November 12, 2014

The Lineup Card

Nine Teams Whose 2015 Odds Are Too Short or Long

by Baseball Prospectus

To see each team's Bovada odds, click here. Adjusted odds listed below were calculated by Rob McQuown by normalizing each team's odds such that the total for all 30 would equal 100 percent, thereby removing the house vig.

1. Miami Marlins (1.96% Bovada, 1.52% adjusted)
The Fish have begun to poke their heads above water for the first time since transforming into the Miami Marlins. After a disastrous start to their revived franchise, there is reason to be excited again. The Marlins are coming off a 77-85 season in which they finished in fourth place, far from what any sensible person would deem a World Series candidate. However, let's put this into better perspective. If you check out the Marlins' Top 10 Talents 25 And Under, you'll notice that eight players are currently holding or have held positions on their major-league club. Giancarlo Stanton is the core player, and it's hard to envision a more formidable piece to build a franchise around (*Insert Marlins fire sale joke*). Jose Fernandez might miss a portion of the 2015 season, but the system has enough firepower to solidify the rotation until he returns. Nathan Eovaldi, Henderson Alvarez, and Jarred Cosart all enjoyed career-best seasons and look to improve more as they enter their primes. Top prospect Andrew Heaney received his cup of coffee and is ready to solidify a spot in their rotation. The Marlins outfield hit 69 home runs between Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, and Christian Yelich, Stanton is the eldest of the trio at age 24 This is a young team with potential to improve in quite a few areas. The current odds listed for their World Series chances are certainly too long, especially if we consider the fact that the NL East is not the stringiest of divisions at this time. It may not be a smart idea to count out the Fish so soon. History suggests they might break out. —Tucker Blair

2. New York Mets (2.94% Bovada, 2.28% adjusted)
I have a coworker who is, sadly, a New York Mets fan. We often discuss various moves the Mets make, and the end result is usually pretty sad if I'm honest. Today though, I have some good news for him.

Bovada currently has the Mets at 33/1 to win the World Series in 2015, and those odds are much too long if you ask me.

Why might I think that the Mets have a better shot at winning the World Series than that? Well, it's pretty simple actually. They have a ton of very talented and very young starting pitching. A rotation of Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jacob DeGrom, Jon Niese, and Dillon Gee is actually a pretty damn talented, and young, group. The club also has some nice bullpen pieces that will round out a potentially very good pitching staff.

On top of that, the Mets have a decent, if not expensive, core roster that includes David Wright, Curtis Granderson, Lucas Duda, and now Michael Cuddyer. Some of those guys will no doubt be aided by a newly renovated outfield wall that brings in the fences in a few key spots. The Mets are also now incentivized to sign additional marquee free agents that would require the forfeiture of another draft pick, since they've already given up their first rounder. They've shown a willingness to look at big names given their kicking of the proverbial tires on Troy Tulowitzki, so don't be shocked if Hanley Ramirez, Melky Cabrera, or Jed Lowrie end up in orange and blue next season.

The last piece that could play a significant role in an improbable WS run is the farm system that looks poised to produce impact players in the near future. Pitchers like Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz look like more than capable fallback options should the young rotation struggle or suffer injuries. Brandon Nimmo and Kevin Plawecki could also be key contributors on a surprisingly good team, especially down the stretch.

I'll actually be in Las Vegas next week, and I think I just talked myself into literally putting my money where my mouth is on this one... —Jeff Long

3. Philadelphia Phillies (0.99% Bovada, 0.77% adjusted)
The odds-makers say that the Philadelphia Phillies are one of the least likely teams to win the 2015 World Series, with the odds set at 100/1. That suggests a slightly-less-than-one-percent chance. That's rather generous, if you ask me. For one, consider that to "buy" on this one, you'd have to believe that if the season were magically re-played a mere 100 times, the Phillies would find a way to get to the World Series and win it. I think we're a couple of orders of magnitude off.

The Phillies have two options. They can stick with the legacy of that team from 2008 that did win the World Series, a core whose four best hitters are all old enough to run for President. (Also, next week, you can start printing out your "Ryan Howard for President" bumper stickers.) That team was "good" enough to win 73 games last year and comes back another year older and wiser for 2015. Even if they win the lottery and sign a couple of high end free agents and hope for some luck, the Phillies maybe become an 85 win team on paper. Maybe. Or the Phillies could do what they've been hinting at doing and trading anything that isn't nailed to the floor. Cole Hamels could bring back a decent haul, and there's still some trade value left in guys like Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins. Of course, that means fielding a re-building team for the course of 2015, and it's not like the Phillies' minor-league system is just brimming with high level talent ready to take over.

