Fangraphs loves the White Sox postseason chances

[VAfan]

In their article "Here's Who's Going to (Maybe) Win the World Series", Fangraphs ranks the Sox's chances very highly.

18 of 27 pick the Sox over the Astros.

14 of 27 have the Sox playing the Rays.

13 of 27 have the Sox winning the AL, with the Rays getting the second most votes at 7

A Sox-Dodgers WS gets the most votes at 6. 

The Sox tie the Dodgers with 6 votes to win it all.  

Here's their separate Playoff Power Rankings, which puts the Sox behing the Dodgers and Giants, but ahead of everyone else in team quality.

Here's how they projected baseball standings and WS odds prior to the season.  At least they had the Sox on top of the AL Central.  

However, the pre-season staff predictions were not as sharp, with the Sox just edging the Twins, and the Rays well behind the favored Yankees. 

The pre-season AL ZiPs projections were also off, with the Twins projected to win the AL Central again.

So, there you have it.  Has Fangraphs righted the ship and seen things more clearly now?  

Of course, none of this matters at all.  But with so few "experts" picking the Sox, it's interesting to see who really likes them.  

Edited October 5, 2021 by VAfan

[chw42]

Hey the nerds are on our side for once!

[joejoesox]

Hey Fangraphs, put it down or pour it out ?

[MackowiakYakYak]

It’s amazing that the Dodgers need to win a game where there’s at least a 30% chance they will lose and are still favorites to win the World Series

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

27 minutes ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

It’s amazing that the Dodgers need to win a game where there’s at least a 30% chance they will lose and are still favorites to win the World Series

Praying they lose. LOL

[reiks12]

4 hours ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

Praying they lose. LOL

i dont know, a Giants - Dodgers NLDS would be very intense. I feel its a bigger rivalry than the overrated one out east. 

[The Kids Can Play]

On 10/5/2021 at 12:43 PM, MackowiakYakYak said:

It’s amazing that the Dodgers need to win a game where there’s at least a 30% chance they will lose and are still favorites to win the World Series

I hope they lose! The Dodgers spent $267 million to buy the World Series vs the Sox who spent $140 million. It would so ironic and poetic justice if the Dodgers lost tonight. Then the top two teams in MLB payrolls, in back to back nights are eliminated. Go Cardinals!

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

22 hours ago, reiks12 said:

i dont know, a Giants - Dodgers NLDS would be very intense. I feel its a bigger rivalry than the overrated one out east. 

I just want the Dodgers out.  They're the best team

[MackowiakYakYak]

1 hour ago, The Kids Can Play said:

I hope they lose! The Dodgers spent $267 million to buy the World Series vs the Sox who spent $140 million. It would so ironic and poetic justice if the Dodgers lost tonight. Then the top two teams in MLB payrolls, in back to back nights are eliminated. Go Cardinals!

I don’t know if I judge the Dodgers’ spending the same way as the Yankees though. The Dodgers have a great core of guys that they’ve developed (Buehler, Urias, Jansen, Seager, Smith, J Turner, Taylor, and so on). They scout, draft, trade, and then develop pretty well. Meanwhile the Yankees bought nearly their entire roster of pitchers and you also don’t see the Yanks turning many young players’ careers around. 

Without the excessive money the Dodgers are still a competitive team every year. Without their excessive money the Yankees would look like the Mets

[South Side Hit Men]

4 hours ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

I just want the Dodgers out.  They're the best team

To be the man, you gotta to beat the man.

 

 

[The Kids Can Play]

15 hours ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

I don’t know if I judge the Dodgers’ spending the same way as the Yankees though. The Dodgers have a great core of guys that they’ve developed (Buehler, Urias, Jansen, Seager, Smith, J Turner, Taylor, and so on). They scout, draft, trade, and then develop pretty well. Meanwhile the Yankees bought nearly their entire roster of pitchers and you also don’t see the Yanks turning many young players’ careers around. 

Without the excessive money the Dodgers are still a competitive team every year. Without their excessive money the Yankees would look like the Mets

It's not about whether the Dodgers spent their money more wisely than the Yankees. It's about the fact, the Dodgers spent an insane amount of money at 267 million. to buy a championship. I wonder how good the Dodgers would be this year spending a 127 million less and then let's see if they would still be so dominant. Or more importantly, do you think perhaps the Sox would be even better if Hahn could have spent another 127 million this year. I know that is the way it is in MLB, but it's not fair. It's not how it's done in the other three major pro sports where they have salary caps.

Btw, your point about the Dodgers being a competitive team without spending the excessive money is unknown and untrue, as they have always spent money excessively and more than most other teams every year. Until the Dodgers spend the league average and still then still remain a powerhouse, please don't talk to me about how good the Dodgers are.

