@ RFan

I know that you are smarter than this. You wrote this: "if you want to convince others, you have to give some very good reasons as to why your projection is better than Baseball Prospectus."

Here you go: yes, BP's formula is based on 100 games. 100 games in which Greinke pitched for MIL and Lewis was posting a 2.0 WAR in the Rangers' rotation.

Recognizing that:

1. Greinke is now pitching for LAA (instead of Richards, a replacement level pitcher) and
2. Lewis is out for the season

...is not going with my "gut." It's going with the facts - facts that BP's playoff odds do not incorporate into their projections. That's why many of us would argue that the BP's playoff odds are significantly flawed.

Texas is up by 4 games. If LAA's addition of Greinke adds 2 wins and the loss of Lewis costs Texas 1.5-2 wins, then the division is basically a toss up.

If you want to focus exclusively on a formula that ignores the current construction of each team, go for it. But it serves no purpose to continue making disingenuous claims that everyone who disagrees with you is basing their opinions on their gut.

So you think that our loss of Lewis and their addition of Greinke reduces our odds of winning the division from 79.1% to 50%. Ok, I can work with that. I disagree. I think our odds go down by maybe 10 percentage points instead of 29.1. But at least now you're within the realm of reason. That's not the position you seemed to be taking in your first post. ("This thing is in trouble.") If your initial post had said, "I think that our odds of winning the division our now 50% b/c they added Greinke and we lost Lewis," then my response to it would have been much different. But that's not what your post said.

I'm not trying to argue. Just to debate. And I think your initial post reads a lot different from your most recent post.

And I'll point out that if you think our odds of winning the division are 50%, then our odds of making the playoffs would certain be much higher with 2 wild card teams this year.

I agree - and maybe my initial post was too strong. I was primarily responding to the sentiment that many have stated, along the lines of "I'm not worried about the rest of the season...I'm just worried about the playoffs."

I am not that concerned that this team will make the playoffs. I am very concerned about whether the team will win the division. And with the one-game playoff series for the WC teams, that's a pretty concerning possibility. To me, winning the WC barely qualifies as making the playoffs.

If the bats come around, Texas should be fine. But if the bats don't come around, or if the Texas offense is just average from this point forward, I'm not sure that the team can lean on this rotation.

I think our odds of winning the division are still well north of 50%. I think our offense can't continue to be this miserably bad. Cruz, Napoli, Hamilton, and to a lesser extent Kinsler are showing signs of life. I'm hopeful that the FO recognizes that MY is a giant drain on offensive production and takes steps to reduce his playing time, including a Murphy/Young platoon at DH or even bringing up Mike Olt.

We now have Dempster, which means that Ogando will remain in the pen. Once Koji and Lowe are back, we will have maybe the best bullpen in baseball. If the rotation is average (which is what I expect), then that will mean that our pitching as a whole will be above average (maybe top 5-7 or better). If our offense is also top 5, we're in good shape.

And the Angels do have a lousy bullpen. And they are relying heavily on Trout/Trumbo/Hunter/Pujols. If one of those guys goes down or starts slumping, they start to look a lot more beatable. Haren's back is acting up again, etc.

When this thread first started 2 weeks ago, I pointed out the following:

"Baseball Prospectus has the Rangers odds of making the playoffs at 98.3%, and the Rangers odds of winning the division at 79.1%. The Angels odds of winning the division are at 18.7%."

Several posters dismissed this point arguing that Baseball Prospectuses methods are flawed, etc.

Today, the Rangers have a 6.5 game lead over the A's and an 8 game lead over the Angels. Baseball Prospectus now gives the Rangers a 99.9% chance of making the playoffs and a 96.7% chance of winning the division. The Angels now have a 2.6% chance of winning the division and their odds of winning a wildcard are only slightly better than a coin flip.

This is why I trust sabermetrics more than my gut and more than the instincts of other fans. As humans, we are too biased to be trustworthy. Score one for sabermetrics.

@ RFan

You appear to have been correct, but I don't know why you continue to misstate the opposing viewpoint. Again:

"Recognizing that:

1. Greinke is now pitching for LAA (instead of Richards, a replacement level pitcher) and
2. Lewis is out for the season

...is not going with my 'gut.' It's going with the facts - facts that BP's playoff odds do not incorporate into their projections."

People who acknowledge that BP's projections utilize limited information does not mean that they are basing their opinions on their gut. We have already discussed this and I thought that we were over it. Not sure why you have to present the argument as sabermetrics v. gut feeling.

That simply is an inaccurate representation of the countervailing viewpoint.

@RFan: As long as it doesn't say 100% I'm okay with it. Remember last year? I know Red Sox and Rays fans do.

Yeah Rfan.....while you always make sense, you grossly distort the views of others. You never addressed the scenario I mentioned several posts back....where I cited a specific example where I think human decision-making would be more reliable than a mathematical formula.

I didn't say that "gut instincts" are better, I simply pointed out one extreme, unlikely example to illustrate a case where I would disagree.

