Have no idea how you're conflating team stats to preseason projections. The latter are of course highly variable. Nobody can predict an MLB season and all systems have a 5-10 game standard deviation. Vegas said 80. If you knew that was wrong, you should've bet on it.

I doubt you have any specific proof of what you're wiriitng here. It sounds right so it must be. (In reality, what *did* happen was DM plugged two huge weaknesses DH + back end bullpen into strengths and proj systems AND bettors and even you wouldn't predict that)

He batted 6th yesterday.

Here's a separate question (not in reference to trades messing up team chemistry):

Detroit may not have tanked, but they clearly had a slump in the last two months of the regular season last year. Is that for the same reason?

I thought Oakland was something like +60 or +70 around the time of the Cespedes/Lester trade - am I not remembering that correctly?

This year.

I guess they had the Twins as the worst chance to make it. Royals second worst at 10 and 8 percent. Here is Baseball Prospectus preseason playoff odds, before any games were played.

LAA 67%
Boston 58% ROFL
Tampa 54%
Seattle 52% hahahha
Detroit 49%
Cleveland 38%
Oakland 37%
White Sox 27%
Toronto 27%
Yankees 22% Swing and a miss
Baltimore 20%
Texas 17%
Houston 14% EPIC FAIL
KC 10% Apparently having the best winning % in the 2nd half of last year and going to WS is meaningless
Twins 8%

Just a bunch of virgins sleeping on the hideaway bed in their mom's basement beating off to OBP stats and neglecting the others.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Johnny Cueto will make his first start as a Royal on Friday in Toronto.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/status/625756172390264832">July 27, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Pretty obvious:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">KC has not decided who will leave the rotation to make room for Cueto, but it&#39;s expected to come down to Chris Young and Jeremy Guthrie.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/status/625756403693711361">July 27, 2015</a></blockquote>
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I don't see any way that Young stays in the rotation with his recent down-slide.

I used to be more of a supporter for the run differential stat. But, I think in baseball it can be flawed.

High OBP, high K guys feast on garbage pitching. They feast on the #5 guy, long relief, or chodes you just put in when you are down and probably going to lose the game. These situations, they matter less. In the playoffs, you don't even see the #5 guy, so the fat high OBP guy doesn't get to feast upon these pitchers in the playoffs. Usually teams with shitty starting pitching, don't make the playoffs anyway, so this further skews the numbers.

This basically allows these players and teams to produce some gaudy looking numbers, when these other teams basically, in layman's terms, aren't trying their hardest and are saving their closers, set up man, and #1s and #2s for games that actually matter.

I kind of want Guthrie to stay in the rotation, as long as it means we use Chris Young later in the year, in other situations and games that are meaningful.

(on second thought - edited)

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Eric Hosmer on acquiring Johnny Cueto: &quot;It&#39;s a good time to be a Kansas City Royal.&quot;</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/status/625759130540748800">July 27, 2015</a></blockquote>
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That would put him starting on 8/10! I purchased tickets to that game in a lightening offer a month or so ago. That will definitely be worth the 5 hour drive up and back.

lol, sorry... had to kill the ghost edit :p

Looking at the pitching rotation, moving Cueto to Friday allows Duffman to get his normal start on Thursday. You slide Cueto into Friday, Volquez on Saturday, and then Ventura on Sunday. Young goes to long relief.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rotation for Toronto series:
Thursday-Duffy
Friday-Cueto
Saturday-Ventura
Sunday-Volquez
Monday offday
Detroit series not determined yet</p>&mdash; Joel Goldberg (@goldbergkc) <a href="https://twitter.com/goldbergkc/status/625759909930508288">July 27, 2015</a></blockquote>
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He's batting 8th tonight. Very confusing.