Run, Run, Run...

While listening to today's split squad game against the Blue Jays (won by the Sox in dramatic fashion with ninth-inning walk off double), I was reflecting on how the conventional wisdom (especially coming from the mouths of radio announcers) puts the Sox, Jays and Yankees all in the same ballpark when it comes to line up strength for 2007. Curious to know how things stack up (and because the Blue Jays have started to freak me out and I want to know if my fears are justified), I took this year's PECOTA projections, whittled the lists down to those players listed on each team's active roster and averaged the VORP and WARP scores for each team. Why only VORP and WARP? Because they appear to be the best quick measurements of future performance and I wanted answers now, dammit. You can protest my methods in the comments section if you want.

Unfortunately the results put the Yankees on top, with Boston a close second and Toronto a more distant third:

• New York: 15.6 (VORP), 3.9 (WARP)
• Boston: 14.7 (VORP), 4.0 (WARP)
• Toronto: 6.8 (VORP) (a lot of dead wood on that team), 3.0 (WARP)

Remember that WARP takes both offense and defense into account, while VORP is pure offense (in runs), so New York will score more runs than Boston, but Boston has players who do slightly better in the field preventing runs. Given how close the WARP scores are, I would hazard to guess that the award for pre-season predictions of offensive power does go to New York, just like many of us have heard, while the Jays look like they won't be competing at the same level with the bat. Even with everything being subject to chance, the increasing competition around the league (damn you, AL Central) means pitching will be even more important this year. In other words, since Boston can't win the AL East by driving in more runs than the other guys, they'll need to prevent runs instead.