Haren is the king.

Upton's career projection seems awfully conservative, given that he was in the majors to stay by age 19, and that he hit .300 last year at age 21. Granted, several of his BBRef comps are poster children for 30's flameouts (Andruw, Juan Gone, Ruben Sierra, even Pinson or Santo, and Miggy Cabrera may turn out to be another), but still...

Haren's projection makes me want to cry.

Upton's career projection seems awfully conservative, given that he was in the majors to stay by age 19, and that he hit .300 last year at age 21. Granted, several of his BBRef comps are poster children for 30's flameouts (Andruw, Juan Gone, Ruben Sierra, even Pinson or Santo, and Miggy Cabrera may turn out to be another), but still...

You're looking at the Cone of Uncertainty. A lot can go wrong in 15 years.

Qualls better be up on his life insurance premiums...

Jeff Bailey can't really be this good, can he ? CHONE has a good projection for him as well, .354 wOBA, 118 wRC+. Marcel has him a little lower, more in line with ZIPS, .335 wOBA, 105 wRC+ Not that he'll ever see the playing time unless everyone else gets hurt, but man...does this guy know how to project or what ?

kelly johnson's projection is very surprising. he hasn't had a slugging% that high since 2005, and even then, that was in AAA.


NOTE: this particular comment is not a nitpick, or a criticism of the system, it's just noting my impression.

sooooooooooooooooooo Kelly Johnson >>>>> Zobrist? Mmmhmmm. For sure. Yeah.

kelly johnson's projection is very surprising. he hasn't had a slugging% that high since 2005, and even then, that was in AAA.


Now this one's easy to explain!

Johnson, ARI: 279/352/472, 108 OPS+
Johnson, ATL: 266/342/439, 108 OPS+

Upton's comps are scary, are you trying to make s certain Primate cry?
Brad Komminsk? Paul Householder

I remember Paul Householder, I remember how the Reds seemed to hype him endlessly (back then the Reds org had its head up its ass, but the media didn't realize it yet, memories of the big red machine were still fresh)

and now that I can look up minor league numbers- decent, not nearly as good as Komminsk's though...

I don't get the Householder comp, Komminsk I can see, his AAA comps mles were awesome (has anyone been a bigger bust when comparing mles to actual MLB performance?), but Householder? .295/.353/ .431 in AAA at age 21? .300/.367/.494 in AAA at age 22? Komminsk was at .276/.378/.524 in AA/AAA at 21, and .334/.433/.596 in the IL at age 22
Upton was at .309/.399/.556 in AA at age 19, .250/.353/.463 in the majors at 20 and .300/.366/.532 in the majors at 21

As I said, based on his MLEs I could see Komminsk being in that ballpark, but Householder?

sooooooooooooooooooo Kelly Johnson >>>>> Zobrist? Mmmhmmm. For sure. Yeah.

Except that Zobrist has a projected 113 OPS+ while Johnson's is 108. He also considers Zobrist much better defensively.

Two thoughts:
1. Where are the stolen bases from Reynolds?
2. If CoJax puts up those numbers, that's a hell of a comeback.

sooooooooooooooooooo Kelly Johnson >>>>> Zobrist? Mmmhmmm. For sure. Yeah.

It's not my fault that you think 108 > 113 and that FR defense > VG defense.

Or that 2009 was the first season ever that Zobrist was more valuable than Johnson.

Perhaps you'd be happier in a replay league, rather than a projection league. I mean, if you want to just play 2009, there are 2009 leagues out there.

Perhaps you'd be happier in a replay league, rather than a projection league. I mean, if you want to just play 2009, there are 2009 leagues out there.

What's scary about replay leagues is you always have an owner or wto who don't "get it"
Type A: Will pick players who they think will be good in real baseball IN THE FUTURE
Type B will draft the guy with the 125 career OPS+, coming off an injury riddled 95 OPS+ season, and then complain when he sucks...

ZiPS sees Upton more as a "true" 115 OPS+ in 2009 when you take into account the high BABIP. So Upton would be at 106 and 115 while Householder in 80/81 would be 106 and 108.

Is that Haren projection for real?

I miss 2004.

How does one end up with Tommy John and Mike Lincoln as comps?

What's scary about replay leagues is you always have an owner or wto who don't "get it"

Well, I figure if ToC doesn't get it, then at least he'll do random ranting at Luke Kraemer instead of me.

while Householder in 80/81 would be 106 and 108

what do you have Komminsk at for those ages?

