This is the final post of my series where I go through all the National League Central teams and check out their Bill James projections. Here's the links to the rest of the series:
It's been getting progressively more favorable for the Pirates as have gone on, and now we'll check on the worst team in baseball last year, the Houston Astros. Here's the numbers:
and here's the Pirates numbers again for comparison:
The Astros lost their best hitter,
Hunter Pence, at the trade deadline last year, and their 2012 lineup is going to suffer because of it. This is a very ugly comparison, but let's check the triple-slash line anyway. Houston comes in at .268/.324/.400 while the Pirates remain at .265/.329/.424, neither team has any real power in the lineup and their batting averages are lower than most teams you you will. The Astros really struggle in wOBA with a .317 mark (the league average is near .330). It's not going to take much to score more runs than the Astros this year.
On the pitching side of things, the Astros are also very poor. The Pirates have them beat in wins, walks, ERA, and FIP. The Astros 4.26 ERA and 4.13 FIP is bad. They have some upside with their staff with solid arms in
Wandy Rodriguez and
Bud Norris, and a pitcher in
J.A. Happ that could put up a good season if he figures some stuff out. The pitching is definitely better than the offense for Houston, but neither side of the ball is good at all.
The Pirates probably aren't going to win the division in 2012, but it's nice to know that there's a team that is definitely worse than them heading into the season.
