Just a quick summary of some seasonal predictive indicators.

First, the Royals (20-18) are one game behind their pythag (21-17), in large part due to their horrible record in one run games (2-7).  The Tigers (20-16) are also slightly behind their pythag (21-15).

However, the Royals have, right now, a stronger 3rd order wins number than the Tigers: the Royals should have 21.3 wins, while the Tigers should have only 20.  (Baseball Prospectus.)  Third order wins are adjusted for opposing pitching and hitting faced so far.  (I should note that the Indians have 20.2 3rd order wins, with a win% just behind the Tigers and us, so if they perform at ability it's not a two-way Royals-Tigers race.  The White Sox and Twins appear to be as flawed as their records indicate.)

On this note, the Royals have a fairly easy season schedule.  Our Strength of Schedule is 0.492, putting us in the bottom third of baseball.  (ESPN stats.)  Also, our Relative Power Index, so far, indicates we've played teams of strength 0.501, indicating that we might have easier days ahead to dip down to 492.

These easier days are likely to come in the form of what seems to me a very easy interleague schedule.  Although the Cardinals are never pushovers, and the Reds are a decent team this year, we are also playing Pittsburgh, the Astros, and the Diamondbacks.  This probably contributes significantly to our 0.492 SoS.

We are also doing well on some little predictors.  The Beane Count (measuring walks taken, home runs hit, and walks given up and home runs given up, and named after Billie Beane's style) puts us as the 4th best team in MLB, with only Toronto ahead of us in the AL.  Detroit is 7th, although the gap between us in absolute points is not large.  We don't seem to be lucky or unlucky on BABIP for our hitters or our pitchers as a team, so our success, such as it is, is real.  (So is the Tigers', though.) The Dartboard really likes us, putting us at 91 wins and taking the division (although it doesn't regress skill sets to preseason evalutions, and so many of its guesses are really questionable: see the AL East).  ESPN's power rankings put us as the 13th best team in baseball, after only Detroit at 10th in the AL Central.

In summary, our current post-season odds are given as 19.6%, well behind Detroit's 39.9%.  But we legitimately are the second most likely team to make the playoffs from the AL Central, and I didn't feel that way even at the height of 2003.  Some good baseball, and we're in.  If Soria comes back and Cruz slots in before him so that we can beat our pythag by a few games, and if we wallop the NL, I think we should be playing meaningful baseball in a few months.

the Projections CD was released a few days ago.

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A great post at Rany on why Soria would likely be especially valuable as a starter.

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