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Dan, does ZiPs account in anyway for Wakefield being a knuckleballer? I realize that a) his being a knuckleballer does not necessarily significantly reduce his chances of collapsing at this age and b) pitchers his age have so few comps anyway - I'm just curious more than anything. Thanks.
No. You're forgetting that Ellsbury's SB/CS isn't contained in OPS+. If he didn't have that 45/11, he'd be comfortably below-average.
Jed (why does Kottaras have 21 points of OPS on Jed when the former never has cleared 850 above A-ball, and Jed has twice?)
Ells (should hit around .300 this year now that's he figured out the league)
Beckett (see DIPS era)
Clay (tho not by much)
Pedroia (still think he's got some more developing to do, and his BA over the past two years is 10 points higher than the projection anyway)
Lester (ditto)
Papelbon (whose ERA last year only cleared 2.00 because of a poor final regular season outing)
Unders:
Kottaras (that does not mean he shouldn't be Tek's platoon buddy however, and he should still hit some)
Lowell (also in terms of playing time)
Bowden (if he gets a 50+ inning shot-gotta learn the hard way just like Clay did)
Dice-K (his kind of pitching style and the risks he takes can easily blow up on him in a hurry)
Lugo
Papi, tho I hate to say it
Yes, there's a dummy variable for knuckleballer built in. As a non-knuckleballer, Wakefield drops to 5.33.
The rate of decline doesn't really get all that much higher in the 40s than the late 30s, it's mostly that a 42-year-old has more years of that decline than a 38-year-old.
I feel like it was in the BoSox ZiPS thread last year that there was a blowup in which the lateunlemented kevin asserted that it was ridiculous that ZiPS would project Ortiz to be worse in 2008 than he was in 2007, based on the evidence that "every full season has been better than the previous full season". As a non-participant, I thought it was pretty funny. I always had a non-engagement policy with kevin. I wish I'd told him what I thought of him just once before he bolted. Ah, well. The road not taken.
Thanks, Dan. I (obviously) hadn't thought of that.
109 games last year, and he's not getting any younger. With all his injuries, including the herniated disc, would it really be that surprising if he dropped to that many games or less?
When the projection disk comes out in a couple of weeks, he'll be a free agent.
Also, I'm in a geeky mood this morning but Lowrie/Lugo?
Lowrie 337/395 = 88 OPS+
Lugo 338/391 = 84 OPS+
2 equations, 2 unknowns and I get a LgSLG of 113 and a LgOBP of -210. Now that's one hell of a pitcher's park!
(Applying last year's LgSLG and LgOBP to those projections and I get 88.2 for Lowrie and 87.57 for Lugo)
Projections look reasonable, and this team looks really freakin' good. Walt's absolutely right about the downside risk in Lowell and Papi, but there is also crazy good upside in the rotation.
I don't get how George Kottaras is projected to hit .256. He's hit .243 and .241 in AAA the last two years. I guess it must be some combination of age-related improvement and regression to the mean, but this seems to me to speak to the difficulties of projecting minor leaguers, who will differ qualitatively more widely than major leaguers do. I do not think George Kottaras is particularly comparable to the population of major league players in his ability to hit for average. I hope I'm wrong.
Thanks for catching the OPS+ problem - I was calculating OPS+ on unrounded numbers and then presenting rounded numbers (for instance, the OPS+ is based on Lugo having 7.58 homers and Lowrie having 7.41 while the final SLG is based on Lugo having 8 homers and Lowrie 7).
Bostons pitching looks much less impressive according to these projections than than they seem to the naked eye. for example, if Dice K is the only starter in boston making 30 starts, it could be trouble. Yes, they do have pitching depth to spread the work around to, but theres a lot of innings left to pitch after the top 4 or 5 are done. and take a look at the ERA once you get past beckett and dice K. Buchholz is a nice player, but no star yet. penny is an unknown commodity, who could very well succeed, but I doubt he finishes much above average.
Honestly I hope these projections come true because I hate the sox, but I have to doubt it. I guess all I'm saying is that YOUR numbers don't match your outlook for this team, in my opinion. Not tryin to trash your system, just sayin
That's pretty damn good.
Yup.
The ranked tiers are by offense. The last line shows the tier for defense.
I'm not a fan of mushing offense and defense into one comfy number in this context.
Based on starters in recent seasons, Youkilis is in the 77th percentile for 3B in offense (at the cusp of excellent) but in the 63rd percentile of starting 1B in offense.