Actually, Enright's not comparable to Tommy John, he's comparable to someone misidentified as Tommy John that I'm going to have to delete from my spreadsheet.

From this clip from ZiPS, you can see it's definitely not John, considering John wasn't right-handed or pitching at 57.

That career projection would put Haren in Schilling/Brown territory.

What's up with Augenstein's ERA+?

Komminsk, 1982: 242/307/431, 96 OPS+
Komminsk, 1983: 273/340/463, 114 OPS+

The strange thing about Komminsk is that he didn't hit well later in the minor leagues later, either (these are translations)

Komminsk, 1988: 224/301/404
Komminsk, 1989: 247/300/402
Komminsk, 1990: 232/293/280
Komminsk, 1991: 237/296/333
Komminsk, 1992: 235/314/370
Komminsk, 1993: 235/317/335

What's up with Augenstein's ERA+?

Clearly a typing error! Should be 96. I use DMB to print out reports, so if something is entered wrong in DMB, it'll come out wrong in the report as well.

The strange thing about Komminsk is that he didn't hit well later in the minor leagues later, either

I always assumed he had a career altering injury of some sort.

Ooh, let's try to figure out who the guy is that was misidentified as Tommy John! My guess is Scott Elarton.

Man. seeing KJ projection makes me sad! I was a big fan of his. But he always seemed to end up in Bobby's doghouse. Bet he outhits Martin Prado this year.

As someone who traded for Kelly Johnson in two sim leagues this offseason, I'm pretty psyched to see this projection, which is almost interchangeable w/ Ian Kinsler's. 95% of Kinsler's projection for 33% of the cost . . .

Is Laroche's projections so good in part b/c he's a lefty in Arizona? Or would his projection be the same if he was a RHB?

Pretty optimistic K total there for Mark Reynolds. Does he break the machine ?

22: as do i, though i'm not aware of one. he was a pretty good defender as well (and coached outfield defense in his post-playing career)...

I don't see E Jackson and A Kennedy on the ODDIBE lists...

I'll take the Mark Reynolds over on everything, especially the Ks. But also the OPS+, which could hit 130 this year (while also leaving time for 225 Ks).

I don't re-run the ODDIBE for players that change teams in general, because it creates an extra step.

The idea of a bidding war for Joel Pineiro makes me doubt the existence of a just and loving God.

I love me some Mark Reynolds. What a fascinating playa'.

Dan - me thinks that you got lazy with the laroche projection and just copied upton's =)

that haren projection is just off the charts.

ZiPS seems to love Zavada, but didn't take his moustache into consideration when coming up with the nearest comps?

Haren > Greinke?

Does your system just throw Greinke's 2009 out because it was too damn good to comprehend? :D

Seriously though, I didn't expect a Lincecum type projection and I didn't complain when I saw a couple of pitchers get slightly higher projections but I just don't get it. Don't get me wrong, you would be silly to expect him to duplicate his 2009 season but I certainly think he is being undervalued seeing some of the other projections. It obviously isn't as bad as last year when it projected Greinke to have an ERA+ of 110 (did an amazing job there, who could have seen that coming?) but why 63 points lower than he put up last year? You have 8 more systems to put out including some very good pitchers and we didn't see Halladay's projection because the Phillies list was already out. Does ZiPS even see him as a top 5 pitcher?

Haren still has a longer track record of excellence.

Here are starting pitchers, ranked by ERA+, minimum 162 innings, no Astros, A's, or Angels:

Lincecum
Haren
King Felix
Greinke
Halladay
Kershaw
Hanson
Santana
Webb
Sabathia
Vazquez
Lee
Billingsley
Zambrano
Jurrjens
Dempster
Wainwright
Cain
Lilly
Hamels
Jimenez
Verlander
Lester
Lackey
Shields
Garza
Harang
Nolasco
Wolf
Danks
Rowland-Smith
Kawakami
Blanton
Cook
Cueto
Lewis
E. Jackson
Lowe
Wells
Arroyo
Feldman
Correia
Garland
Weaver
Morton
Burnett
Pettitte
de la Rosa
Snell
Pineiro
Baker
Washburn
Buehrle
Lannan
Millwood
Maholm
Maloney
W. Davis
Zito
Blackburn
Floyd
Niemann
Richard
Volstad
Meche
Guthrie
Tillman
Hunter
Kendrick
Moyer
Haeger
Carmona
Duke
Pelfrey
Sowers
Romero
Davies
Suppan
Sonnanstine
Hochevar
L. Hernandez
Geer

Do you consider AL vs NL? I don't know much about ERA+ but is that only adjusted for park or is that league adjusted as well?

