lineup after that.
5. Seattle
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Seattle has quietly assembled a very talented group of young pitchers. And even though the talent on the batting side can't keep up with the pitching, they are good enough to give Seattle a shot at a few rings once their players have matured, in 4-5 seasons.
6. New York
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New York is completing a harsh rebuild, averaging less than 50 wins for the last 4 season. But as usual they made the most of their high picks, assembling a very deep group of good young players. Ranked #21 in the league, they will start to climb soon and could be back in the playoffs by 1984, setting up several years of epic battles with Seattle - my long term predictions see New York at #1 and Seattle at #2 down the line.
AL West
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1. Detroit
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4 solid starters along with an all-star closer and a handful of good batters propels Detroit to the top of the AL West rankings. They will need to make the most of that in the next 2 seasons, because father time is catching up to a lot of their batters and they will struggle to be competetive in 1982 and beyond.
2. Oakland
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A very solid starting pitcher group along with a somewhat suspect batting lineup is enough to give Oakland a shot at the division title. Their pitchers are still young and should get them into the playoff race for a long time, but Ozmer is the only outstanding batter and the Panthers are among the weakest teams defensively, so it would be surprising to see the Panthers in the world series.
3. Anaheim
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If relievers would play a more important role in the game, Anaheim would be a team to watch. Unfortunately they don't, and Anaheim is stuck with starters that will get a lot of games get out of hand before their relievers can come in. The batting lineup is very strong defensively but won't scare a lot of pitchers. The Twins are still good enough to have an outside shot at reaching the playoffs due to the weak division.
They do have a few young players to watch in Kling, Smith and Kakiuchi, but I don't see a lot of young talent to accompany them. Anaheim could decide to to get younger and build for the future, but if they don't I see only mediocrity for many seasons.
4. Washington
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Washington averaged 100 wins for the last 5 season, but age has caught up to them. Most of the remaining good players are on the wrong side of OS30, with half of their starters declining next offseason. It's rebuilding time.
5. Boston
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Boston is the mirror image of Washington, reversed. After 4 gruelsome seasons with 46 wins or less they managed 76 wins last season, and have a young team that looks to return to the playoffs in 1982 at latest. If they can add a couple of good young batters they will be clearly in the mix for a few rings a few seasons down the road.
6. Cleveland
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Cleveland is rebuilding. They have a few decent young-ish pitchers in the OS22-OS28 range, but the batting talent just isn't there yet, so Cleveland will mostly look forward to the draft in the next few seasons.
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NL Outlook
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Montreal and Los Angeles have strong teams that are still young enough to dominate for the next 4 years. Colorado and Cincy sit at #3 and #4 in the NL with aging teams, both will decline quickly in the future but may be still strong enough to sneak into the world series this season. New York has an outside chance to make the playoffs if they upset Colorado or Cincy. In the NL West San Francisco, Chicago and Miami will fight for the #2 spot in the division, but will need some help from ABE to make the playoffs as the NL East looks a lot stronger than the NL West.
Talentwise only Chicago and Miami are set up well for the near future, and the Prospectors appear to be halfway through a rebuild that will turn them into strong contenders a but further down the road. All the other teams have their work cut out for them to catch up to Montreal and Los Angeles.
NL East
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1. Montreal
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4 very good starters give Montreal one of the best pitching staffs in the league, and the batting lineup is strong with a pretty good defense. Montreal is one of the few teams that could make things interesting against the Mavericks. Several of their core players are OS31 and older though, so Montreal will lose a bit of ooomph in the coming years - it should still be enough to make the playoffs for the next 4 years or so, but they might lose a step on the top teams in coming years.
2. Colorado
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Colorado has an amazing batting lineup, with 5-6 players that I consider all stars. But their rotation is pretty suspect, their #1 starter would struggle to hold the #5 slot in Montreal. They should still crack the playoffs, but a world series appearance would be fairly surprising unless they get some pitching help. Several of their starters will decline next offseason, and they would seem to have a limited window of opportunity to compete.
3. Cincinnati
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The Red Dogs are hanging in there. But father time has caught them and won't let those guys get away again - 4 out of 8 starting batters will decline, the other 4 are on the wrong side of OS30. Salmon, Reichert and Brownson are elite pitchers, but have little support from the rest of the group - Bonetti was shanghaied into a starter role despite lacking stamina, and the remaining 2 players are below average. The Red Dogs could still make the playoffs, but there may be too many holes in their roster to upset Montreal or Los Angeles in the playoffs.
4. New York
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Ranked #9 overall, New York has a mixed bag of young and old pitchers that will give them decent performances even when the current older pitchers decline. But the average age of their batters is 32, and the young batters they have will need 4-5 more years before they become adequate, so New York will slide from being above average to fairly average in the next few years, hovering around the league average (rank #14) after the 1982 season. Still, their roster gives them some options - get some help for the next 2-3 seasons or rebuild and strengthen the team down the road, both paths are open.
5. Pittsburgh
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The Crew Dogs have a couple of nice young players in the OS21-OS29 range, but I'm not sure if it will be enough to form a whole team. I see only 4 talented pitchers (2 of them relievers) at OS26-OS29, and 4 decent young batters, but not much after that - and adding more young players through the draft might be a bit late, as they will take about 6 years to mature, by which time the pitchers they have will already be close to decline. Some trades and a good hand in draft evaluation will be needed to turn this team into a contender.
