New York

 .... 

Q.  Okay, each year half the teams make the postseason with about +75 differential.  Does this mean that the 2012 Mariners are contenders if they hit +75?

A.  No.

For the Mariners, the target is more like +100.  Maybe even a bit more.

The AL Wild Card the last five years has been won by Boston, New York and once the Tigers, with run differentials of +140 to +190 runs every cotton-pickin', chicken-pluckin' year.  If you want to shoot for the wild card in the American League, you better pencil in 95 wins, bro'.

So the Mariners have to factor in the reality that the Wild Card is a no go, not unless they become a truly powerful team.  To win the AL Wild Card, you frequently have to be (pretty much) the 2nd-best team in baseball.

That ain't happenin'.  Not unless you got like three more Pinedas in the minor leagues somewhere.

....

I think that's about right.  Brian Burke's system has it at 0.41, and SSI will go along with that.

.

=== Reasons the Seahawks Could Lose ===

Ahhhhhh ... :laughs:

Picking just a couple things out of the bag, Atlanta was 13-3 last year with a +126 points differential.  More points differential than any team other than Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers or the Steelers.  

Meanwhile, the 2010 Seahawks made the playoffs with a -97 points differential -- and they're far behind that -PtDif this year.

EA sez,

One thought that has been sticking out in my brain lately is how one of the media pundits talked about the run of good pitching that's been around the last year and a half and how it could be that the cycle of baseball is turning back towards pitching.  It seems like half the guys coming out of the bullpen these days are throwing 95+ and it seems like starting pitchers that throw 95+ seem to be cropping up all over the place too.  Is this a result of improved strength training regimens?  ...

Doc has made the point that hitters are really the defense and the pitcher is on offense attacking the zone.  Has modern conditioning gotten pitching to the point where it is on the verge of overpowering human reflexes?  How would this affect decisions on how to build a roster?  Or is watching the M's feeble attempts to score runs biasing me towards visions of a new deadball era?

I took a quick spin through the F/X velocities the last few years, and it seems fastball velocity is up.  By a lot.

As recently as 2005, the #15-16 velocity staffs in baseball (Rays and Rangers) had staffwide fastball averages of 89.9.

But in 2008 it was up to 90.8, in 2009 the median team Cincinnati was 91.0, and last year the median staff (again Cincinnati!) was up to 91.3 mph.  On average.

This year, not even having gone through the summer yet, the median teams (Jays, Royals) are fully 91.5 mph.  On average.

The M's will be playing for first place on Saturday.  When the M's were -7 under, did you ever think you'd see that sentence this year?

2.  There was a time, 1970's maybe early '80's, when Steve Rudman and Art Thiel would simply write up the truth and publish it in the local newspapers the next day.  I thought that was cool, even then.  But most of the time, the readers don't give much -- or any! -- credit for the risk and sacrifice that is incurred.