You like to cherry-pick and pound your chest about everything you're right about while distorting and ignoring opinions that conflict with this self-view. I think you'd find fewer arguments on here if you gave other opinions the same respect you expect of yours.

utb, this post is not addressed specifically at you. The sentiment that you expressed in this forum was expressed in various other posts by other people. And I do believe that that sentiment was to a large extent a gut feeling based on recent performance that strongly suggested that Baseball Prospectus and other sabermetric tools were missing something crucial and were therefore deeply flawed. My point here is the general point that I don't trust my own gut or the gut of other fans. For example, my gut tells me that Mike Napoli is a terrible player this year. Then I look at his 105 wRC+ and realize that he is way above avg. offensively for a catcher. That makes me understand that my gut is biased by how good Napoli was last year and by the fact that the Rangers are so stacked with talent that a 105 wRC+ seems lousy.

Andy, I'm not worried. The 2012 Rangers are not the 2011 Red Sox. There's a reason that the 2011 Red Sox are memorable. Their melt down was historic and something that happens only rarely. We are an exceedingly deep team. We could lose key players and still win the division.

@RFan: I'm not worried either, but I don't like it when people act like there's no way the Rangers won't make the postseason, because until there's an x in the standings, there is a way, however unlikely it may be.

MrMan, I'm not seeking an argument. A lot of people on this site question sabermetrics on a regular basis. I don't think there's anything wrong with my defending it on occasion. And I do think this is an instance where those who trusted sabermetrics were clearly proven correct.

I take controversial positions and try to back them up. It's what makes posting on this site interesting to me. I mean no offense to any specific posters. I consider it all a part of a civil discussion. And I appreciate the viewpoint that you and utb brought to the table in this forum.

And just to show that I'm not "pounding my chest," I'll point out another mistake that I made by relying on my own gut. There was point early in the season when Lewis had given up a bunch of HRs in a small # of innings. Lewis's ERA was sky high as a result. But he still had a low SIERA b/c SIERA was assuming that his HR/FB rate was anomalous. I posted on BBTIA that I thought that SIERA must be missing something about Lewis and Lewis really just wasn't a good pitcher. Obviously, I was wrong and SIERA was right. I shouldn't have trusted my gut.

@ RFan,

I agree with most of what you say. And while some disagreed with your analysis based on a "gut" feeling, others disagreed for other reasons. For example, MrMan presented a situation where a team lost a significant number of its players due to injury and asked how BP's formula would take that into account. The answer is that it wouldn't.

Similarly, I considered what the addition of Greinke and the loss of Lewis could mean to the division race based on WAR gained/lost. We were both relying on sabermetrics - we just chose to consider different data.

And that's my point: there are many shades of grey when discussing baseball. And recognizing a potential flaw in BP's methodology projections does not = being anti-saber or relying on "gut" feelings. It's not one or the other.

@utb Baseball Prospectus' post season odds use a predicted futrure record from current depth charts, not as you say from the season to date. Quotage from BP:

"The future performance projection is best seen in isolation on the Team Depth Chart page (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/?tm=BAL). As you can see from that, PECOTA projects 216 RS and 244 RA for Baltimore. There are some slight further refinements that are done, so this doesn't equate exactly to .433, but using original Pythagorean, the depth-chart-based win% is under .440."

So if you check the Rangers depth chart (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/index.php?tm=TEX) you see a projected record of 28-21 for the rest of the season only and by looking below you see how Dempster and Feldman are projected for that record, not Feliz and Lewis. The Angles expected winning precentage of .567 is derived from the expectation that Grienke and Trout are regulars there and uses their PECOTA projections in building the team projection.

A site like coolstandings.com, which does the playoff odds for ESPN, suffers from the limitations you describe, but not BP.

@ badspellr

If you are correct, then I am mistaken and I rescind my most recent comments in this thread; however, I was relying on this information obtained from BP's website FAQ:

"Are changes in a team' composition, such as from trades or promotions of big prospects, reflected in the Playoff Odds?

No."

@utb Here is something to help confuse matters further:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17045

It is a run down of the methodology for this years Odds report. I wonder if the FAQ you are referencing is out of date?

For people who don't want to read it all, I'll quote this baffling passage:

" The next question one might have is how we determine the expected rest-of-season win percentage. There are three inputs:

A team’s third-order win percentage to date,
Its projected rest-of-season win percentage in the depth charts, and
Its strength of schedule (in other words, its opponents’ expected win percentages)."

Um..it uses third order win percentage to date (includes out of date data such as Colby) and projected win percentage (current data). So, we're both right? Why would they use both? I don't get it.

Pretty weird. Tough to evaluate the use of a formula without knowing what inputs are being used.

RFan wrote: "

When this thread first started 2 weeks ago, I pointed out the following:

"Baseball Prospectus has the Rangers odds of making the playoffs at 98.3%, and the Rangers odds of winning the division at 79.1%. The Angels odds of winning the division are at 18.7%."

Several posters dismissed this point arguing that Baseball Prospectuses methods are flawed, etc.

Today, the Rangers have a 6.5 game lead over the A's and an 8 game lead over the Angels. Baseball Prospectus now gives the Rangers a 99.9% chance of making the playoffs and a 96.7% chance of winning the division. The Angels now have a 2.6% chance of winning the division and their odds of winning a wildcard are only slightly better than a coin flip.

This is why I trust sabermetrics more than my gut and more than the instincts of other fans. As humans, we are too biased to be trustworthy. Score one for sabermetrics."

Not so much.

Just wow. Texas went from having a 96.7% chance of winning the division less than two months ago to potentially having their season end before the real playoffs even start. What a collapse.