I just don't buy Haren being better than Greinke in 2010. You also projected Bedard to be slightly better in less IP but that could go either way once DMB starts running. What is Carpenters projected ERA+? Guessing he didn't reach the innings criteria you set either.

Jurrjens surprises me a bit. He turns 24 years old next week but already has two very good (borderline excellent) MLB seasons under his belt and you have Vazquez ahead of him. Sure Vazquez was amazing last year but his career numbers would suggest to me that should have been thrown out as an extreme. He seems a prime candidate to regress to his normal 3.80 FIP if not worse given the move back into the Yankee rotation (we all remember how that went the first time correct?). Just an observation but ZiPS seems to greatly prefer power pitchers, I'm not saying I'd expect Jurrjens in the top 10 but it surprises me Lee isn't.

Haren still has a longer track record of excellence.

Here are starting pitchers, ranked by ERA+, minimum 162 innings, no Astros, A's, or Angels:

that's absolutely infuriating. 2/5 of my DMB rotation is caught out by those parameters.

dan, is there any chance you're gonna start back up the conquestimentary group on facebook?




also, i do want to note that my questions related to the dodgers had nothing to do with my DMB league. they just didn't look right. same thing with kelly johnson.

Do you consider AL vs NL? I don't know much about ERA+ but is that only adjusted for park or is that league adjusted as well?

League-adjusted as well, though I'm more conservative with league differences than some others.

Just an observation but ZiPS seems to greatly prefer power pitchers, I'm not saying I'd expect Jurrjens in the top 10 but it surprises me Lee isn't.

Top 10 in both leagues is pretty rarified air.

ZiPS does prefer power pitchers. That's simply because power pitchers age better and are less risky than finesse pitchers.

What do you consider the adjustment from AL to NL? It seems to be pretty extreme and getting worse every year. Phillies obviously are pretty strong but a lot of the NL has really fallen off as of late and the AL is getting the better of them on the trade and FA markets.

Edit: I guess I should add the Dodgers based on the projections they got but I don't expect the team to be nearly that good.

W. Davis
Zito

I think I'm insulted.

Any system is going to prefer the "elite" power pitchers ... and for good reason. Lots of Ks, few BBs, and, other than the occasional Jenkins or Roberts, solid to good HR rates -- what's not to love? And of course history backs that up.

Generally speaking, pitchers do far worse on BnIP than they do on BIP. The group with better results on BnIP are (generally speaking) the ones with very good K/BB rates. If a pitcher is better on BnIP than BIP, obviously you'd prefer they have a lower BIP rate -- i.e. high K pitchers with good K/BB rates. Just from a strict mathematical perspective, assuming minimal variation in BIP results across pitchers, better performance by such pitchers is unavoidable. (The BIP/BnIP distinction is, of course, as arbitrary as always.)

Now if a long-range projection system could sort out between the high-K, crappy control guys and the middling K, good control guys as to who will put it together, that would be something.

On the super-list, I'd guess that Kershaw and Hanson are too high (they're still too young for me to have that much faith in them), Vazquez is too high (but we know why this is) and the Dempster ranking has me some combination of stunned, delighted and highly skeptical.

Now if a long-range projection system could sort out between the high-K, crappy control guys and the middling K, good control guys as to who will put it together, that would be something.

That is what I'm curious about, will someone like Jurrjens always get a few points deducted because he doesn't K a lot? Are Lee's modest K numbers why he is not a top 10 pitcher?

Also, still curious what Carpenter's ERA+ is. I'm guessing he doesn't have the IP to make it on that list but I'm curious whether his ERA+ is higher than Greinke's.

That is what I'm curious about, will someone like Jurrjens always get a few points deducted because he doesn't K a lot?

A few points of what? And compared to what other projection method?

Anyway, a pitcher's ZiPS ERA projection is (mainly) a combination of his K, BB, HR and BABIP rates (with park and league adjustments). If Jurrjens has out-performed his xFIP the last few years, that would (probably) be because he's had a good BABIP rate -- something ZiPS gives him some credit for so he "gains" points there but possibly "not enough" due to how much BABIP rates bounce around. If he has been right on his xFIP the last few seasons, his ZiPS projection is going to come out spot on. If he's "under-performed" his xFIP the last few seasons, ZiPS is (if anything) likely to slightly over-project him.

