The Z Files: The Schedule's Effect on Player Expectations

After holding the fantasy baseball populace hostage for almost a week, MLB finally released the official schedule, to a resounding, "Huh?". In retrospect, it makes sense to have an unbalanced home/away split within the 10 games facing a divisional opponent. Otherwise, extended five game series would have been necessary or each team would play four series. The current setup entails three series, hence less traveling. Still, it's odd to play seven home and three away tilts (or vice versa) against a division foe.

As expected, each team will play their natural interleague rival three times, leaving 14 cross league encounters against four teams. The resulting four-game series are split home and road, increasing travel but minimizing further imbalance.

In a 162-game season, less emphasis is placed on adjusting player expectations due to the schedule. The interleague aspect may tilt it one way of the other, but the bulk of player performance going into projections is derived from action facing the same teams, the same number of times each season. Sure, adjustments could be necessary when a player changes uniforms, but that's on an individual basis.

This season is a different story. With play contained within each geographical region, scheduling differences can affect teams and players. Today, I'm going to break down the park effects and quality of opposition influences.

Something to keep in mind is while adjustments are applied systematically, round-off could mask the extent by which the numbers change. For example, 12.4 projected homers is presented as 12 while 12.6 rounds up to 13 long balls. The extra dinger increases runs and RBI, raising a player's projected value up to $2.

With respect to pitching, over 60 innings, each run is worth .15 in ERA. Round-off could be the difference between a 3.60 ERA and 3.75 mark.

As such, looking at players whose projections changed solely due to the schedule may not capture everyone impacted. Instead, it's better to look at team effects and extrapolate the associated players.

Hits and home run factors will be broken down by handedness for batters. Runs, walks and strikeouts will be from everyone for pitchers. The data will be presented as the difference between the initial schedule and the 60-game version. For example, if the original left-handed homer factor was 101 and now it's 102.3, the table will display 1.3. If the factor drops from 98.7 to 95.2, the table will show -1.5.

Park Factors

Hitting

A positive difference in homers and hits is beneficial to batters and detrimental to pitchers, and vice versa. 

As is the case with individual venue factors, home runs and runs don't necessarily parallel, nor do home runs and hits.

With that as a backdrop, here are the sortable differences for left-handed, right-handed and switch hitters, with commentary.

Left-handed Batters

The lefty swinging contingent of the Braves, Mets, Yankees, Rays, Brewers and Orioles are the only clubs where both homers and hits are improved. The biggest beneficiary is Atlanta, so hopefully Freddie Freeman returns and can take advantage. The left-handed Mets are also in good shape, boding well for Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Rangers, Diamondbacks, Twins, Astros, Giants, Dodgers, Mariners, Rockies, Nationals and Athletics, all with double negatives. The Rangers suffer the most, by far, followed by the Diamondbacks. The lefty swingers to drop a bit include Shin-Soo Choo, Joey Gallo, Willie Calhoun and Rougned Odor plus David Peralta, Kole Calhoun and Jake Lamb.

Right-handed Batters

The Mets lead the pack of squads exhibiting a plus-plus for righty swingers. The Orioles, Cubs, Royals and Cardinals also enjoy the dual advantage. This should help Pete Alonso fend off pending regression from his outstanding rookie campaign as well as boosting Yoenis Cespedes, providing he's healthy enough to circle the bases after clearing the fence and not just strut to the dugout.

A bunch of right-handed units incur a double whammy, led by the Diamondbacks. Also suffering to varying degrees are the Red Sox, White Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Astros, Angels, Dodgers, Marlins, Twins, Athletics, Phillies, Pirates and Rangers. The players in line for the biggest hit are Starling Marte and Christian Walker.

Switch Hitters

Atlanta and the Mets are favored the most, which is good news for Ozzie Albies. Also benefiting are the ambidextrous batters on the Orioles, Cubs, Brewers, Yankees and Rays.

Drawing the short straw are the switch-hitting brethren on the Rangers and Diamondbacks with Ketel Marte and Danny Santana most likely to feel it. The switch hitters on the Red Sox, Rockies, Astros, Dodgers, Twins, Athletics, Phillies, Giants, Mariners and Nationals are also in store for a drop of some sort.

Pitching

A positive difference in strikeouts is good, but it's bad for runs and walks. The opposite is obviously true, so a negative difference in runs and walks favors hurlers while a negative difference in homers reduces whiffs.

Pitchers

The West Divisions feature predominantly pitcher-friendly venues, so it's not surprising the top five most favored staffs are from the AL and NL West. It also follows the teams with batters most negatively affected have the script flipped to the advantage of their arms. The Rangers are a prime example, elevating the veteran rotation of Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, Corey Kluber, Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles, along with giving a reason to hope Jose Leclerc can keep the closer gig.

The Rockies are next, but remember the tables show the differences. While the Rockies ERA projections improve, they're moving from blech to still unpalatable. On the other hand, third on the improved list are the Athletics, providing another reason to like the young Oakland staff.

