Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 572: How the World Series Odds Will Look Different on Opening Day

Episode Date: November 10, 2014

Ben and Sam size up the pre-offseason 2015 World Series odds and speculate about how they might change before next season.

Good morning and welcome to episode 572 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Every time I hit your Christmas tree Great Anything to Talk about Well we could talk about The rosters for the MLB all-star tour Of the postseason which we Speculated about a few months Ago we wondered Who would be on these teams

Whether they would be able to get any good Pitching on these teams given all the Concern able to get any good pitching on these teams, given all the concerns about arm injuries. And those rosters were announced that series starts this week. I think it starts Wednesday. There's a five-game series against Japan's national team. And there is a lot of good position player talent. There's Jose Altuve and Robinson Cano and Evan Longoria and Carlos Santana and Justin Morneau and on and on. Many very talented position players, not a ton of pitching. As we,

as we speculated, it was probably pretty tough to get good pitching, to persuade pitchers to continue pitching after the season, particularly after most of them have been off for a month to have to stretch out for this short series. So they did get Hisashi Wakuma, who is good. Yeah. He is a good pitcher and presumably he didn't mind taking the trip home or, or he was already in Japan.

Yeah. Literally just doing it for the ride. Yeah. Right. or he was already in Japan. Yeah, literally just doing it for the ride. Yeah, right. He just waited for a month after the Mariners season ended so he could hitch a ride on the All-Star Tour plane. So, yeah, there is a pitcher named Jeff Beliveau on this team. Were you aware of Jeff Beliveau? No.

Neither was I. Jeff Beliveau actually pitched 24 innings for the Rays this year with a 2.63 ERA. He struck out 10.5 per nine. It's unbelievable how many times this offseason already I've come across middle relievers who had really good numbers, and I just was not aware of their existence. And I do this for a living. I'm going to apologize if there's any clicking, but I'm going to look up to see whether anybody had them in the reliever league.

But keep going. Yeah. So Jeff Beliveau. And yeah, it's a bunch of back of the rotation guys and middle relievers. Mostly it's Jeremy Guthrie is on there and hector santiago and matt shoemaker so the whole the whole angels back of the rotation is here there is uh mark melanson tommy hunter randy chote so all the the japanese left-handed hitters were upset to see that randy chote would be making this trip but the most amusing thing about this is the catching staff i think given our conversations

of the last few weeks salvador perez is on this team he has not had enough catching this year and one of his backups is eric kratz who must have been pretty upset to see that salva perez is making this trip so will will eric kratz get into a game in this five-game series, do you think? Yeah, I do. I think he'll probably get into two. Uh-huh. Man, I mean, Salvador Perez needs some time off. He has already caught more this season than any other catcher has ever caught in a single season.

And now he's going to catch more. Probably play some winter ball too. Jeff Beliveau was in two of the draft pools. He was picked in two of the 11, 12 draft pools. I wonder what the rationale was, but it worked out. Jeremy T. and Nolan Bailey. I'm going to see how they did. Nolan Bailey

finished 109th out of 132 teams. Jeremy T. finished 11th. Jeremy T. finished 4th or something in the No Sam scoring. 7th in the No Sam scoring. You can win with Jeff Belive score so you can win with jeff jeff bella view bella bella vo you can win without let me ask you a question okay i it is two-parter uh of the let's see there

are um i don't know 25 ish 29 there are 20 29 players going uh so 28 of them are not jeff beliveau how many of the 28 do you think have legitimately heard of him i i'm always surprised by how aware of other players players are because they they've often crossed paths many times at some point like they played in the minors somewhere together. They played in college. But yeah, I'm guessing Yasiel Puig doesn't know Jeff Beliveau. I bet that Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria know him. Probably. They probably know him. But yeah, I would guess more than half would know the name.

I don't know if they could recognize him. And same question except for of the 28 players, how many of them do you think know that Rob Wooten is a pitcher? Like if you ask them what position he plays, how many do you think would get pitcher correctly because rob wooten is a catcher name it's maybe yes it might be a middle infielder name but it's definitely not a pitcher name yeah why why is that who are we because i thought the same thing who are we thinking of is that are we thinking of uh there's a, hmm, there's got to be someone with a similar name.

Why is that such a catcher name? I think there was an angel named Sean Wooten. That's right, yeah. Was a catcher. He was not a catcher. I don't think he was. Yeah, he was. Sean Wooten?

Okay. He was a catcher. He played first base more. But yeah, Sean Wooten. Okay. I wonder if he's related. We'll never know. Baseball reference doesn't say so.

