It’s All About Who You Play: Analyzing The 2016 Schedule.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a fan of (and occasional analyst of) college football, but I have paid a lot more attention to schedule strength over the past few seasons. Because of the varying strength of conferences, and the elective nature of non-conference scheduling, you have to take into account the caliber of a team’s opponents in that sport in a way that you don’t in others.

While the range of schedule strengths over a period of six months is fairly small, and yet still unfair, the range of schedule strengths over a period of weeks is very wide. While not unfair, it is a critical factor in evaluating short-term performance, especially at the start of the season, one that tends to be ignored in the rush to canonize teams with gaudy records in the early going. Over two or three weeks, everyone’s schedule is more or less balanced for home and away, for travel purposes, but not for quality of opposition. That doesn’t always balance over a month or even two.

A look at the Indians schedule shows that they will own one of the easiest schedules in baseball based off of Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projected standings.

Why?

PECOTA is not favorable to the American League Central in 2016. Collectively, it owns the worst projected winning percentage in the AL. In fact, it has the defending world champion Royals finishing in fourth with a 76-86 record.

The Indians will kick off their 2016 campaign at home in a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox (88-74 PECOTA) with a 4:10 p.m. start on opening day, April 4th. Following the brief 3 game, 4 day home stand, they will travel to the south side of Chicago for a weekend series and wrap up in Tampa (91-71 PECOTA). The Rays are the pre-season favorite in the A.L. East; they are projected to allow 622 runs second fewest only to the Indians in the A.L.  They will then travel home to play the defending national league champion Mets and the dark-horse team in the A.L. West: The Mariners.

Needless to say, the Indians will play their share of contenders right “off the bat.”