Unfortunately, it's always hard to strike a balance between providing useful information and not providing confusing.
Bostons pitching looks much less impressive according to these projections than than they seem to the naked eye. for example, if Dice K is the only starter in boston making 30 starts, it could be trouble. Yes, they do have pitching depth to spread the work around to, but theres a lot of innings left to pitch after the top 4 or 5 are done. and take a look at the ERA once you get past beckett and dice K. Buchholz is a nice player, but no star yet. penny is an unknown commodity, who could very well succeed, but I doubt he finishes much above average.
Remember, though, ZiPS isn't really projecting usage and injuries other than past usage and age. Who plays how much isn't really a great question for a computer to answer. ZiPS can understand that J.D. Drew doesn't have a sterling record of health and is at an age where playing-time really starts to erode, but not specific "event" data.
I could probably make ZiPS playing-time a good deal more accurate with some human input, but I simply have philosophical objections to doing that.
But that's exactly what makes them so strong. You go 11 starters deep before you start to hit replacement level -- and that's till the top end of replacement level. (Assuming Hansack and Gonzalez are still in the organization)
I'll trot it out again. The average team gets about 45 starts a year from a pitcher with an ERA+ of 85 or worse; about half of those come from a pitcher with an ERA+ of 75 or worse. 304 pitchers made at least one start last year.
Now, true, that stat is a bit misleading in that many of those pitchers were projected to be better than 85/75. But the fact that the Sox 6/7/8 starters (in terms of quality) are above-average starters is incredible.
Good catch, he has at least a 25% chance of doing everything.
My memory has failed me. I do believe pancakehead was the first person I ever put on ignore, though, probably right after that spat.
Anyway, in an attempt to add something constructive to the discussion, do we have any sense of whether Chris Carter will actually be able to play the outfield going forward? I seem to remember the whole LF experiment wasn't getting super-high marks last time I checked in on it.
Running it on Masterson, 4-3, 74 G, 0 GS, 79.7 IP, 73 H, 31 ER, 6 HR, 33 BB, 55 SO, 3.51 ERA
Traditionally ZiPS hasnt really been that pessimistic with playing time, IIRC. For instance, Jeff Bailey's projection is 545 ABs. Chris Carter? 458 ABs. Even though we know these guys wont get those ABs, its usually fun to look at ZiPS and see what they could do over a full season. So if we're going to throw out actual projected ABs for Carter and Bailey why knock Drew down like that? It makes it a lot harder to eyeball what he would get if he had a full season. Typically, Im looking at ZiPS and trying to figure out how much I should discount a guy because I dont expect him to stay healthy. With Drew, its sort of the opposite. Not that I think its a lock he stays healthy...
If its anything like the Yankees PECOTA prepare for the board to go nuclear. PECOTA does not like the Yanks. Only Tex and ARod are projected for >.800 OPS. Cano and Jeter's projections are putrid. Cano: .284/.323/.419. Jeter: .288/.353/.383. Posada? .249/.336/.406!
I think way too little has been made of how mediocre the Yankee offense was last year. Fact is they desperately needed Teixeira.
Im still picking the Sox to win the East.
Well, that's reasonably in line with last year with the damage all coming to his BA with an improvement to his ISO relative to 2008. And I think that's still above-average for a C. I am surprised there's not more bounce back for Cano. On Jeter, obviously Pecota thinks last year's power drop was the start of a trend. Jeter with an ISO under 100 isn't all that useful.
Eh. I haven't looked at the projections but personally I'd project Damon, Matsui, Swisher, Nady and Cano at right around .800, some with a good chance to be significantly over.
To me they look to be average or above at every position outside of CF on offense.
I agree with Dan that the Red Sox are the team to beat in the AL East, but the margins are small. It is likely that there will again be three teams in the AL East that are as good or better than anyone in the NL (World Series result notwithstanding).
The Yankee offense was the problem that needed addressing. The pitching wasnt bad last year at all - though a lack of depth meant Ponson/replacement level guys got too many innings. Also, Mussina had a pretty incredible year that wasnt likely to be repeated (to say the least).
Im completely on board with that analysis. Three very, very good teams - and no one is safely distant from anyone no matter which way you cut it.
Umm, this is a total strawman. Who says that? Who says that of any division? Do you mean anyone that tells you team "x" is a clear favorite should be ignored?
