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Friday, March 28, 2008

Vegas Watch: Tim Kurkjian and Buster Olney Are Optimistic

and why slick Steve Phillips is an optical illusionist…Bezold!

Standard Deviation
Phillips: 10.7
Olney: 10.4
Kurkjian: 10.1
Stark: 9.7
Law: 9.0

For reference, PECOTA’s standard deviation is 8.4.

Phillips is so absurd. Here’s my favorite little stat from all of these: he has 14 teams winning 88 or more games. Think about that for a second- that’s one team away from half of baseball. Here is my prediction: Steve Phillips’ predictions will not fare well in this post at the end of the year.

Repoz Posted: March 28, 2008 at 12:40 PM | 7 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: announcers, media, projections, television

Reader Comments and Retorts

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1. The Essex Snead Posted: March 28, 2008 at 12:55 PM (#2722290)

Re: Phillips' cockeyed optimism -- you're not going to catch flies with castor oil, are you?

2. Shooty is in the Trust Tree

Posted: March 28, 2008 at 01:03 PM (#2722293)

Bezold...Repoz, you are a nut! Hurray!

3. Golfing Great Mitch Cumstein Posted: March 28, 2008 at 01:22 PM (#2722301)

So, the humans' picks are better the closer they are to the PECOTA projections? Isn't that begging the question? Also, what does he mean when he lists each prognosticator's "standard deviation"?

4. Sparkles Peterson Posted: March 28, 2008 at 01:57 PM (#2722314)

Lay off on Phillips for a bit. Jerry Crasnick picked Jeff Francoeur as his pre-season top RF in the league.

5. KronicFatigue Posted: March 28, 2008 at 02:19 PM (#2722328)

it makes sense for these guys to be overly optimistic with too many teams. One of those teams is probably going to over achieve, and then when that becomes a story later in the season, they can point to their prediction. Nobody is going to remember/care about the mediocre team that in fact played mediocre-ly.

6. RollingWave Posted: March 28, 2008 at 02:20 PM (#2722330)

Francouer is at least a legitimate breakout candidate...

But hey do we need more reminders that Phillips is a moron?

7. Walt Davis Posted: March 29, 2008 at 12:18 AM (#2722859)

I assume standard deviation is the standard deviation of wins distributed across teams. Well, the appropriate one to compare to would be the standard deviation of actual seasons, not PECOTA simulations. PECOTA simulations are essentially intended to understate the "randomness" that occurs during an actual season.

Now, not adding up right. Certainly blame the editors, but that's easy to do. We used to have a prediction template here and, god bless them, somebody added a counter to the bottom of the form so you could make sure your numbers balanced. The amount of thought I used to put into "which of these teams are going to lose a win or two" was just silly.

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Vegas Watch: Tim Kurkjian and Buster Olney Are Optimistic

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