I would say there are not robust online biographies of either player to answer the question. Probably. But anyway, I know that we said that the pitching would be thin. We thought that the pitching would be particularly thin. But it seems to me much, much thinner than previously. It really feels like there's been a huge drop off. We did look at the previous rosters from these exhibition tours,

and there were some pretty good pitchers. Yeah. Well, like Roger Clemens and Jake Peavy when he was good. Yeah. Well, like Roger Clemens and Jake Peavy when he was good. I mean, as you recall, there was like three of the seven best pitchers in baseball went one year. And I mean, Iwakuma really barely counts. Yeah. You suspect his motives are a little different. So there's really no, I would say that there's not one pitcher going other than Iwakuma who is an above-average major leaguer. Melanson is an above-average major league reliever. But he's – Chote maybe in a sense.

He's an above-average loogie. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Chris Capuano might be average.key. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Chris Capuano might be average. Eh, maybe. And it's also interesting that the catchers are similarly thin. I don't know that we anticipated that. I mean, Drew Butera is...

Drew Butera is probably one of the better pitchers on this pitching staff. Yeah, thank you. Carson Sestouli wrote a PG Woodhouse short story about Rob Wooten. Can we read it in full? Can that be my topic? No, but I'll add a link to it in the Facebook group. Only two true outfielders as well.

Yeah, that's right. Which is also odd. Yeah, you'd think they would want to get three. This roster sucks. It's not great. There are a few good players. Puig and Canelo. Some superstars, yeah.

And Longoria. There are four superstars plus Carlos Santana. Stars and scrubs. Who are very good. And Perez is very good. There's seven really good players. Eight, which you can't name Akuma. But this is a step down.

I do fear. This really does feel like maybe the Pardons in gridlock in Washington or something. Well, when we talked about it before, I think one of the times we talked about it at least was when those ASMI recommendations came out cautioning pitchers about pitching over the offseason and talking about how beneficial rest could be and how dangerous pitching year-round could be. And I wondered whether in this climate of Tommy John anxiety, they would persuade pitchers to do this. So it seems like maybe not. But it's baseball. I assume there will be some way to watch this online or on television, and that will be nice, baseball in November.

You assume that? There's got to be some way to watch it. You can watch illegal streams of things that are barely even televised. It's got to be somewhere. Yeah. But probably not to be somewhere. Yeah. But probably not on Unreal. Maybe not. All right.

Did you see Interstellar? No. Too bad. I thought we could continue our sci-fi movie series. Uh-huh. Well, if you ever see it. I didn't particularly. Yeah.

Didn't seem like it. The first time I tried to see it. Oh, wait, you went back. I saw that you got interrupted. Yeah. I went Friday night, and it's a two-hour, 40-minute movie, something like that. And two hours into the movie, there was a fire somewhere in the theater, a popcorn machine fire, which if you've seen the movie, it actually happened at a moment in the movie when corn was burning, which is eerie.

But that happened and they evacuated the whole theater and they didn't let us back in. So I had to come back the next day. They gave us free tickets and I just skipped the first couple hours and snuck in. It didn't seem like you were interested in doing that. It seemed from your post-interruption't seem like you were interested in doing that it seemed from your post interruption tweets that you were not interested in seeing how it ended i probably

liked it less after seeing how it ended so maybe i shouldn't have gone back so baseball uh the this is not one more piece of banter uh the awards are going to be announced starting on Monday. Yeah. And, um, that means we'll get to see all these down ballot picks. What is, what is your current stance on, uh, nitpicking writers down ballot picks? Uh, I don't think I've ever been less interested in these awards just in general. I guess it's a, it's a year when there's not a whole lot of controversial stuff going on. I mean, there's the, will a pitcher win the MVP award, which I don't really care about. And then they, the, the major awards seem as if they have presumptive winners. There's not a whole lot of controversy. Maybe there will be if one of them isn't elected, but I am not riveted.

I'm not waiting on the edge of my wobbly chair to see how the writers vote. So if a writer gives someone a vote, I, at this point, will be almost apathetic about it. Okay. Yeah. I guess I don't have a follow-up okay do you feel strongly about it in some way no i i i feel like i feel differently every year uh some years it seems uh like uh almost like uh almost like uh pedant pedantry to uh to pick on who somebody said was eighth best in some award. Then it also seems like the only place where anything interesting happens.

It's very rare. It seems to me that a first place vote can be either totally without merit or unexpected. Like, sure, some years Ryan Howard wins it with 1.2 war but you're not shocked you already knew he was going to you knew he would certainly get votes if not yeah right and so it's always it's much more interesting when you see that andrew mccutcheon is left off a ballot or um like uh marco scudero is is on a ballot for playing eight games or something like that, which will probably, I mean, that happens every year, right? It's not exaggerating.

