Yearly Baseball Prospectus PECOTA Season forecast

[Balta1701]

That's my favorite Beckham quote. Doesn't pay attention to that stuff, just plays baseball.

If that's what he's been doing the last 2 years...maybe he should try paying attention to it?

[southsider2k5]

If that's what he's been doing the last 2 years...maybe he should try paying attention to it?

 

How is worry about advanced statistics going to help him hit a baseball?

[Balta1701]

How is worry about advanced statistics going to help him hit a baseball?

Alls I knows is...whateva he's been doin' ain't doin.

[southsider2k5]

Alls I knows is...whateva he's been doin' ain't doin.

 

And giving him more to think about is going to help? Eh.

[False Alarm]

BP's been pretty open over the years, seems to me, about PECOTA's problems projecting the sox. i ain't had a subscrip over there in a while, but i remember a near annual column, especially when nate silver still wrote for them, explaining, that, yes, our system has projected the sox for 41 wins, but for some reason we always seem wrong about the sox, so because of [this weird factor] and [this weird factor] and [this weird factor] and [herm schneider], the chisox are probably actually gonna win 83 games. i'm pretty sure i've actually seen admiring columns from their writers about how the white sox always seem to outsmart BP's projection systems. or maybe i'm just drunk.

[flavum]

Interesting...

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...ng-projections/

[Eminor3rd]

Interesting...

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...ng-projections/

 

Was coming here to post this -- very interesting indeed. We knew about this, but it never struck me as something that could make quite THAT much of a difference.

[The Ginger Kid]

Interesting...

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/t...ng-projections/

Great read and excellent analysis. But I would hardly characterize Tomaso's article as an "attack."

[ScottyDo]

Excellent article. I'm surprised they didn't pick up on the joking tone of the article they lambasted, though.

[ScottyDo]

I also would have found it interesting to break down why the PECOTA projections consistently underrate our pitchers' performances independent of IP. I think that's true, though I haven't looked.

[Cali]

Okay, so we know they underrate the Sox consistently... What about everyone else? How has their projections gone for the other 29 for the last few years?

[SI1020]

Horrible article. I have never been a fan of run differential or the whole Pythagorean win thing. Now they can say, well weren't that far off after all. They're lousy at predicting and some of us have actually spent lots of time on this and still refuse to bow at their altar.

[witesoxfan]

Horrible article. I have never been a fan of run differential or the whole Pythagorean win thing. Now they can say, well weren't that far off after all. They're lousy at predicting and some of us have actually spent lots of time on this and still refuse to bow at their altar.

 

Simple mathematical principles and historical trends disagree strongly with your belief that run differential means absolutely nothing. Projections can be lousy at predicting (and a lot of times are), but they are not meant to do so. It'd be like using a police car to transport an injured person to a hospital - they could do so, they are usually involved, but they are not very well equipped for the job.

 

Projections ARE meant to give likely outcomes for individual players while outlining potential good and bad seasons for players. Projections are far more valuable than season predictions, which uses nothing more than general "feeling" with no mathematical or scientific reasoning to judge that whatsoever.

 

Beyond that, no one asks that you bow. They merely ask that you acknowledge that they exist and that there is usefulness to it. Suggesting that there is no usefulness to these types of statistics is like suggesting that babies come from a stork.

[Eminor3rd]

Horrible article. I have never been a fan of run differential or the whole Pythagorean win thing. Now they can say, well weren't that far off after all. They're lousy at predicting and some of us have actually spent lots of time on this and still refuse to bow at their altar.

 

Yeah, I think you missed the point. This is a group of people trying to figure baseball out -- it makes perfect sense to investigate the flaws and exceptions of your model in order to improve. Using this info, Cameron just made a compelling argument that the quality of a medical staff can add several wins per season to a team by preventing replacement level players from getting playing time. It's super interesting and makes a ton of sense and we never would have known if someone hadn't done all this work and spent time and energy analyzing it. But the longer you try to look at information like a war between nerds and normal people, you're going to miss out on great insights like this.