Beyond that it's a matter of the fact that historically young high-K pitchers tend to develop a bit more than lower-K ones (for obvious reasons) and veteran high-K pitchers tend to age better than veteran lower-K pitchers (for not so obvious reasons). And ZiPS might have some body-type stuff in there too. So, yes, I suppose that if you had two pitchers with identical FIP performance and BABIP rates over the last 4 seasons but one of them had a significantly higher K-rate, that guy would get a slightly better projection due to those factors -- because that's what history tells us is the more likely outcome.

Are Lee's modest K numbers why he is not a top 10 pitcher?

Lee's ERA+ wasn't even close to the top 10 last year and even his 2008 ERA+ would have been 5th ... and the less said about his 2007, the better. I don't see any obvious reason to think Lee is one of the 10 best. Looking at that list, the only ones I might move him ahead of are Hanson and Kershaw (because I don't trust young pitchers) and Vazquez. There are also obvious questions about Webb's health but, from a talent perspective, I'll take Webb. So at best I can't see an argument for moving him more than from 12th to 8th -- which is a pretty pointless thing to argue about.

Hanson over Jurrjens? Those MLE's must be killers.
Kawakami is pretty high too. Though more surprising is the fact that you project him to more than 162 ip.

I am guessing the innings limit is why Hudson missed the cut?

EDIT : Dang, I was excited that the Braves projection must have been done if you included these guys. But none up yet. Guess Cubs and Cardinals are in the way too.

which is a pretty pointless thing to argue about

but we do anyway, cuz it's fun

And we didn't see Halladay's projection because the Phillies list was already out.

Check the transaction oracle, I'm pretty sure Halladay was done already post-trade.

Sheets actually had an ERA close to Haren's projection at age 29 - then he blew out his arm. Saberhagen was hurt at age 30 and had only one productive full season after that. Harang had a good tear at age 29, followed by two poor years.

I've never been a big Haren fan, but he keeps proving me wrong.

-- MWE

I'll never understand why being accurate is pointless to some of you. You basically ramble on telling me he has no business being in the top 10 and then prove he probably should be. I certainly appreciate your arrogant reply and sarcastic use of quotation marks, which again you went on to basically verify my concerns with players like Jurrjens are valid.

JF, Walt was using quotation marks because ERA+ is an index, not an amount of something in the way, say 110 apples would be.

Also remember, you're fairly new to this particular crowd and I think you're mistaking Walt being very matter-of-fact with him trying to take shots at you, which isn't his style at all.

Also remember, you're fairly new to this particular crowd and I think you're mistaking Walt being very matter-of-fact with him trying to take shots at you, which isn't his style at all.

Well I wont disagree with that, I haven't been posting very long. I only looked at the disk a few times before last year and, until recently, never voiced my disagreement with the numbers. So perhaps you are right, I'll apologize. I don't think it's the first post he has directed at me that gave me the feeling he was doing that though, in fact I think he did it in one of the earlier threads but apologized after I replied to him. /me shrugs

Trust me. Walt and I get along very well and if he had any ill will, I would've smacked him for his radar-like ability to instantly comment on who has a too-high BABIP (ducking).

Since you are here, I was curious if you had a rough estimate of a schedule on the remaining teams? I can guess the order easily enough haha but, with most the pitchers done, what kind of time table are we looking at? I completely understand my use of the disk is different than many others here (is site traffic is up since DMB canceled their disk? if so, any idea how much?) and my reasons for wanting to see the teams are selfish but just curious.

Thanks, and, again, I apologize if I jumped to conclusions too quickly with Walt's last post.

which isn't his style at all.

Oh, I have my moments.

Accuracy is important to us. But those of us who model know that 100% accuracy is impossible and high accuracy on an observation-by-observation basis is near impossible.

There's lots of random variation in this world and the fact is we will never know if the "8th" best pitcher is really better than the "12th" best pitcher because the difference in those point estimates is way smaller than any level of accuracy we are ever going to achieve. I also don't really see any real-world implications of why it would matter if he's the 8th or 12th or 15th best starter in baseball in 2010. (Note, there are real-world implications if he's been over- or under-projected by .25 runs per 9 but I don't see why it matters where he ranks.)