Marco Scudero, that's not a straw man. I didn't just use it. Horribly exaggerated straw man. So, I don't know. I can never decide. I know that tomorrow, once they start coming out, people will immediately start gravitating toward the

ninth spot in people's ballots and then people will immediately start being mad at those people for doing it, so I just wondered if you had a take. No. Marco Scudero, no MVP votes.

In his career? I guess I'll be interested in the Marquecas watch although it looks like I'm pretty safe alright, so Ben I have a question for you there are world series odds for 2015 right now if you wanted to

you could bet on a baseball team to win the world series next year and there will also be team to win the World Series next year. And there will also be odds to win the World Series that will be offered when the season is about to start. You could wait until the night before the season starts. And then you could look at the odds and you could also then bet on a team to win the World Series. And in the next four months, in those four months, some of these teams' odds will change. And I'm always fascinated to see the lines side by side.

I guess not the lines, the odds side by side to see which teams change the most for sometimes very obvious reasons, for sometimes reasons that you can't quite intuit, and sometimes for reasons that are in the middle. And so I have a question for you. I have a sort of a hypothetical question. If you had to bet, you know, $1,000, if somebody staked you $1,000 and said that they wanted you to bet on the 2015 World Series winner, would you rather use the odds that are currently out there, or would you rather wait until the day before the season

and bet on those odds and bet on those odds? Bet with those odds. Yeah, I'm just looking at the odds which you sent me earlier, and we'll put a link somewhere if you want to look, be in the Facebook group somewhere, or take a screenshot maybe because they'll probably change all the time. They hardly change. Okay, well, it seems like there are some ones here that I would disagree with that maybe are based on overreactions to buzz about the offseason

that I wonder whether once the actual offseason has happened and moves have been made or not made maybe they will become less uh i mean less promising opportunities i mean i'm talking about the cubs partially the cubs right now have 16 to 1 odds to be the world series winner next year that is the seventh best the seventh best odds in baseball and that is entirely based on i mean there are reasons to expect the cubs to improve of course i i mean they brought up all those young guys those young guys maybe will be better than they were so i i get it but seventh best that seems like it's based on enthusiasm about Joe Madden and enthusiasm about the Cubs being rumored to sign every free agent.

And maybe they actually will sign every free agent. I don't know. But I can't imagine their odds being better than this if they actually do sign every free agent. And maybe they won't sign every free agent, in which case their odds might fall. So in their case, at least, it seems like this is based on buzz about things that haven't exactly happened yet or in part, at least. And I wonder, I mean, I would guess that maybe the team that goes on an offseason spending spree every year is potentially a, I mean, if you could short their

odds somehow, maybe that would be good just because people are thinking about all the new exciting free agents and all the money they spent and maybe overlooking some of the weaknesses that they were trying to cover up. And the Cubs now are like a pre-hype sleeper or something. They haven't done the things that the market is forecasting them to do yet. So I would take their odds now. If I could short their odds somehow, I would take that now over March 30th or whatever. But all betting, Ben, all betting is betting on things that haven't happened yet like that's what that's what this sort of theoretically is is is uh is gathering it's gathering this intelligence of what is likely to happen it's it's saying that they think that there is some chance i guess what

i guess you could still object to it you could still say it's too bullish because right so imagine they signed what is the sign lester and they signed martin and like realistically let's say that they spent um they signed i don't know let's say they signed spent 75 million dollars more on next year's payroll so they get lester scherzer, and Russell Martin. And then maybe like a roll six reliever or something like that. Then are they the favorites in the Central in that scenario? I mean, maybe. I mean, I can't imagine them being any higher than 16 to 1 odds. I mean, the Cardinals right now are 14-1. And I mean, I certainly see the case

for how they would improve and maybe be a team that could compete. I see that completely. But that's counting on a lot of things to go right. That's counting on Javier Baez making contact occasionally and Bryant coming up and being good, which maybe he will, but, you know, and Alcantara hitting a little bit and all sorts of things. And they hardly had a pitching staff last year, a starting rotation other than Arrieta.

So it's hard to go from whatever they were, a Pythagorean record-wise, a 71-win team, it's hard to improve 20 wins in an offseason, which is what they would have to do to be the favorites in that division or to be even even with St. Louis maybe. So that's a lot to do. Even if you did sign two or three of the best free agents, I have a hard time imagining them being favorites, clear favorites over the Cardinals.