6. Arizona
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After 4 consecutive 100-loss seasons we can already see a team shaping up, with 3 batting talents that might go to the HOF one day and 2 pitching prospects that could turn into legit aces if they convert well, plus some supporting cast. The Prospetors will draft high for a few more seasons, but should eventually become a team that might win a few rings if they keep this up.
NL West
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1. Los Angeles
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LA sports the second best pitching rotation in the league, with 3 excellent starters, an elite closer and plenty of depth. Their batting lineup is not equally impressive but rock solid (except for a very pedestrian catcher), and their fielding is the best in the league. The Trolley Dodgers are so much better than the rest of their division that they should win their division by 20 games at least. Most of their guys are young enough, and the road to the world series will go through Montreal for the next 5 years.
2. San Francisco
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The Chicken Rats are a fairly average team (rank #13 in the league) that happens to be the #2 in the NL West (along with CHN and MIA at #14 and #15). Whitehurst is a very good starter, but only 2 more aging starters and 1 aging reliever are barely above the league average. In the batting lineup Harris is a future HOFer, but again lacks support as 3 more batters are average and the remaining batters are more backup caliber players. With key players declining, SF appears to be headed towards a lengthy rebuild - frankly, this team does not look like a team that has lost 94 or more games since the merger. Maybe the team will need a different approach to player evaluation in their drafts?
3. Chicago
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The Skyscrapers are completing a rebuild. They managed to assemble an impressive group of young batters - I am less sure about the pitching prospects though, but Chicago will be playoff bound in a few years anyway. I figure the young batters will need 3-4 more offseasons to mature enough, and my long-term projections see the Skyscrapers become strong contenders in about 5-6 seasons.
4. Miami
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Miami is a rebuilding team that finds itself suddenly in the playoff hunt due to playing in a weak division. The best course of action is to keep playing their youngsters though, as they have plenty of young prospects that should morph into a strong contender too, and my crystal ball sees Chicago and Miami slugging it out for the WS berth in 6-7 years.
5. St. Louis
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The mighty have fallen. The Fury averages 98 wins per season since the merger, but the drop from 96 wins in '78 to 80 wins in '79 is a clear sign that that the team is no longer competetive. I'm impressed that the roster still has plenty of young pitching talent and looks to be in good shape if they give their guys a few years to develop, but things don't look as well on the batting side, and the drafting of a fairly old batting prospect in Yamaguchi is certainly a head scratcher. But we'll see how they approach the rebuild, with some good young batters they could return to contention in maybe 6 seasons.
6. San Diego
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San Diego is a team that entered a rebuild about 3 years ago. However, so far they drafted a lot of older players, most of which were not high on my personal draft order, resulting in a team where I can see only one good pitching prospect and one decent batting talent. They will have to pick up the pace if they want to return to the playoffs.
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The numbers are calculated fully automated by a little program I use, the analysis is done by hand obviously. A player has a numerical value for the current skills and the potential value (just like win shares, runs created/saved and so on) so that I can order them from best to worst. The ability to compare teams is a byproduct of this, but not really a focus. I do track player developments to some degree, so I have an idea where a player is in his grades.
The ranking algorithm is rather easy: I rank the current value of a player using linear weights - for pitchers its basically C1*CON + C2*VEL + C3*END with some adjustments for defense and health, with some constants C1, C2, C3, for batters I calculate batting power C1*CON + C2*PWR + C3*SPD, take 75% vsR and 25% vsL to get an overall batting power, and assign a bonus/penalty for defense and health.
For the pitchers, pick the best five pitchers with enough endurance to start as starters, but weigh them for the team rating as a #1, #2 and #3 starters will pitch more games than the #4 and #5 starters. The weight is 120% for the best 3, 90% for the 4th and 50% for the 5th starter. The "SPPlay" value is the "playoff strength" of the starters, where I consider only the top 4 starters, with the 4th starter at half weight (as the top 3 will start 6 of 7 playoff games). In the bullpen, I value the 4 best pitchers, with the best reliever (closer) getting 140%, the 2nd reliever 120%, and the other 2 guys 70%. (Personally, that's how I use my pitchers - 1-2 guys to handle all the close games, and the remaining pitchers usually don't pitch a whole lot, and only when the games are not close.)
For the batting value I choose the 8 best batters. I do not consider that a manager may sit players to develop younger ones or chooses players with good mentoring value over better players that are no good mentors. I do factor in defensive ratings - a team that has only C range, A+ arm guys will earn a steep fielding penalty at the 4 infield positions. (All considered, fielding will not change the ranking of a position player group significantly, unless you have really outstanding or really horrible fielders, in which case you might gain or lose a rating point, or two at the most.) 8 Batters are picked regardless of actual position. Essentially, I will choose the best catcher and the 7 strongest remaining players by considering their batting skills and adding a penalty or bonus for their average range+arm rating. (So I will always choose at least one catcher, but may start 3 catchers if they outrank the players from other positions.) Among the 7 non-catchers I will then choose the 4 players with the highest range for the infield, and penalize the team if their values are below certain thresholds (A- or or worse range at 1B, 2B and SS, B+ or worse Arm at SS, B+ or worse arm/range average at 3B) or award a small bonus for better values. For outfielders, arm is weighted higher than range, but the penalty for bad fielding is very small.
The values are normalized such that 100 would represent an average major leaguer in a system 3 league. A rating of 100 makes an average team, as you would expect. A team with a 105 average rating can usually expect 90-100 wins, depending on the competition in the league, a team with a 95 rating faces the threat of a 100 loss season.
The overall value of a team is 55% batting and defense, 35% starting pitchers and 10% bullpen.