My pointed point to you would be that what you keep saying is the equivalent of "Dan, there's a lot of variation not explained by your model." To which Dan (and everyone else here) replies "Yeah, I know. Do you have any ideas of possible systematic explanations for some of that variance?" To which you are essentially replying "the guys I think have broken out are under-projected." To which the only reply, unfortunately, is "I'm afraid that doesn't help us at all."

So yes, jfish, you do sometimes annoy me because you say the same things repeatedly, don't really justify your positions (which would contribute to the discussion) and essentially are arguing in a dishonest fashion (probably unintentionally). And I do think it was you I did try to rip a new one for accusing Dan of not doing enough and not caring about his results (for which I have nothing to apologize for).

If you want to do this honestly, you have to explain why Lee should be in the top 10. As I pointed out, his ERA+ last year was 131 while the #10 ERA+ in MLB was 146 -- he wasn't close by that measure. His 2008 ERA was outstanding but still would have ranked only 5th in 2009 (and was 2nd in 2008). The year before that his ERA+ was 72. In 2009, he wasn't even top 10 in very many categories -- IP, starts, walk rate, K/BB. The least you could do is give us your top 10 starters, in order, and let us know what criteria you used to rank them.

For the record, I have no problem with folks expressing their opinion. If you want to say "I think Zobrist beats that projection" that's fine. I do this with ZiPS projections all the time (I just did so with Hanson and Kershaw); Dan used to do it a lot more but seems to have decided he's no smarter than ZiPS. But those are just opinions. Just because I don't trust young pitchers doesn't mean that the model underlying ZiPS is misspecified. You seem to think your opinion (sometimes backed by a media story) is evidence that ZiPS projections are "wrong." You seem to think it's absurd that Lee might be ranked "only" the 12th-best pitcher yet you don't even give us a reason why.

Another point is that many of your opinions hint at some ideas. You seem to think "break out years" are important. But the models already control for these to a great extent by weighting recent performance most heavily and there has been research done which suggests that such years have little/no extra predictive power. You've suggested incorporating scouting information -- every projection modeller would LOVE to have this information available to them but they don't.

You don't have to take these models on faith. You shouldn't take them on faith. I regularly point out that the error variance here is so large that these have very little value in terms of projecting individual players -- they are actuarial estimates and, in most cases, the best we can probably say is that player A is probably better than player B (and we're not talking with 95% confidence here). I don't have a problem with your skepticism, it's that neither your skepticism nor the model's known level of uncertainty make the model wrong.

I would've smacked him for his radar-like ability to instantly comment on who has a too-high BABIP (ducking).

Now Dan, I think I've been giving you a free ride on BA on-contact this offseason. I felt sorry for you after kicking your butt last year. :-) Kendrick? Soto? Really?

(I probably griped about Kemp too and I think you won that one)

Now Dan, I think I've been giving you a free ride on BA on-contact this offseason. I felt sorry for you after kicking your butt last year. :-) Kendrick? Soto? Really?

And I thought your favourite on-contact unearthing was BJ Upton.

And while we are at it, why does low K- high BB guy like Jurrjens get a good projection, while Zips is usually pessimistic on those types of pitchers?
And the Kawakami question was serious. I know you make no PT projections, but he pitched about 170 innings last year, and IRRC, that was his total in Japan the year previous to that. I might be wrong on that front.

I apologize if I jumped to conclusions too quickly with Walt's last post.

No need to apologize, but that earlier post wasn't intended to be snarky. I honestly don't know what scale you were talking about points in nor was I clear what you were using for the "alternative" value. It's a mechanical point -- how can anyone answer a question about whether Lee gets docked a few points for being a lower-K pitcher without knowing what "baseline" value you're referring to.

For example, there's an intentionally simple projection system out there called Marcel. Marcel is just a simple 5/3/2 weighting of a player's previous 3 years -- in theory applicable to any metric I suppose. Then there's fancy Marcel which adds some sort of basic age adjustment. Marcel holds its own pretty well against the fancy models despite its simplicity.

So, does a high-K pitcher with a Marcel ERA+ projection of 115 come out better in ZiPS than a lower-K pitcher with a Marcel ERA+ projection of 115? Probably yes ... and probably rightly so. But this is one of the things that makes ZiPS somewhat more accurate a projection system than Marcel -- i.e. Marcel wasn't the "right" value to begin with so it's not clear we should be concerned that a projection system is shaving off a few points. But I doubt Marcel was what you had in mind.

