ESPN ran 200 simulations on Diamond Mind’s software and averaged the results to get the results below. This is the 10th year they have been doing this with an uncanny success rate.
The good news for Pirates fans is that just 8% of the season’s games (13 – how ironic, considering we are starting the season under a full moon so I’m going to go put $100 on them to win the divison as a result) separate the projected bottom-feeding Pirates from the division winning Cardinals.
Also good news is that only 10 runs allowed separate five of the six pitching staffs.
The bad news is that the team is expected to score just 17 more runs than in 2006 after adding Adam LaRoche to the lineup, having Ronny Paulino and Freddy Sanchez playing all year, and tossing Burnitz, Randa, and Herndandez out the door.
Here are their recaps [link]:
NLCD
"The Cardinals ran away with the NL Central in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005. They came back to the pack in the other seasons (including 2006, in which they pulled off the division title with just 83 wins) to produce close races with Houston and (in 2001 and 2003) Chicago. We project another close three-way race between the Cardinals, Astros and Cubs in 2007, with the Cards again prevailing."Pittsburgh Pirates
"Even with the addition of 1B Adam LaRoche, who we project will come pretty close to replicating his big 2006 season, the Pirates still have the weakest offense in the major leagues. The Pirates did win 37 of their final 72 games last season despite scoring the fewest runs in the league during that period, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re on the cusp of winning.Yes, they have some good young starting pitchers in Zach Duke, Ian Snell, Tom Gorzelanny and Paul Maholm. Chances are, however, over any stretch of games, good or bad, last season or in 2007, you’ll be able to say that the Pirates scored the fewest runs in the league. When they’re losing, and they’re sure to do plenty of that, it will be because they’re not scoring. If they manage a streak where they’re winning (which for them basically means breaking even), it will be in spite of not scoring.
So, now that they’ve actually lined up some decent pitchers, the Pirates are faced with two tasks, neither of which, based on their track record, one can feel very confident in them pulling off: improving the offense substantially, and doing it without botching up the pitching in the meantime."
| NL CENTRAL | W | L | PCT. | GB | RF | RA | DIV% | WC% |
| St. Louis | 85 | 77 | .525 | – | 769 | 728 | 40 | 6.7 |
| Chicago | 83 | 79 | .512 | 2 | 818 | 799 | 28 | 7.9 |
| Houston | 81 | 81 | .500 | 4 | 803 | 800 | 18 | 7.6 |
| Cincinnati | 77 | 85 | .475 | 8 | 756 | 798 | 5.7 | 4.2 |
| Milwaukee | 76 | 86 | .469 | 9 | 736 | 790 | 7.7 | 1.1 |
| Pittsburgh | 72 | 90 | .444 | 13 | 708 | 800 | 0.8 | 1.3 |
Legend
• W, L, Pct, GB — average wins, losses, winning percentage, games behind division leader
• RF, RA — average runs for and against
• Div%, WC% — percentage of seasons winning division and wild card (fractions for ties)
Bucco Blog predicted 75 wins this year [link] and expects the runs scored/runs allowed split to be a little closer to 700/770.
But you know what? Right now we’re leading the division and everyone else is having to catch up. 
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76 wins for milwaukee, hmm. I don’t about that prediction. That’s what I picked for Buccos. I had Chicago with 82-80. Houston won’t be 81-81, i had them near the Pirates at 72-90, lots of holes in the pitching staff. Cincinnati is pretty close to what I predicted.
Diamond Mind is a very well thought out simulation model..perhaps the best. It combines the various factors including player performance, ball parks, opposition strength, etc. The point is when attempting to simulate the future, someone has the enter player performance factors, (which are pretty detailed/complete in DMB).
In the case of the Pirates (and it would be similar for any team) how are you going to estimate Zack Duke, Ian, Snell, Paul Maholm’s performance?. How about Chris Duffy ? With Jack Wilson if you combine his offense of 2004 and his defense of 2005 and you have a different player than in 2006. The DMB folks (Tom Tippett, et al) attempt to make a projection on every player, and while they may be more educated guesses than most, it is the result of those individual player estimates that combine to give the team it’s relative strength/division finish.
If player ratings fed to the DMB simulation reflect some of the following Pirate optimism: Duke and Maholm return to something close to 2005 form, Ian Snell mastering LH hitters, Matt Capps with an off-speed pitch thus giving up fewer homeruns, Solomon Torres and Chris Duffy repeating their September 2006, Tom Gorzelanny has his minor league control numbers, fellow Golden Bear Xavier Nady and Jose Bautista faring better against RH pitchers, then the simulation results projecting the Pirate division finish would be more than a little bit different (better). Diamond Mind, is a great method to determine the result, but the real key to getting any result is the factors that go into each players performance. In addition, in the Pirates case, with so many young players, it may more dificult to estimate than most.
Used to mess around with Diamond Minds in the mid 90s when they were creating baseball games for the computer sim market, I think Tony LaRussa baseball was their product… Either way, I know it’s a strong simulator, but my question becomes, how do they take in to account injuries, injury length, etc. To be honest I think the bucco season relies heavily on injuries, do any of the big 4 go down with an arm injury, how many games does Freddy miss due to his inability to make the turn at 2nd, etc. Does Diamond Mind replicate injuries well? And even if they did, there are too many variables related to what could happen this year to get an accurate picture.