The Szymborski-Dudek Diamond Mind Simulation, 1st edition

Monday, December 22 2003 @ 07:02 AM EST

Contributed by: robertdudek

What could that title possibly mean? The first part refers to a Diamond Mind 2004 projection disk that Baseball Primer's Dan Szymborski has created, using his own projection system called ZiPS. Dan has produced 5 builds of the disk so far. I have added transactions up to and including the Javy Lopez signing (with Baltimore). The "Dudek" part refers to my own efforts to create Manager Profiles for all the AL teams.

Diamond Mind is a sophisticated and flexible baseball simulation. I asked the program to play 15 computer-generated seasons using current rosters with the players in roles that I've decided are likely given current rosters. There's still a long way to go before spring-training rosters are set, so I expect to produce a 2nd edition in mid-January (by which time almost all of the big free agents will have signed) and a 3rd edition at the beginning of March.

And so they played - little computer-generated players hitting, pitching, fielding and getting injured over 15 years. Here are the median performances of all the AL teams, as well as the number of times in 15 years they made the playoffs (playoffs were not simulated).

 Team....... W-L .. R-RA playoffs
Boston...... 99-63 911-681 15
Toronto..... 91-71 861-767 3
New York.... 89-73 882-769 6
Baltimore... 81-81 756-758 2
Tampa Bay... 63-99 696-872 0

Cleveland.... 82-80 741-742 6
Kansas City.. 80-82 783-767 8
Chicago...... 74-88 717-820 1
Minnesota.... 73-88 721-782 2
Detroit...... 66-96 641-800 0

Oakland..... 97-65 763-624 12
Seattle..... 85-76 781-708 3
Texas....... 79-83 802-809 1
Anaheim..... 77-85 706-723 1

Before anyone gets excited about the relative positions of the Yankees and Blue Jays, we should remember that the Jays are nearly set, while the Yankees signing of Kenny Lofton is on the horizon (their defence needs all the help they can get). Many people think the Yankees have improved themselves substantially. Vazquez, Brown and Contreras will replace Clemens, Pettitte and Wells in the rotation, and will soon find out what it means to have the Yankees defence behind them. Offensively, the major change so far is Sheffield in and Nick Johnson out. But is that enough to overcome the aging lineup?

The Orioles are set to close the gap even further, with the Vlad signing apparently imminent; nevertheless they still don't have a third baseman and possess a starting rotation of largely unproven pitchers.

Minnesota needs to do a lot of work, especially if they insist on handicapping themselves with Rivas and Guzman as their middle infielders. With a lack of high-obp players in the lineup, the sim is very pessimistic about the Twins chances of scoring a lot of runs this year.

Anaheim has added some good pitching, but are in need of offence (they are projected to finish 13th in run scoring). Seattle has lost some talent, and drifted back into the pack, which makes the Athletics the prohibitive favourites to take the West again.

27 comments

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20031222070251999