As it turns out, doing Marcel in my head, I get an ERA+ projection for Lee of 131, exactly what he did last year. ZiPS projected him to a 138 (in Philly) and a 128 (in Seattle). Marcel of course ignores league differences which I suspect is the main difference in the projections.

What I suspect you're really asking is "if we have two pitchers with otherwise identical stats but different K-rates, would ZiPS give a better projection to the one with the higher K-rate?" And the answer to that (I assume) is yes for the reasons that Dan and I have outlined. Do you have a reason why that shouldn't be the case?

And I thought your favourite on-contact unearthing was BJ Upton.

Old news. :-) But I'm not sure that ZiPS and I ever disagreed strongly about Upton, I think that was more an argument with everybody else. :-) My memory is that ZiPS has always been fairly reasonable on Upton, Braun, Howard, etc. I might have to take a look at that Reynolds projection above though. :-)

It was just bad luck really. The Angels were first out of the box last year and there was Kendrick with a projected 372 BABIP (not even BA on-contact) ... which Dan said surprised him too. (It wouldn't surprise me if it was the highest projected BABIP in ZiPS history). Then Soto checked in with a 383 BA on-contact which struck me as absurdly high for a C and I was off to the races. For a while I was thinking I'd spotted some flaw in ZiPS but I don't recall finding enough that I thought were really wacky to convince myself.

I checked and I didn't make any comment about Kemp in the Dodgers ZiPS thread. Lucky me. Dan had him at 380 (not unreasonable) and he actually finished at 385 so he certainly pegged it. But Kendrick was at 338 BABIP and Soto at a horrible 283 on-contact (which brings me no joy as a Cub fan)

Oh crap, I did say something about Braun. Ahh, ZiPS projected him to 385/781 on-contact (that does look silly); he actually hit 395/681 ... let's call that a draw.

And by the way jfish, those complaints I made about ZiPS projections were based on lots of time spent poking around looking at on-contact BA and SLG, especially for high-K hitters and I was seeing players projected at or near all-time historical performances (based on career, not season). I generally don't consider it reasonable for a model to project (as a "median" outcome) all-time greatness and was arguing that history was on my side. (Dan mainly countered by saying these rates are very age-dependent and that these weren't so extreme historically when controlling for age.)

I've never been a big Haren fan, but he keeps proving me wrong.-- MWE

What do you think is the flaw in your evaluation method that leads you to keep being wrong about Haren ?

Dan used to do it a lot more but seems to have decided he's no smarter than ZiPS

Oh, there are always projections I disagree with, but I usually save it for other threads that the projections themselves.

Re Haren > Greinke, I'm not sure about ZiPS (Dan could certainly tell us), but I believe most projection systems look at a player's immediately preceding three seasons. Greinke spent most of 2007 in the bullpen and had kind of up and down results. This was year two of his recovery and healing process - which really did take two full years if not longer. Projections tend to downgrade him for that year.

I'm not sure about ZiPS (Dan could certainly tell us), but I believe most projection systems look at a player's immediately preceding three seasons.

I'm not Dan, but I believe for players who have been around long enough, I'm almost certain it's four years with an 8/5/4/2 weighting. Dan or someone else will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong.

That LaRoche projection is a fairly large outlier among the other three major projecting systems. Any reason for that?
vr, Xei

That LaRoche projection is a fairly large outlier among the other three major projecting systems. Any reason for that?
vr, Xei

He projects LaRoche to a 122 OPS+, he had a 122 in 2008, and a 122 in 2009, for 2006-2009 he hit 120 overall

Chone has him at .272/.345/.482
Marcel at: .269/.344/.473 (and Marcel does not park adjust)
Pecota: don't know, my sub expired and i see no need to renew...

My guess is
1: Park factors
2: Dan has picked a different overall offense level than the other systems

To figure out Marcel's OPS+ for LaRoche I took Laroche's league context from bBREF for 2007-09 (weighing it 1-2-3) that gets me .336/.420, a .344/.473 line in such a context is an OPS+ of 115

context in Ariz last year was .351/.438, if you park adjust Marcel, their LaRoche projection would be something like: .359/.493, not a huge difference from Dan's projection

Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see both Kershaw and (more so) Hanson that high on the ERA+ list. Not that they're incapable of it...just didn't expect it for such youth, especially with Hanson not even having a full season under his belt. That gives Hanson at least a 134+, meaning he'll nearly sustain his last year's pace for an entire season. I guess I see that as a 50/50

38. Dan Szymborski Posted: January 20, 2010 at 01:18 PM (#3442272)Haren still has a longer track record of excellence.Here are starting pitchers, ranked by ERA+, minimum 162 innings, no Astros, A's, or Angels:
Lincecum
Haren
King Felix

Wait a sec.
King Felix is THIRD??? I'd expect him first. No dig on Haren, I love him, but his stuff isn't as nasty as King Felix. But then agin...King Felix is in the AL. So that's impressive.

