I went through the Fangraphs series on Positional Power Rankings and pulled out the WAR projections for each team in the NL West. This isn't the most scientific approach to projections, but I think it gives a good starting point to a topic I've wanted to ask people about for a while: what do you expect the Rockies to produce in terms of WAR?

	SP	RP	C	1b	2b	3b	SS	LF	CF	RF
ARI	10.5	3	5	2.5	2	2.5	2	3.5	4.5	6.5	42
COL	8.5	1.5	2.5	1.2	3	2	6.5	4.5	4	2.5	36.2
LAD	14	3	1.5	1.4	1.5	2.5	2.5	1.5	6	3	36.9
SDP	7	3	3	0.7	2	3.5	2.5	2.5	4.5	1.5	30.2
SFG	15	3	4.5	2	2	5	2.5	2.5	3	3	42.5

This would have the Rockies in third, behind the Dbacks and Gints but in a tier above the Dodgers. In general I think this is probably accurate, but as we've discussed the Rockies are a hard team to project this year. I think it would be interesting to come up with a range of WAR for each position rather than a single number. What values do you think would correspond to 20% (floor) and 80% (ceiling) likelihoods for each position? For example, I think there's only a 20% chance that the Rockies get less than 4 WAR from shortstop, but there's an 80% chance they'll get less than 7 WAR. The positions I can see varying greatly from the Fangraphs numbers are 3B, LF, 1B, and starting pitcher.

I have a question about techniques used for projecting the final standings.  I happened to be reading an article at Fangraphs about the Yankees acquiring Wood that mentioned coolstandings.com.  When I looked at their projections, I noticed that it was quite different from BP's projections.  A third site called sportsclubstats.com has their own set of projections.  They all seem to use Monte Carlo simulations, but they have different techniques.  From what I can tell, BP uses the log5 method for predicting the outcome of a given game, where the winning percentage is derived from third order wins, while coolstandings samples from distributions of runs scored and runs allowed in their MC runs.

Which method should be more accurate?  I would actually favor a combination of the two: use some sort of derived value for runs, and then sample from distributions.  The reason I ask is that, as a Rockies fan, I felt that their season was pretty much over after the 2-9 road trip, followed by losing two straight to the Pirates.  Out of curiosity, I looked at a binomial distribution for their chances of winning 90 games.  At the time, they needed to go 40-20 to make it to 90 wins.  I assumed that they are at least a .550 talent level team, and found a 2.5% chance of winning 66.7% of the remaining games.  The part that surprised me was that the variance seemed smaller than I would have expected, which led me to conclude that a binomial distribution, while perhaps the simplest technique, wasn't necessarily appropriate.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

I've speculated before that part of the Rockies' difficulties on the road, and their horrendous home/road splits, are due to the difficulty in adjusting to "normal" breaking pitches.  Air density is somewhere around 15% less in Denver than at sea level, and this directly affects the amount of movement that a pitch will have.  When the Rockies hit the road after spending some time in Denver, they are suddenly confronted by pitches with more movement than they have seen recently.

 

The series in San Fransisco seemed further proof of this, so I did a little bit of checking.  In the first two games of each of the last three road series, the Rockies have scored zero runs twice, three runs on three occasions, and five runs once.  For the season, they are averaging 3.65 runs in the first two games of a road series, versus 4.3 runs per away game overall.  (Note that this is a very small sample; there have only been 10 road series so far this season.) 

 

Part of why I bring this up is that the Rockies seem unlikely to overtake the Dodgers at this point, and they will not have home field advantage during the playoffs.  In a short playoff series, they cannot afford to give away several games at the beginning of a series because the offense is struggling with breaking pitches.  Combine this with the fact that you are usually facing the best pitchers in the first two games, and they could get in a hole early.  I don't know how to compensate for this effect, but perhaps more BP when traveling to a new city would help.  Is there any way for the hitters to see realistic curves and sliders before getting into the game?  It seems like batting practice is usually soft pitches right down the middle.

All this talk recently about Stewart taking too many called third strikes got me to thinking: how do players become good at fowling off pitches with a two strike count?  A few days ago, Todd Helton worked a 14 pitch at bat before hitting a home run.  As Jeff and Jack were commenting on the radio, he is one of the best in the game at doing that, which is why he has been so successful in the big leagues.  Also, there was an article on ESPN.com recently discussing hitters' approach at the plate, whether it is aggressive (Franoeur) or selective (Pujols); the ultimate conclusion was that it varies from one guy to another. 

So how do guys learn to be patient and lay off the slider down and away, while still being aggressive on pitches in the zone?  And do hitters practice spoiling pitches, so that they can get one to hit?