Looking at the Giants number at the bottom of that chart is mind-boggling. How incompetent is their management?

David,

Thanks for putting up this list. I did a quick sort of the results and the projected league averages are:

AL 5.29 runs/game
NL 4.75 runs/game

The NL rate is pretty close to last year's actual (4.71). The AL rate is .38 runs higher than last year's actual (4.90).

I would guess that there are a couple of things biasing your projected results.

1. The starting lineups ignore the effects of injuries and using bench players. I think on a typical team the bench players get almost as many AB as two average starters, so it makes a difference excluding them. Offensively, bench players are not as good so the numbers you show are inflated.

2. Pitchers do not bat the whole game like position players do. I think a typical team's pitchers would get on the order of half as many AB as any other position. The other ABs go to pinch hitters.

The NL averages look like the effects of 1 and 2 cancel each other. The AL doesn't have the second effect and that is, I guess, why there's a large difference between your projetion and actual 2007 figures.

Of course, you also have Miguel Cabrera moving to the AL. :-)

And Santan moving to the NL. So maybe the AL number is OK and the NL number is high.

Looks like another long year for Matt Cain.

Are the batting predictions (both AL and NL) really affected by the move of Santana to the NL?

I wonder how much of the AL's predicted increase is due to Santana leaving the league.