JPWF13, I see Chone has LaRoche at .330/.459 for an OPS of .789, Zips has his OPS at .883. That seems like quite a large park adjustment to go from .789 to .883.
vr, Xei

What do you think is the flaw in your evaluation method that leads you to keep being wrong about Haren ?

He's a flyball pitcher playing in a HR friendly park yet who continues to allow a lower-than-anticipated number of HRs (just 11 at home last year). At some point I keep expecting that to catch up with him.

-- MWE

Wait a sec.
King Felix is THIRD??? I'd expect him first. No dig on Haren, I love him, but his stuff isn't as nasty as King Felix. But then agin...King Felix is in the AL. So that's impressive.

Both Lincecum and Haren play in hitters park. (Lincecum's plays a slight hitters park, while Haren plays in an above average hitters park.) While King Felix plays in a pitchers park.

He's a flyball pitcher playing in a HR friendly park yet who continues to allow a lower-than-anticipated number of HRs (just 11 at home last year). At some point I keep expecting that to catch up with him.

I think we found the flaw in your analysis. You see, Dan Haren is not a FB pitcher.
Looking at Fangraphs leaderboard page for 2009, where Ted Lilly tops the list with a 50.6 % FB rate, Haren isn't even on the first page. His 36.7% FB rate ranks him 37th out of 77 ERA Qualified pitchers, and his GB% is higher than his FB% (42.9 to 36.7)

If you flip to 2008, you find the same thing. Haren isn't even on the first page of guys with the highest FB % . He's midway down the 2nd page, 51st out of 88 with a 34.6% FB rate, compared to a 44.2% Gb rate.

In his 3 years as a starter with the A's, his FB % ranged between 31%-38%, while his GB rates have held steady between 44-46%

JPWF13, I see Chone has LaRoche at .330/.459 for an OPS of .789, Zips has his OPS at .883. That seems like quite a large park adjustment to go from .789 to .883.
vr, Xei

Actually CHONE has LaRoche park adjusted to .345/.482 with Arizona. .837 is still a good deal lower than .883, but now it's 50 points of OPS instead of 100.

Is Gallardo projected to throw <162 innings?

Guys, get your heads out of your spreadsheets and watch a game. Haren LOOKS like a fly ball pitcher. Ergo, he IS. Numbers schmumbers.

He's a flyball pitcher playing in a HR friendly park yet who continues to allow a lower-than-anticipated number of HRs (just 11 at home last year). At some point I keep expecting that to catch up with him.

It will catch up to him the year you finally give up and decide that Haren has a unique ability to avoid giving up HRs, THAT year, his HR allowed with explode.

Happened to me with Al Soriano, every year I kept predicting that with his approach (as evidenced by his horrible k/bb), just the slightest decrease in his tools would be catastrophic, I gave up, decided I was wrong, and in my Roto league traded for him just before 2009...

It will catch up to him the year you finally give up and decide that Haren has a unique ability to avoid giving up HRs, THAT year, his HR allowed with explode.

What the heck are you guys talking about ? He has a completely neutral GB/FB profile, and his HR/FB ratio is virtually league avg throughout his career. 7.7 HR/FB ratio vs. lg avg 7.8. It was actually higher than league avg last year at 8.3%

There is absolutely NOTHING unique about Haren's ability to avoid giving up HR's.

Is just making #### up what passes for analysis around here ?

Is just making #### up what passes for analysis around here ?

What, you don't like Pancake Flops?

Happened to me with Al Soriano, every year I kept predicting that with his approach (as evidenced by his horrible k/bb), just the slightest decrease in his tools would be catastrophic, I gave up, decided I was wrong, and in my Roto league traded for him just before 2009...

I read this as "Al Scaduto". You traded for him a year after he died, you knew what you were getting.

Dan Haren may not yet have the unique ability to avoid giving up home runs, but one day, he may really lose it. Mark my words.