[South Side Hit Men]

17 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

It's not about whether the Dodgers spent their money more wisely than the Yankees. It's about the fact, the Dodgers spent an insane amount of money at 267 million. to buy a championship. I wonder how good the Dodgers would be this year spending a 127 million less and then let's see if they would still be so dominant. Or more importantly, do you think perhaps the Sox would be even better if Hahn could have spent another 127 million this year. I know that is the way it is in MLB, but it's not fair. It's not how it's done in the other three major pro sports where they have salary caps.

Btw, your point about the Dodgers being a competitive team without spending the excessive money is unknown and untrue, as they have always spent money excessively and more than most other teams every year. Until the Dodgers spend the league average and still then still remain a powerhouse, please don't talk to me about how good the Dodgers are.

The other 29 owners / teams can do what the Dodgers do. They choose not to, many choose to spend less than what they receive from MLB General Revenue (National Contract, MLB.Com and other national revenue). The Yankees took in $163M more revenue than the Dodgers pre-COVID, but have stayed at or below the tax for years.

The Yankees are tanking, relative to the revenue they bring in. Kudos to the Dodgers who actually attempt to provide their fan base a team worthy of their revenue. Yankee fans should seriously reconsider reupping season tickets for a team that does not give a shit about competing for a World Series. Same goes for the dozen tanking teams and other teams like the Cubs not spending anywhere close on a pro-rata basis of revenue generated on the on-field product.

[The Kids Can Play]

24 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

The other 29 owners / teams can do what the Dodgers do. They choose not to, many choose to spend less than what they receive from MLB General Revenue (National Contract, MLB.Com and other national revenue). The Yankees took in $163M more revenue than the Dodgers pre-COVID, but have stayed at or below the tax for years.

The Yankees are tanking, relative to the revenue they bring in. Kudos to the Dodgers who actually attempt to provide their fan base a team worthy of their revenue. Yankee fans should seriously reconsider reupping season tickets for a team that does not give a shit about competing for a World Series. Same goes for the dozen tanking teams and other teams like the Cubs not spending anywhere close on a pro-rata basis of revenue generated on the on-field product.

That is not all true or accurate. Yes the other 29 teams could choose to spend as much. However most of them cannot afford to because they do not have the stadium size and attendance numbers of the Dodgers, nor do most of them own a TV station to bring in the additional massive revenue like the Dodgers. 

You are getting off the point though I was trying to make which is, let's see how good the Dodgers would be if all the teams spent the same amount of money like in the other three sports. We know why the Sox don't send the money as the owner is a cheap ass spender.

You cannot dispute the fact the Sox would be the significantly stronger team if we could spend 267 million like the Dodgers. That was all my post was about. 

[South Side Hit Men]

2 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

That is not all true or accurate. Yes the other 29 teams could choose to spend as much. However most of them cannot afford to because they do not have the stadium size and attendance numbers of the Dodgers, nor do most of them own a TV station to bring in the additional massive revenue like the Dodgers. 

You are getting off the point though I was trying to make which is, let's see how good the Dodgers would be if all the teams spent the same amount of money like in the other three sports. We know why the Sox don't send the money as the owner is a cheap ass spender.

You cannot dispute the fact the Sox would be the significantly stronger team if we could spend 267 million like the Dodgers. That was all my post was about. 

That's not true either. Teams can compete for fans instead of resting on their monopoly status. Boston, Cubs, Giants and Mets could try to compete with the Dodgers, but use the "Luxury Tax" which in most years lower than an Adam Eaton 2021 salary, as an excuse to fuck over their fan bases and pocket higher profit than they would if they spent the same portion of revenue as the Dodgers or other teams. 

The Sox have generally spent a good portion of their revenue on players. My historical issue with JR has been his influence and stewardship over the game (taxpayer stadiums, installing Bud Selig, cancelling 1994 as leader of the hardliner group of owners, near annual collusion, etc.).

[MackowiakYakYak]

21 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

That is not all true or accurate. Yes the other 29 teams could choose to spend as much. However most of them cannot afford to because they do not have the stadium size and attendance numbers of the Dodgers, nor do most of them own a TV station to bring in the additional massive revenue like the Dodgers. 

You are getting off the point though I was trying to make which is, let's see how good the Dodgers would be if all the teams spent the same amount of money like in the other three sports. We know why the Sox don't send the money as the owner is a cheap ass spender.

You cannot dispute the fact the Sox would be the significantly stronger team if we could spend 267 million like the Dodgers. That was all my post was about. 

