VWI Predicted Standings: NL

Yesterday I used my Vegas Watch Index (or VWI, explained here) to project the final AL standings. In today's post I'm doing the same thing for the National League. First, the updated NL VWI (through Sunday's games):

The top three spots stay the same, with the Padres actually extending their lead over the Mets slightly.

The Cubs vault from sixth to fourth after Vegas gave them some respect on a tough seven game road trip to Milwaukee and Atlanta. The biggest reason for this is Ted Lilly, as they were favored in both of his starts (although Sunday's start didn't last very long).

The biggest mover was Atlanta, jumping from 12th last week to a more reasonable eighth. I would attribute this both to some regression to the mean, and to two Hudson starts last week.

The team that lost the most ground was Cincinnati, dropping from seventh to 13th. That is probably because the Reds just aren't very good.

On to the predicted standings, starting with the East:

The Mets are technically only 2.5 games ahead of the Braves right now, but they're four up in the loss column (unrelated: the Mets are 17-16 at home, 19-9 on the road. How can they play so poorly at this beautiful establishment?). VWI isn't as high on the Mets as PECOTA, which has them winning 96.5 games. VWI also has the gap between the Braves and Phillies being smaller than PECOTA thinks it is.

Percentage-wise, this would put the Mets at about 74%, Atlanta 13%, Philly 11%, and Florida 2%.

NL Central:

VWI thinks the Brewers will regress a little from their current .540 winning percentage. With both PECOTA and their run differential agreeing, the consensus seems to be that Milwaukee has gotten a little lucky so far, and will most likely play about .500 the rest of the way.

Luckily for them, they're in the NL Central, where 83 wins can get you this. According to VWI, the Cubs actually have a slightly higher expected winning percentage (.516 to .512), but the difference is not nearly enough to make up their current six game deficit.

The Cardinals are the White Sox of the NL- despite their recent success, the consensus is that they're not very good. As with the White Sox, PECOTA is especially harsh, expecting them to win just 43% of their games the rest of the year.

I would put VWI's NL Central percentages as follows: MIL 58%, CHC 25%, STL 10%, HOU 6%, CIN 1%.

NL West:

The West is interesting. Despite being just percentage points ahead of Arizona right now the Padres look like they're in pretty good shape. San Diego has underperformed their Pythag record by two games, and Arizona and LA have both been better than expected.

VWI doesn't like Arizona at all, giving them an expected winning percentage of only .492. Despite how close the current standings are, VWI's predicted standings seem to be the consensus all around.

Percentages: SD 55%, LAD 27%, ARI 15%, COL 2%, SF 1%.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please e-mail me at jnwheat@emory.edu, or post something in the comments section below.