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 with some very familiar players- the Twins. The Twins are expected to compete for the AL Central after a fairly disappointing 78-84 season last year.
Overall Preseason WAR Comparisons
You can see the projected WAR comparison position by position. Overall, this would say the position players on the Astros have a bigger advantage than the pitchers.
The Twins are probably better than the White Sox and are better than the Tigers. This series will not be easy.
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 better than the Twins batting. The Twins have a few very good players (Correa, Buxton) and a couple of good ones that are currently hurt (Polanco, Lewis).
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.
The pitching for these two teams is surprisingly close. The starting pitching is fairly balanced and with some good but not great SP. The bullpen is also fairly deep and pretty good. I was honestly surprised with how close these two teams rated in pitching.
To validate the data here. The Twins pitching is off to a GREAT start and through their first 6 games have a MLB best 1.90 ERA (although the FIP is a more average 3.23.)
Chart 4- Starting Pitching Matchups
In this section we look at the SP matchups by game.
Notice all of the RHP the Twins have. Expect Tucker and Alvarez to continue their hot starts.
Series Prediction- This series is probably closer than I thought before researching the data. I believe the Astros will win two of three in this 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