The Baseball Playoffs are almost upon us, so it is time for Baseball Power Ratings. Here they are. We see, for example, the Braves have played .75 runs better than average due to being .27 runs better than average on offense and .48 runs better than average on defense. This ranks 4th in the majors. Colorado is the best hitter’s park, with 1.43 runs per team scored there per game (as compared to average hitter’s park.) The Reds are not as good as people think, having played the easiest schedule (.37 runs easier than average. The Pirates are beyond pathetic, worst on offense and worst on defense. We note that the best teams (Tampa and Yankees in regular season)  may not be best in playoffs because in playoffs teams often use 3 starting pitchers while during regular season 5 starting pitchers are needed. Playoff predictions will be coming later.

With apologies to Vanessa Williams, USA “saved the best for last.” A great defensive performance keyed a solid victory in the gold medal game. Here are the final ratings. USA played 27.8 points better than average; 19.37 points better than average on offense 8.44 points better than average on defense. I should have Major League Baseball ratings up tomorrow.

Prediction tomorrow USA 80-78 Lithuania 80 Serbia 77.

Here are updated  ratings

USA +23 Offense -4 Defense +27 overall

Turkey +8 offense -17 defense +25 overall

Lithuania +2 offense -7 defense +9 overall

Serbia +6 offense +3 defense +3 overall

Forecast  US 92-74 OVER Lithuania

Turkey 87-65 over Serbia

Now that the first eight games of the knockout round are complete we can come up with some reasonable power ratings for the World Baksetball Championship. For example, USA is 30.11 points better than average; 21.74 points better than average on offense and 8.37 points better than average on defense. Running through the final round of 8 teams 10,000 times USA wins 85% of the time, Turkey 13% and the other six teams a total of 2% of the time.

Yesterday we predicted the Heat to be 66-16 next season. Applying our Adjusted +/- ratings for the Laker’s players from last season and using last season’s minutes played (adjusted in Blake’s case) we get a projected record for the Lakers of 65-17! As you can see below, Blake and Barnes are two great pickups. They are easily superior to Brown and Farmar. The predicted wins is based on the well-known Puthagorean formula that converts points better than average (in this case 10) to games one. Looks like these teams will be well-matched, if they make it to the finals. As the Celtics showed this year, nobody should take a finals trip as a given!

The Heat have pretty much filled out their roster. I assumed that players play the same number of minutes as they did last year and play at the same Adjusted +/- level of performance as last year, I predict 66-16 for the Heat.

I am so sorry Holland lost! Oh well there is always 2014 for USA and Holland. Here are final ratings based on 3 years of scores. I switched to multiplicative ratings, because they fit the data a little better. So Spain is number 1 and they are 60% better than average on offense and give up an amazing 26% as many goals as an average World Cup team. Spain against an average World Cup Team would be favored by 1.73 goals.

I want Netherlands to win so badly but my model predicts Spain 2 Netherlands 1 in overtime. Spain has 57% chance to win.

Well LeBron, Bosh and wade are on the Heat. Are the Heat a lock to win the NBA title. Let’s try and figure out how good this team will be next year. Based on our Adjusted +/- Ratings we project for 2010-2011 (all player ratings are per 48 minutes.)

• Wade and LeBron each play 11 points better than average. Assume 36 minutes each (most guys get hurt a few games)
• Bosh will play 5 points better than average . 36 minutes
• Chalmer 4 points worse than average. 24 minutes
• Beasley 4 points worse than average. 30 minutes
• The key is in remaining 78 minutes how well will rest of roster play. Let’s try out 2 points thru 6 points worse than average.

Here are projected wins:

To me the most likely case is rest of roster plays like Chalmers and  Beasley (-4). Then we project 63-19 record for Heat which is probably a team good enough to win the East and play the Lakers in a great 7 game series.