Midseason Predictions: How Will Indians Finish in 2012?

The All-Star Break is a time to reflect on the first half of the season and look ahead to the three months of baseball that still remain. In that spirit, 17 Indians writers representing seven different sites took the time to offer their thoughts on the state of the Tribe, the ups and downs of the first half, and what’s still to come in the second. Today, we kick off the results festivities with the most basic question: How will the Tribe finish the season?

Our average prediction for the Indians’ final record is 86-76 (85.6470588 wins, to be exact) meaning they would have to go 42-35 in the second half. The standard deviation was 3.6 wins, and predictions ranged from WaitingForNextYear‘s TD’s 78 wins to The Cleveland Fan‘s Ed Carroll’s 91. All but two voters (TD and fellow WFNY writer Craig Lyndall) expect the Tribe to finish over .500, while The Tribe Daily‘s Nino Colla joined Carroll in projecting Cleveland to hit the 90-win mark.

Here’s a full breakdown of our final record predictions:

So where does that leave the Indians? Six of 17 respondents expect them to win the AL Central, with six others seeing Cleveland finishing second and five putting the Tribe in third. Our own Geordy Boveroux picked the Indians to win a wild card spot, so overall seven voters foresee them making it into October.

What will it take to win the AL Central? Our average bet for the first-place team is 88.9 wins, with projections varying from 84 (TD) to 92 (Indians Prospect Insider‘s Charlie Adams, Did The Tribe Win Last Night?‘s Steve Eby, and Andy Cooper). Overall we expect the Tribe to finish 2.4 games behind; those who expect them to win the division put the Indians an average of 2.4 games up in the Central, while those who think they’ll finish second or third put them an average of five games back.

How is has this changed since the start of the season? Well, our actual win projections aren’t too different. A majority of respondents stuck by their preseason predictions, and only one said he’d majorly changed his mind.

But the Tribe’s playoff odds have changed quite a bit. Almost two-thirds of our voters said they’d changed their minds on that, of whom nearly all said the Indians’ chances have improved as the AL Central has proved to be incredibly weak.

What do you think? How will the Indians finish the year? How have your predictions changed over the last three months?