Good news for Braves, bad news for Pirates

We here at the Big Picture don't pretend to fully understand all the newer, more mathematically complicated statistics that exist in baseball these days. But we know enough to get by, and boy did we find some surprising stuff when perusing the Baseball Prospectus Adjusted Standings page.

The BP adjusted standings are a series of expected win-loss records based on runs scored and runs against, equivalent runs scored and allowed, and equivalent runs scored and allowed adjusted for strength of schedule. The win-loss records indicate what one would expect a team's record to be based on these metrics.

So what do they show us? Well the NL East better watch out, because the Braves, at 46-51, should have won about 5-7 more games than they have. That means they've been getting pretty unlucky and can expect a few more bounces to go their way in the second half. The Marlins though, have won more games than expected, with Philadelphia and New York having won just about the right number of games.

On the other hand, sitting in last place in the Central at 44-52, have won more games than expected, around 3-9 more. Ouch. Look for them to tank even harder, especially if they can trade any of their decent players at the deadline.

Some other interesting tidbits:
-The Angels are 21 games over .500, but have won 7-10 more games than they should have. Meanwhile the second place A's have won a few games less than expected. Of course Billy Beane has a fetish for trading quality starting pitching for prospects, so we'll see how they fare without Blanton and Harden, and who knows, they'll probably trade Duchscherer too.
-Every team in the NL West has lost more games than expected. Maybe the division isn't so bad after all.
-The Indians should have won more games, while the Twins should have won less. Could be an interesting race in the AL Central.
-The AL East is another division that should have won more games, and the first place Red Sox performed as many as 5.3 games worse than expected.

Sadly, our beloved Giants have only lost about 2 games more than expected, so we can expect our misery to continue.

This post was written on 7/19, so the records might not be the same. Get over it.