Updated Projections - Game 58 of 162
Jogging in Place
Composition of Projections:
2024 Actuals: 35.8%
Preseason Projections: 64.2%
The Astros are 25-33, in 3rd place in the American League West, 6.5 games behind the Seattle Mariners.
Fangraphs projects an 82-80 finish, 2nd place in the AL West, gives the Astros a 24.5% chance of winning the Division and a 35.6% chance of making the playoffs.
Season Projections
Stress Index
The goal is to capture the stress put on a pitcher, rather than just a number of pitches.
The calculation is really simple: Number of pitches x aLI, where aLI is the average leverage index.
Biggest Play
Top 5, runner on first, one out, 2-1 Twins. Trevor Larnach homered (Fly). Willi Castro scored.
Astros win probability went from 35.6% to 17.1% (-18.6%).
Listen to Parker and Marty discuss the Astros first 50 games
The Home Run Project
Alex Bregman: 96.2 MPH exit velo, 36-degree launch angle, 348 feet, 1.13 LI.
The Grumpy Ump
Under: 33 Over: 21 Push: 4
Hard to argue with the day from Vic Carapazza overall.
NOTE: OVERALL FAVOR column is changed to reflect Astros only. In other words, a +0.24 in favor of Yankees is reflected as -0.24 here.
Information, except for O/U, courtesy of umpscorecards.com, just presented in a way that is easier for my brain to process.
Projected Standings and Luck Rankings
Luck Rankings
Teams at top are “luckiest”, teams at bottom are “unluckiest”.
Astros near “unluckiest” team in MLB.
The Astros are 5-12 in one-run games.
This is the percentage of a team’s winning percentage that can be attributed to “luck”, either positive (green) or negative (red).
Example: At one point the Astros win % was .439 and my numbers say they “should” have been at .493, a difference of .054.
.054/.439 = 12.3% (rounded), which is the Astros luck rating, which is negative in this case.
In general, you expect the teams at bottom to regress positively (towards 0.00) and teams at top to regress negatively (to 0.00).
Stat(s) of the Day
Quality Starts
Across the league teams win close to 70% of games where their team’s starter throws a quality start.
It is closer to 80% if your pitcher has a quality start and the other team’s pitcher does not throw a quality start.
Simply put, it’s indicative of “keeping your team in the game”.
Saves and Such
Everyone knows saves and blown saves. Shutdowns and Meltdowns are a Fangraphs stat that I find very useful.
Framber Valdez
Framber has 4 quality starts in 8 starts on the season.
Valdez has an ERA of 4.34 with an xERA slightly lower at 4.06, a FIP lower than that at 4.03 and an xFIP of 3.26.
Framber’s groundball % of 66.7% is much higher than last season’s 54.2% and is in line with his career number of 63.2%.
Valdez’s BABIP is .321, much higher than 2024 AL average of .283, suggesting some bad luck.
Bats
The Astros are 3rd in the league in batting average, 6th in OPS+ and 13th in runs scored.
Arms
Down on the Farm
2022 15th-round draft pick (Boston College) Joey Mancini was recently promoted to AA Corpus Christi.
In 9 appearances with Asheville Mancini was 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA, with 39 K in 29.2 innings, while only giving up 19 hits.
Mancini is a 23-year old right-hander.
MLB Power Rankings
On a scale where 100.00 = 81 wins. In other words, a power number of 110.00 means you would be expected to win 110% of the “average team” (81 wins) which equals 89 games.
These rankings consider runs scored, runs given up AND wins and losses.
50.00 = 40.50 wins
75.00 = 60.75 wins
100.00 = 81.00 wins
125.00 = 101.25 wins
Thank you for reading.