Looks like the AL West will be fiercly competetive. The NL East should be fun to watch too.

And despite the caveats, it's comforting to see that the Cubs were the only other NL Central team to average more than 80 wins, and even then, only by 2. And the Cards project to be the winningest NL team again. It'd sure be nice to have home-field advantage in the final year of playoffs at Busch.

Those numbers seem a little fishy to me. It seems Larry Mahnken's primary objective was just to compare the Sox and the Yankees. I wonder much effort he put into predicting playing and roster makeup or other things not included in Zips.

I really don't see how the Cards could possibly be projected to allow 18 less runs that last year. None of the Cards pitchers project to be anything special according to Zips, I fail to see how he came up with these very (as he admits) prelimary numbers.

I would say the stuff you did a couple of weeks ago is probably a little more accurate at least for the Cards.

The Nats averaged 81 wins? Wow.

I also like how the Royals' highest win total was 80, yet they still managed to win the AL Central in one of his trials (let's hope it was that one).

Tough luck about that Michigan squad. It's a shame that Horton is such a punk and would (allegedly) grab his girlfriend around the throat, thereby threatening her, himself, his team, and his education.

The most shocking stat I saw was Michigan going 14 minutes in the first half without committing a foul, and having made just 5 fouls 34 minutes into the game. Such discipline from young players! Then again, Illinois wasn't exactly attacking the zone...

Stewie, they may be picking up on stuff like base-running and defense, which I'm not explicitly incorporating. But I'm suspicious.

Just as soon as I say the Cubs pitching should be better than that, I read that the Cubs traded Farnsworth. The 2005 Cubs are NOT the 2003 Cardinals, since they have a farm system full of decent prospects to convert into a bullpen or whatever. It looks like they'll need it.

Illinois wasn't attacking much of anything. I figured Dee Brown et al would abuse the walk-on guards (Michigan has only one scholarship guard) all night long, and that only happened for a few minutes.

I was amazed when I saw that Michigan gave Illinois a game -- their three games before that one were downright ugly. Losing at Purdue and Ohio State by 56 combined points, and between those losing to Minnesota at home... yikes. But... they beat Iowa, so you never know.

Re the Illinois guards: I am amazed at how rarely any of the three penetrate, especially the two "classic guards" (Brown and Williams). Watching Duke/NC last night you see just how much havoc a driving guard can create, and I don't understand why Williams and Brown almost never drive, unless it's on a fast break... Some team in the NCAAs is just going to throw a zone on them and hope for a lot of long misses... which is what almost happened on Tuesday.

The DMB simulation will be more accurate when Tom Tippett runs it himself, I'll wager. Whatever the case - he was one of the few last year that actually had the Cards winning the Central last year heading into the regular season.

Szymborski himself has said that Tippett's DMB projections almost certainly will be better. Szymborski's DMB disk last year had some results that looked bizarre last February, such as the Cardinals generally winning 100+ games in 2004. It also had some stuff that looks bizarre this February, such as the D-backs winning the NL West. Szymborski's a sharp guy, so I'd guess this is just another indication that there's a pretty wide range of possible outcomes.

I'm a bit concerned that Tippett won't do his projections this year. Unless I'm missing something, he didn't do his usual "Gold Gloves" review for 2004. I'm wondering if some team didn't throw some money at him. I suppose I could ask.

MO Boiler, Michigan had Horton when they beat Iowa. The loss of Horton is akin to losing Kiko Calero and having him replaced by Esteban Yan. After the Purdue debacle I announced that Michigan won't win again this season, and I'm sticking to that.

I apologize, I had my wires crossed and thought they beat Iowa last night -- when it really was Wisconsin who did. You'd think I would know better.

Well, I think that DMB sims based off of my projections won't be as good as Tom's. He knows the ins and outs of exactly how the event tables on his software are calculated and can get DMB to sim his projections the most accurately.

As for the raw player projections themselves, I don't think there's a dime's worth of difference one way or the other between ZiPS, DMB, Stats, Pecota, Shandler, Warren, or most of the prominent systems.

It's really really hard to predict team results this way - not only does one have to predict players accurately, a challenge in itself, but also has to get the computer to accurately sim lineups, depth charts, injuries, and so forth.

ZiPS was higher on Diamondbacks last year, though the projected team didn't get on the field very often. This year, the Diamondbacks, Reds, and Pirates were the only ones to not make the playoffs in 100 years (of Geleil's sim, that is)