I know. I know. #YCPB. But consider that relative to the "risk" of the Phillies pulling off a miracle, the lain odds make shorting the Phillies in 2015 a better investment than a good amount of the sovereign debt out there. —Russell A. Carleton

4. Tampa Bay Rays (1.96% Bovada, 1.52% adjusted)
For this chart translating World Series odds into chances of winning the division to make any sense, you have to assume two things, both of which aren’t that much of a stretch. First is that once a team wins the division, the rest of the playoffs are random, and the second is that it’s unpredictable which divisions will produce the wild cards. Neither is entirely accurate, but neither is stopping this chart from making sense.

Team	Odds	Division chance
Orioles	18-1	26.1%
Red Sox	18-1	26.1%
Yankees	20-1	23.6%
Blue Jays	33-1	14.6%
Rays	50-1	9.7%

The Rays are likely correct in their placement last on the list. The difference seems extreme, especially from the last-place Red Sox, who traded most of their pitching staff. The Red Sox are likelier to make moves, and that’s probably what has the Blue Jays above them, but I’m uncomfortable giving anybody too far from a 20 percent chance of winning this division.

Not sure I would take the Rays at 50-1. As I’ve written before, Futures Odds are terrible and you shouldn’t bet them. It just seems like the AL East should be more compacted. —Zachary Levine

5. Pittsburgh Pirates (3.45% Bovada, 2.67% adjusted)
The Pirates chances of winning the 2015 World Series hinge on the impending free agency decision of Russell Martin, who established himself not as the team's best player, but perhaps as its heart and soul. The Pirates are far from a sure thing to re-sign Martin, but they are at least among the teams in the running, which gives them as good of a chance as any team, no matter what certain fan bases would have you believe. If Martin returns, the Pirates should trot out largely the same team that has made back-to-back playoff appearances. Francisco Liriano will be elsewhere, but the Pirates should be active in the second-tier free-agent market, and pitching coach Ray Searage has shown a strong track record of getting the most out of flawed or previously discarded pitchers. Additionally, a full season of Gregory Polanco should out-produce what the Pirates have received in right field over the past few years, and a full offseason of work at first base could make 2013 NL home run champ Pedro Alvarez an option there. Plus, there's Andrew McCutchen. Like all of the teams on this list, the Pirates need to have a lot of things fall into place for them to be viable World Series candidates, but as a starting point, I'm pretty comfortable with the team with a multiple-time MVP winner (yes, I voted for McCutchen to win again), a former home run champ, back-to-back playoff appearances, and a pitching coach with a magic touch. —Jeff Moore

6. Cincinnati Reds (2.94% Bovada, 2.28% adjusted)
I know they're a longshot, having lost Homer Bailey, Joey Votto and Jonny Cueto to free agency, but … hold on, I'm getting a fax that none of this is true.

Everyone in the winter looks like a winner on paper, but Votto and Bailey is a substantial reload to start the 2015 season and look decent. But mostly I picked the 33/1 odds because that seems to be what the Royals' odds were this time last year. And no, the Royals didn't win, but you all thought they were going to, and I have the Twitter archive search to prove it. —Matt Sussman

7. Kansas City Royals (5.26% Bovada, 4.08% adjusted)
The other day, Grant Brisbee was over at McCovey Chronicles bemoaning how quickly the offseason starts. Who wants to hear about Pablo Sandoval rumors when you're trying to celebrate your team's first world championship in two long years? But if it's bad for a Giants fan, imagine what it's like for a Royals fan: You've just gone through the greatest October of your life, where for a solid three weeks everybody in baseball talked about how perfectly constructed to win a World Series your favorite team suddenly was, and now just two weeks later you've got some jerk on the internet saying the team isn't that good and is a terrible bet to win next year's World Series. Cold world.

This team isn't that good and is a terrible bet to win next year's World Series. Better than we gave them credit for? Yes. Better than I'm currently giving them credit for? Probably, yeah. They deserve every win they won, every extra dollar of playoff shares they got. But it's also a team that had a sub-.500 third-order winning percentage, which means they've got to do some improving if they want to be taken seriously as a threat again. Where might that improvement come? Well, the best bet is that the Royals' offensive core will finally make that jump forward together, that Moustakas and Hosmer and Perez will be the middle-of-the-order trio we once envisioned. Could happen! But is also the foundation of many Royals seasons in the past. Some of those seasons ended in World Series Game Sevens, but none ended with Moustakas and Hosmer and Perez as the middle-of-the-order trio we once envisioned.