Yeah, and just to put it in perspective, I mean, the Cubs had about the same year that the Red Sox had, and they had a worse year than the Yankees had. And I assume that in odds, pre-offseason odds like this, there is also a heavy presumption that those two teams are going to spend a lot in the offseason, and neither one is given as good of odds as the Cubs. The Red Sox are 18-1. The Yankees are 20-1.

Assuming that there is a similar benefit given to both of those teams, do they strike you as too high based on the presumption of offseason activity yeah i mean i don't i i don't know that i i keep looking at the raise the raise odds 50 to 1 i mean they are down near the bottom they're like the eighth lowest odds or yeah one two three four five six yeah and i i would have thought that the rays would be as safe a bet as as the red socks almost i mean maybe they won't spend as much but based on what they have and how good they were and maybe that is like they just lost friedman they just lost madden panic in tampa bay They're losing all the brain trust. And maybe that is kind of overreacting given the talent that they still have on that team.

So it seems a little bit much to me that the Red Sox and the Yankees would be that high, that they would be— I mean, the A's have the same odds as the Yankees. The A's have the same odds as the Yankees. And I don't know. I guess they're in a reasonable range given that they're the Yankees and they will spend on something. But the Red Sox, it's a little high. I mean, it's betting that they will do a ton this winter, and that's a safe enough bet. But I don't know.

Might be a little bit optimistic so you haven't actually answered my question my question was would you rather bet on the odds that um are based on an off-season unknown as well as you know the regular season so that's basically like am i more confident that i can out predict veredict Vegas? Exactly. That I can out-predict the offseason? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, everyone who listens to us knows, I think, that we're not confident that we can predict anything.

But I kind of think so, but I don't really have a whole lot of basis for thinking so. It's not like I think i can predict where free agents go or anything so yeah it's probably not a big difference i guess all right so here's here's what we're going to do we're going to do a abbreviated game draft we're each we're each going to pick five teams alternating and you're going to say of your team higher or lower and if their odds get better between now and the offseason, then you get credit for that. Between now and opening day?

Yeah, I'm sorry, between now and opening day, then you get credit for that. And if they get worse, it counts against you. If they stay the same, it stays the same. But the goal is to have as much cumulative absolute change as you can for your five teams. So what you are basically betting on right now, what you are guessing, is who is going to have an offseason that beats Vegas, basically. So not a season. The season doesn't matter.

Whether you think that they're a good bet or a bad bet on opening day is totally irrelevant. All you're asking is, are they a good bet or a bad bet right now if you could sort of bet against the opening day line that's what you're doing okay okay you got it all right you're good to go and of course i just i should just say that one thing that this is going to one thing that moves the line is certainly the moves that a team makes another thing that moves the line is the moves that a team's competitors make and a third thing that moves the line is the moves that a team's competitors make and a third thing that moves the line is you know just who knows public perception about a team some you know maybe a team gets trendy maybe uh you know the projection systems

all come out and say that you know they're going to be really good or really bad who knows but uh so it's not just what they do in the offseason. So you can pick first because it's my dumb game. All right. I will take, I guess I'll take the Rangers. Rangers at, oh, so we can do up or down, huh? You have to do up or down. I can choose. You can choose.

You have to choose up or down. You only get credit if it goes your way. And once you choose, if you say the rangers up, then I can't choose the rangers up, but I can choose the rangers down if I want. So you basically have 60 choices here. Interesting. Okay. In that case, I think I will take

and I feel like I'm gonna take some downs I think maybe I'll take the giants down okay giants are at 12 to 1 right now they have the fifth best odds so if they lost Sandoval and

you know Peavy and Morrison Romo and didn't replace them yeah or just if maybe like the World Series halo effect wears off a little bit and people start looking at their weaknesses and not thinking of them as the champion who can't be beaten. Or if Madison Bumgarner showed up to spring training and had UCL strain. Sure. Spring, for instance. All right, so you have the Gi the giants you're going down with the giants

and so uh okay we'll figure out how to do the math because i don't know how we'll actually tally the what changes but okay so giants going down i'll take the um i'll take the marlins going up okay uh-huh and what are the marlins right now they're at 50 to 1 right now which uh there are five teams at 100 to 1 and then the padres are at 75 to 1 and then the marlins are tied with the rays and the brewers raising the brewers yeah yeah um okay well then i will i guess i'll take the rays going up since i just made that case uh okay i will who's who's lee i get huh i guess i will take the uh well the rockies can't go down really no they're at 101 i really don't know maybe they could go down they probably should go down i really don't know who's getting traded. Maybe they could go down. They probably should go down.