I'll say that the Rays look a clear step behind the others based on projected performance, but they're also much more likely to see big breakouts and much less likely to see age related declines/injuries. Of course, all that young pitching has its dangers too. But basically, I agree, might as well pull it out of a hat. And they'll be the three best teams in baseball.
Arky, mind if I use this quote? You wouldn't believe how much grumbling I have to hear about "negative" projections!
or 3rd highest in 30+ hr
Where are the new PECOTA numbers? The cards don't seem to have been updated.
I wouldn't read any more into it than they both fit "Great K rate and K/BB ratio, average HR rate, gets hurt occasionally". I don't think they are meant to be predictive in any way.
I'm seeing a few big differences between the two, just from looking at the Red Sox (Kottaras, Carter, Ortiz). Overall ZIPS is more optimistic than PECOTA across the board. Except for the Wieters projection (PECOTA has him as the Second Coming of Jesus Catcher).
For each team, I took the superVORP of the top 15 hitters, top 8 starters, and top 10 relievers and added up the totals, prorating down if there were excess PA's/IP. Total superVORP was 9800, which implies a replacement level team of 48 wins.
Below are the standings, and each team's superVORP rank in hitting, SP, and RPs.
This is obviously very crude, and the fact that the NL has 9 of the top 9 offenses is pretty odd, to say the least. SuperVORP is supposed to adjust for league difficulty.
TM Wins Hit Rank Start Rank BP Rank
NYA 95 19 1 1
BOS 94 10 2 2
TBA 87 12 7 8
TOR 79 30 3 7
BAL 76 11 29 16
CLE 86 13 9 4
MIN 80 20 21 3
DET 78 21 17 14
CHA 75 28 12 24
KCA 73 29 14 23
LAA 81 18 10 26
SEA 74 26 16 28
OAK 74 25 22 19
TEX 72 23 26 15
NYN 96 1 4 5
ATL 89 3 8 12
PHI 86 4 15 27
WAS 80 7 18 30
FLO 74 9 30 18
SLN 87 5 13 10
MIL 87 2 23 6
CHN 84 8 19 9
CIN 81 14 11 25
HOU 72 22 28 22
PIT 69 24 27 29
ARI 85 17 5 11
LAN 81 6 25 13
COL 79 16 20 17
SFN 78 27 6 21
SDN 77 15 24 20
Oh, its completely a strawman, but all in good fun. Yes, I did mean "clear favorite" basically.
I do think if you take a look around the blogosphere you'll see many people assuming the Yankees are easily in front of Tampa and Boston because of the big additions.
Aside from Atlanta's absurd win total and offensive ranking, and the cubs pathetic pitching ranking, everything else is seems on par with my thoughts: CLE winning by 4-6 games, LAA being an average team but squeaking how a divisional title, ARI winning the west with just an average team, STL and MIl competing with the cubs in the central. I see the Mets winning the East, but I think that 96 win total is a little high, judging by the fact that a rank of 4 for SP is very bullish.
Tango did a look at the projection results (mathematical results of the dataset, not really just looking at individual players). While I do my own evaluations at the end of the year, I don't usually write about them, good or bad, simply because there's a conflict of interest for me there.
Essentially, there are a lot of ways one can choose to do evaluate the results. Correlation, root-mean squared error, and so on. With playing time cutoffs and a myriad of other things, coupled with the fact that PECOTA, ZiPS, and CHONE are very close, can result in games with the results. While I know Smith and I'm acquainted with Silver, not everyone reading would have that trust level. A reader would have no particular reason to trust me. The natural human tendency is to believe things that make oneself look good, so even trying to be fair can still lead to being unfair.
Call it the Pepsi Challenge Paradox.
Tango looked at 2008:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/evaluating_the_2008_forecasting_systems/
Nate did 2007, but I don't have the link handy.
In all honesty, there's not a dime's worth of difference between projection systems in their mean projections, which is why Nate, Sean, and I, all present our projections in different ways with additional features attached.
Overall, I suspect that this is true. But, then, why is Nate's touted as "the most accurate" by BP? Does "tie for the most accurate" count?
A marketing guy I used to work with once explained to me that when you market a product you have to say "best" not "better." Apparently the difference (and this is stupid but is sounds like the type of legalese that would be out there) is that if you say "best" you can make the argument that your product is just as good as anyone else's, therefore everyone has the "best." However, if you say "better" you have to prove in some measurable fashion why your product is better than someone else's.
Long story short, "most accurate" is a legal way of marketing something that can't be proven otherwise. If they say "more accurate than CHONE" they better be prepared to prove it.
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