Before every series I will post these charts to help you get ready for the games, The methodology is described below.
Next up for the Astros is a team that is not likely to be very good this year (projected wins 68.) Let's see hot the two teams compare.
Chart 1- Position Player Roster
Defensive Positions and rosters with bench and key minor league players. Who is injured? Then, the relative scores to arrive at who is better.
By this comparison the Astros are projected to be significantly better than the Tigers batting. The Tigers have several young players (Greene, Torkelson) that are likely to be good someday and they may surprise in 2023 but the projections aren't showing it yet.
Chart 2- The Projected Batting Orders
In this section I predict the general batting order I expect both teams to use this series. I MIGHT update this as the series progresses. You also see how the batting lineup compares with the 2023 projected grades.
Chart 3- Pitching Rosters
Starters and Relief pitcher rosters with key minor league players. Who is injured? Then, the relative scores to arrive at who is better.
By this comparison the Astros are projected to be better than the Tigers pitching. The Tigers have some several young pitchers that are developing (Manning, Wentz, Englert) but they are not where some of the young Astros pitchers are yet. The Tigers also have some top young pitchers (Mize, Skubal) who had major injuries last year.
Chart 4- Starting Pitching Matchups
In this section we look at the SP matchups by game.
Series Prediction- I believe the Astros will sweep this three game series.
Methodology
As we have discussed in the previous Astros Report Card Articles here is the grading scale for the position players.
To account for the value of defense a player can get a letter grade bump up or down based on their projected defensive WAR (or actual defensive WAR for 2022) for their primary defensive position.
For the pitchers we will use these two scales- one for 2023 based on projected FIP and the other for the 2022 actual FIP- data.
The overall score will be based on the point values to the right. The differences are tallied in the columns to the right.
Overall Score = Starter Differences + Bench Differences / 2 + MiLB Players Differences /4