I really have no idea who's getting traded this offseason, Ben. I know. Like, I don't know who's on the block, who's on the market trade-wise. Ken Rosenthal wrote an article about the top 10 trade candidates, but I have not yet read it. He also wrote that the Rockies are willing to listen on their guys, their tradable commodities, which willing to listen, I think in almost any context, is one of the most useless rumor formulations because that is just the default state of every front office is that they are willing to listen and then they will decline if they don't like what they hear. So I'm sure the Rockies, even the Rockies were probably willing to listen before they declined before. Maybe they're more willing to listen. Maybe they're more receptive

now. I don't know what the more responsible way to phrase that rumor is, But whenever I see that one, it strikes me as one of the least helpful. Yeah. I can't imagine how it passes any newsworthy test. I guess- It does, evidently. I've seen it many times. Yeah. You have to know how it's phrased to the reporter and you have to sort of trust that the reporter is convinced that there's something to it. But if there's something to it how it's phrased to the reporter, and you have to sort of trust that the reporter is convinced that there's something to it. But if there's something to it, it should be worded slightly differently. Right. If they want to trade the guy or like...

If they're making calls, if they're soliciting offers, that's different than just sort of passively willingness. Right. I'll say the Yankees going up. They're at 20 to 1 right now. Okay. All right. I'll say the Yankees going up. They're at 20 to 1 right now. Okay. All right.

Hmm. See, I want to take the Cubs going down because I feel like they should probably, but I don't know whether their odds actually will go down because I do expect them to be active this winter. But I'll take Cubs going down just because it seems impossible that they could go up and maybe they will go down. So Cubs down. All right. I'll take the Rangers. Not Rangers.

The Reds going down. Okay. They're at 33-1, which is tied with the Rangers, the Blue Jays, and the Mets. Yeah. I don't know why I said that. I don't know why I picked that. Yeah, it seems reasonable to me, the Reds range. I kind of thought the Reds would be better than they were this past year so um all right i'll take tigers down i think they are third at 10 to 1 right now and who knows

cabrera maybe he's not ready for opening day maybe they lose scherzer maybe other stuff happens so maybe they don't fix their bullpen to the market satisfaction so tigers down i'll take the astros up okay they're at 100 to 1 i don't think that they'll go down so i think i have like a very little risk here and uh if they did sign two pretty good players, they could get to where the Padres are, right? Yeah, I would say they have a better shot to go up than any of the other 100-to-1 teams. Except maybe the Phillies.

Probably. Maybe. Okay. All right, so this is my last pick. Huh. Nothing really jumps out at me, All right, so this is my last pick. Nothing really jumps out at me, but I think I'll take... I want to take either the Mets or the Rangers. I'll say Mets go up.

I think they're 33-1. I like their pitching staff. Maybe if they make a couple trades and get a position player, maybe David Wright's healthy. Who knows? Mets up. I'll take... If the Mets are going up, I'll say the Braves go down.

They're at 25-1. All right. There we go. Five teams each. I'm surprised neither of us took the Rangers to do something, but then you were not high on the Rangers the last time we talked about them. That's totally irrelevant to this discussion. It's just...

Maybe I need to explain this again and we need to do this over. maybe i need to explain this again we need to do this over i would i i thought about the rangers but you had said them early and i didn't want to sound like i was copying okay uh all right um so let me ask you one more thing and because this is all about uh pre-season pre-off-season expectations versus post-offseason expectations, I imagine that you and I would pick five of the same six division winners right now. My guess is that we would both say the Tigers, the Angels, the Dodgers, the Cardinals, and the Nationals. Is that correct? Yeah, I think so. Now, let me ask you this. Is there really any realistic scenario? Obviously there are teams sometimes break one way or the other in unexpected ways in an offseason, but is there really any realistic scenario you see where any of those five teams is not your preseason favorite in four months?

and yes if wainwright had tommy john surgery something like that but i'm thinking more are there moves that their competitors could make because none of them is going to be none is going to be selling yeah let's say they all mostly stand pat you know re-sign some of their guys replace a couple of their guys basically don't change their outlook maybe get a little worse is there anything that any of their competitors could do that you think would put them above any of those five teams? It's hard to imagine. I could, particularly in the NL, I mean, the Dodgers seem pretty set in the favorite spot. The Nationals, I mean, I like the Braves kind of, and I like the Marlins, and I like the

Mets, but the Nationals still seem a cut above them. I like the Marlins and I like the Mets, but the Nationals still seem a cut above them. I guess I could imagine maybe the Angels slipping. Possibly if Seattle had an active offseason, maybe they could get there. But yeah, no, I mean, they all seem pretty secure. I'd be surprised if I changed my mind in the next few months. Me too. All right.

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