The only team with a significant negative effect is the White Sox and that will be mitigated by the upcoming strength of opposition analysis. Plus, the detrimental impact isn't nearly as stout as the boost enjoyed by the staffs at the other end of the spectrum.

STRENGTH OF OPPOSITION

While many are undertaking this endeavor intuitively, I'm crunching some numbers, using an index to make logical adjustments. For hitting, I'm comparing the projected opponent aggregate ERA. For pitching, projected aggregate wOBA (weighted on base average) is the measure. In both cases, park-neutral projections from several sources were pooled to minimize bias.

Hitters Quality of Opposition

The index is determined as follows. Cleveland is projected to face a projected 4.451 ERA, whereas the average is 4.351. The index is determined as ERA Faced/Average, rendering a 1.023 mark for Cleveland, the most favorable in the league. A staff facing an aggregate ERA below average is assigned an index less than one. 

The average ERA seems a little low based on last season's run environment and the incorporation of the universal DH, but using an index accounts for that potential shortcoming since everyone is compared to the same base. Remember, the higher the index, the weaker the opposing pitching; the smaller the number, the better the opposing arms.

The Cleveland lineup is slated to face the weakest mound foes. On paper, they're hurt by home run park factors though play in a collective environment favorable for average. It's difficult to gauge which influences performance more, but I lean to giving the edge to whichever aspect is extreme, which in this case boosts the likes of Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana and their teammates.

In part because they don't get to face their own wretched staff, Baltimore checks in as the offense in line to step in against the best pitching. The venues are in their favor, but facing superior arms could be a hindrance as Austin Hays, Anthony Santander and perhaps Ryan Mountcastle look to establish themselves as young contributors.

Pitchers Quality of Opposition

Using the Twins as an example, their pitchers project to face a combined .3228 wOBA. The average is .3286. The index is determined as Average/Opposing wOBA, rendering a 1.108 mark for Minnesota, the most favorable in the league. A staff facing an aggregate wOBA above average is assigned an index below one.

As many have suggested, the two Central Divisions benefit from facing weak opposition, though keep in mind some of that is already baked into the original projection since the skills utilized to derive the expectations were largely fueled by facing division foes for almost half the schedule.

If you're looking for wins, the AL Central is a good place to start as the Twins, White Sox and Cleveland top the list of drawing the weakest lineups. In addition, all three clubs have pitchers likely to pitch the requisite five frames, even early on. Targets (by team) include Jose Berrios, Kenta Maeda and Jake Odorizzi for the Twins, Mike Clevinger and Shane Bieber for Cleveland and Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel and Gio Gonzalez. Missing are Rich Hill and Carlos Carrasco. There's a chance the Twins slow play Hill to have him ready for the playoffs, while Carrasco could still change his mind and opt out after battling leukemia last summer.

SUMMARY

Below is a table grouping all the data so the park and opposition effects can be considered together. A hierarchy of Excellent - Very Good - Good - Neutral - Bad - Poor - Terrible was employed to facilitate eyeballing the results.

Batters

Left-handed batters

Taken together, the Rays, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds and Yankees benefit the most. Next are Cleveland, Dodgers, Twins, Padres, Atlanta, White Sox, Brewers and Nationals.

Meanwhile, the Mariners suffered the most, by far, followed by the Orioles, Rangers, Marlins, Giants, Red Sox, Pirates and Blue Jays.

Right-handed batters

Here, the schedule is most favorable to the Rays, Cardinals, Yankees, Padres and Nationals followed by the Reds, Cleveland, Cubs, Dodgers and Twins.

Units facing the steepest uphill battle include the Pirates, Marlins, Mariners and Rangers. The next level encompasses the Red Sox, Tigers, Angels, Orioles and Blue Jays.

Switch hitters

Heading the list in the section are the Rays and Cardinals. Landing next are the Cubs, Yankees, Reds, Padres, Dodgers and Cleveland.

The Mariners and Marlins switch hitters are most penalized, followed by the Rangers, Orioles, Red Sox, Pirates, Giants and Blue Jays.

Pitchers

Using all the factors in total, the staffs with the largest improvement are the Astros, Rangers, Twins, Athletics and Dodgers. The most appealing is Texas, since many of the others already feature top arms.

The next tier includes the Reds, Red Sox, Brewers, Phillies, Angels, Yankees and Mariners.

The staffs incurring the sharpest downgrade are the Orioles, Giants, and Blue Jays. Wow, this is going to be a long two months for Baltimore fans.

Suffering, but not quite as much are the Rays, White Sox, Cubs and Cardinals.

Before calling it a day, it's worth reiterating none of these (hitter or pitcher) are raw rankings. Rather, the data reveals the difference between initial and present expectations. An excellent pitcher may be in store for a downgrade, but he's still an excellent pitcher. Just knock him down a few pegs on your cheat sheet. Similarly, a weak batter blessed with a schedule upgrade is still likely a weak batter but will gain a few spots in the eventual rankings.