I'd expect them to run, to defend, for one of the three I just named (Hosmer, probably) to add 30 points of TAv, and for a couple of other pleasant surprises to pop up. But these guys probably need to add eight to 10 wins of true talent to make the playoffs again, and that's without discounting the loss of James Shields, the loss of Nori Aoki, and the likely regression of the still-to-be-excellent HDH bullpen. I'm not saying the Royals definitely aren't making the playoffs. Fun team, good team, likable team. But I've been betting against the Royals my whole life. It's only burned me once. —Sam Miller

8. Chicago Cubs (5.88% Bovada, 4.56% adjusted)
According to the odds, the Chicago Cubs currently have the seventh-best chance of winning the 2015 World Series; this comes on the heels of a 73-win season and a last-place finish in the NL Central. The Cubbies have an incredible nucleus of young talent, particularly up the middle, but that talent will take time to ripen on the vine. This is a team that is built to make a World Series run as soon as 2016 or '17, but 2015 is a bit premature.

Young players go through trials and tribulations as they experience adjustment periods at the highest level, and it is too early to tell when youngsters such as Javier Baez and Jorge Soler will be cornerstones of expected performance. That clock is further delayed for players who have yet to make their MLB debuts such as Kris Bryant and Addison Russell. Just look how long it took Anthony Rizzo to solidify himself as an impact player—he endured a couple seasons of up-and-down performance before his breakout season of 2014, and this was a bat-first player whose offense might be expected to coalesce relatively quickly.

The team is extremely thin on the mound once you get past Jake Arrieta, and though expectations might include their snagging one of the big arms that is available on the free agent market, there is no such thing as the 15-win pitcher who can vault them to immediate contention (and any signing is purely theoretical at this point). Signing a pair of Clayton Kershaw's might get them there, but there is only one Kershaw, and he is currently employed by the top team on the list of World Series odds. It's also worth noting that NL teams occupy five of the top seven spots on the list, a conundrum that throws another wrench into the Cubs' likelihood of turning into an overnight juggernaut that takes the National League by storm. —Doug Thorburn

9. Cleveland Indians
Like Texas and Pittsburgh, the Cleveland Indians are 28-to-1 longshots to win the World Series next year. A brief look at Cleveland's company suggests that Vegas sees the Indians as a team with some talent but enough problems that they'll need to catch every break in order to win: The Pirates may reload, but they'll need to replace two-fifths of their rotation and the best catcher they've had since Jason Kendall could run; the Rangers have injury or age concerns across the diamond.

That grouping represents a pessimistic projection of Cleveland's prospects in 2015, particularly if you're bullish about their chances to make noise in the AL Central. Barring a complete collapse they'll finish ahead of Minnesota and it doesn't look like Chicago will be quite ready to contend next season either. Meanwhile, Kansas City faces a crucial offseason: they were remarkably healthy in 2014 and they'll need to be again next year because they don't have a ton of depth. It's hard to see them winning anything without Salvador Perez slogging through another stifling Kansas City summer and they'll also need Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura to stay healthy as well. It's not clear that the Royals will be much better at scoring runs —they finished ninth in the American League last year— so the club can't afford much of a performance drop from their relievers. Taken together, that's a tall order.

Detroit remains the favorite in the division but a dip in form wouldn't be shocking. On paper, the 2015 rotation looks to be worse than last year's edition: if Max Scherzer doesn't re-sign, the Tigers will have essentially swapped him and Drew Smyly for David Price and a worse Justin Verlander from last Opening Day. The bullpen is a mess, Victor Martinez may not come back, and Detroit's lineup will again mix stars and scrubs to an uncomfortable degree. More than most clubs, one key injury could doom the Tigers.

But while the division remains volatile, Cleveland doesn't necessarily need their rivals to fall to reach the playoffs, as they could be a pretty good team in their own right. Cory Kluber headlines a rotation that features perhaps the most intriguing collection of starters in all of baseball. Armed with a great arsenal and much improved command, Carlos Carrasco appears to have blossomed into a legitimate no. 2 starter. Danny Salazar bounced back from a disappointing start in 2014 and could be primed for a breakout season, and few teams in baseball round out their rotation with better pitchers than Trevor Bauer and T.J. House.

Offensively, Cleveland can expect to be better at crucial positions. Some combination of Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor should outproduce what Asdrubal Cabrera provided—at least with the glove—and with a full offseason to recover from an oblique injury that never went away, Jason Kipnis is a strong rebound candidate. If the Indians can add a mid-tier bat—a Colby Rasmus or Alex Rios type fits— they should have enough thump in their order to compensate for a weak defense. Their pitching alone gives them a pretty good chance to reach the postseason, and once you get there... —Brendan Gawlowki