Dodgers still project to win NL West comfortably, despite slow start

Preseason, I felt confident the Dodgers would run away with the National League West. Partially because they have so much talent, and partially because nobody else does. But the Giants and Rockies are off to great starts, the Dodgers are showing some holes and the Dodgers are in (gasp!) third place as of the morning of May 5. Do we expect a real race from either of these teams?

Well, first suppose the preseason projections stand unchanged, and I still expect each team to win the percentage of their remaining roughly 130 games that I originally expected them to win of 162. Add that to their current win total and where would things sit?

	Preseason	To-date	To-date + preseason
LA	98	18-15	96
SF	82	21-11	87
COL	78	20-14	82

The Dodgers have such a talent advantage (ignoring any information learned this season about all the respective players), they would still run away with it. But of course, everything is not going exactly as expected -- we should incorporate the information from this season into the forward projections. Some guys are doing much better than expected (Dee Gordon, Charlie Blackmon, Brandon Crawford) while others are doing much worse (Carl Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Carlos Gonzalez). Some players are injured and not expected back until a certain time. Playing time is being allocated differently than expected, etc. So, I want to update the projections for these three teams, and see what to expect.

	Dodgers	Giants	Rockies
Adjusted Up	Adrian Gonzalez, Dan Haren, Dee Gordon  (offense & defense), Zack Greinke, Brandon League	Michael Morse, Tim Hudson	Justin Morneau, Troy Tulowitzki  (Offense & Defense), Charlie Blackmon
Adjusted Down	Hanley Ramirez  (offense & defense), Matt Kemp  (offense & defense), Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier, Kenley Jansen, Brian Wilson.	Pablo Sandoval, Ryan Vogelsong, Marco Scutaro

So if I knew then what I "know" now about all the players' performance, I would take two games each from the Dodgers and Giants while giving two to the Rockies. Bottom line, counting the performance to date and the updated projections, I still see the Dodgers comfortably advantaged although with only half the lead I once thought they'd have.

	Going Forward	To-date	To-date + Forward
LA	95	18-15	93
SF	80	21-11	85
COL	80	20-14	83

Why have the first 33 games or so not played out entirely like expected? Basically, the Dodgers are doing all the right things, just not at all the right times. Some research by Dave Cameron revealed the Dodgers could have reasonably been expected to score 15 more runs and allow seven fewer had the number of each event (home run, walk, stolen base, great catch, etc.) been the same but the order been shuffled. This 22-run deficit due to sequencing is the largest in the majors. The Giants, conversely, have nine more runs than their context-free play would suggest. The Rockies are just getting a bit lucky with balls falling in for them. Baseball's a funny game in short time; there's a reason the season is so long.

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