You can’t compare the rosters 1 to 1 because you’d be taking the Dodgers team building process over the last ten years and then saying “yeah but let’s suddenly cut off $100m of players on their payroll.” The Sox have spent 4 years building their roster with the idea that they’d spend around $150m while the Dodgers have been doing that while saying they’ll spend whatever it takes.
 

Despite how much they could lean on money, the Dodgers have still been very successful in developing their talent. Plus in the last few years they haven’t been just questionably throwing around money, they’ve been picking up the right free agents pretty often. They are a very good organization. We don’t know what their team would look like if their owners only wanted to spend $150m a year, but the core of their organization seems solid

[MackowiakYakYak]

All I’m saying is that the Dodgers shouldn’t be hated quite a strongly as the Yankees are hated, at least not by fans of a team in a different league. Unlike the recent Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Giants, and Cardinals teams (some of the recent top spenders) the Dodgers have created an absolute monster of a team that legitimately has a chance of winning multiple championships in the next few years

[The Kids Can Play]

38 minutes ago, MackowiakYakYak said:

You can’t compare the rosters 1 to 1 because you’d be taking the Dodgers team building process over the last ten years and then saying “yeah but let’s suddenly cut off $100m of players on their payroll.” The Sox have spent 4 years building their roster with the idea that they’d spend around $150m while the Dodgers have been doing that while saying they’ll spend whatever it takes.
 

Despite how much they could lean on money, the Dodgers have still been very successful in developing their talent. Plus in the last few years they haven’t been just questionably throwing around money, they’ve been picking up the right free agents pretty often. They are a very good organization. We don’t know what their team would look like if their owners only wanted to spend $150m a year, but the core of their organization seems solid

When you say the Dodgers are good at developing their talent, I assume you forgot about the proven talented players from other teams they could afford to go after and acquire, such as Tre Turner, Mookie Betts, Max Scherzer, AJ Pollack, Justin Turner and of course Trevor Bauer until that Nutjob was taken off the roster. I don't think the Dodgers developed any of those players. 

I agree the Dodgers are a good organization, but that's a lot easier to accomplish when you can out spend every other team. Actually the Tampa Rays are a superior organization to the Dodgers. The Rays won 100 games this year with the 26th salary payroll of 70 million. The Rays were even less last year at 28th at 28 million and made the World Series. 

[South Side Hit Men]

2 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

When you say the Dodgers are good at developing their talent, I assume you forgot about the proven talented players from other teams they could afford to go after and acquire, such as Tre Turner, Mookie Betts, Max Scherzer, AJ Pollack, Justin Turner and of course Trevor Bauer until that Nutjob was taken off the roster. I don't think the Dodgers developed any of those players. 

I agree the Dodgers are a good organization, but that's a lot easier to accomplish when you can out spend every other team. Actually the Tampa Rays are a superior organization to the Dodgers. The Rays won 100 games this year with the 26th salary payroll of 70 million. The Rays were even less last year at 28th at 28 million and made the World Series. 

Again, they outspend every team because the high revenue teams are tanking, and using the bullshit Luxury Tax as a pathetic excuse to screw over their fans.

Andrew Friedman ran the Rays, also took them to the World Series in 2008, whupped the Sox in the playoffs with a much smaller payroll, the same relative cheap ass payroll TB’s current GM is forced to work with. 

The Rays FO could say the same thing about the Sox (it’s so easy to be Rick Hahn with double our payroll), but they don’t because they are professionals and among the best in the business. Andrew left them with great FO talent, and he’s also built a great team in LA.

[MackowiakYakYak]

Can’t disagree that Tampa Bay is the best run front office with some of the worst business-side operations. Can’t disagree the Dodgers made their roster the best we’ve seen in a decade by getting big free agents/trade+signs. 

However. This Dodgers roster is elite in a way none of the high spenders have been in recent memory, and it’s all because the Dodgers spend money AND supplement the free agents with great homegrown talent. The Yankees had been routine #1 payroll and are always top 3, but they haven’t made a roster as terrifying as the Dodgers in a long time.

I listed a lot of the guys the Dodgers have developed earlier in the thread. Their core C, 1B, 3B, SS and CF all developed into the players they are with the Dodgers. That doesn’t include Taylor, Lux, and Beaty who are all incredibly solid players. For starting pitchers they’ve developed Kershaw, Buehler, and Urias. The rest of their homegrown pitching includes Kenley, Gonsolin, Bickford, Dustin May, Brusdal Graterol, and a whole bunch of young depth guys with a bit of upside. 

Sure any GM could make a great team knowing they can spend $250+ million every year but the Dodgers have done it better than anyone else in recent memory.

Edited October 7, 2021 by MackowiakYakYak