[Balta1701]

Yeah, I think you missed the point. This is a group of people trying to figure baseball out -- it makes perfect sense to investigate the flaws and exceptions of your model in order to improve. Using this info, Cameron just made a compelling argument that the quality of a medical staff can add several wins per season to a team by preventing replacement level players from getting playing time. It's super interesting and makes a ton of sense and we never would have known if someone hadn't done all this work and spent time and energy analyzing it. But the longer you try to look at information like a war between nerds and normal people, you're going to miss out on great insights like this.

It also puts a potential value on an aspect of the coaching staff that could be compared with the value of a free agent acquisition. If the Sox coaching staff is adding ~2 wins a year through health, then that's the equivalent of $5 million spent on the FA market.

[cabiness42]

To add to what has already been said about PECOTA projections is that I think one reason PECOTA has historically underrated the Sox is that it has consistently underrated Mark Buehrle. PECOTA is based on the assumption that pitchers who had a BABIP that strayed far from the .300 average were either very lucky or unlucky to do so and were likely to revert to the mean in the future. They never adjusted for the reality that Mark actually had the skill to get a lot of outs without missing a lot of bats. Of course Mark is no longer with the Sox, but that's just an example of how PECOTA is flawed.

[witesoxfan]

But now how much of this is the training and coaching staff and how much is it the team actually targeting durable players? Or how much of this is coaching staffs letting players play through injuries when they should be resting?

 

EDIT: Point being, you can pinpoint the biggest reason why the Sox have beaten projections (staying healthy), but you can't pintpoint the reason as to why (because it could be anything).

Edited February 19, 2013 by witesoxfan

[Balta1701]

But now how much of this is the training and coaching staff and how much is it the team actually targeting durable players? Or how much of this is coaching staffs letting players play through injuries when they should be resting?

 

EDIT: Point being, you can pinpoint the biggest reason why the Sox have beaten projections (staying healthy), but you can't pintpoint the reason as to why (because it could be anything).

If it was the coaching staff playing players who were unproductive because of injury, or the coaching staff not giving players the time they need to heal, the end result wouldn't be more wins.

[Eminor3rd]

To add to what has already been said about PECOTA projections is that I think one reason PECOTA has historically underrated the Sox is that it has consistently underrated Mark Buehrle. PECOTA is based on the assumption that pitchers who had a BABIP that strayed far from the .300 average were either very lucky or unlucky to do so and were likely to revert to the mean in the future. They never adjusted for the reality that Mark actually had the skill to get a lot of outs without missing a lot of bats. Of course Mark is no longer with the Sox, but that's just an example of how PECOTA is flawed.

 

Indeed, Mark is an example of the largest blind spot we have in pitching analysis, which is the class of pitchers that appear to be sustainable "exceptions" to DIPS theory. Jered Weaver and Matt Cain are two other big examples.

[LittleHurt05]

But now how much of this is the training and coaching staff and how much is it the team actually targeting durable players? Or how much of this is coaching staffs letting players play through injuries when they should be resting?

 

EDIT: Point being, you can pinpoint the biggest reason why the Sox have beaten projections (staying healthy), but you can't pintpoint the reason as to why (because it could be anything).

 

And how much of it is just pure luck?

[Balta1701]

And how much of it is just pure luck?

Pure luck over 1, even 2 seasons makes some sense. We're talking about a trend that has lasted over a decade.

[Eminor3rd]

And how much of it is just pure luck?

 

Yes, definitely. It would be more accurate to say that Cameron made a compelling case that staying healthy can add several wins. How much of the credit goes to coaching/training, player's propensity for health, and pure randomness, we do not know. But we can assume that the parts that the team can control -- the training staff and perhaps the player's health track record -- are significant parts of that equation.

[witesoxfan]

If it was the coaching staff playing players who were unproductive because of injury, or the coaching staff not giving players the time they need to heal, the end result wouldn't be more wins.

 

You mean like the White Sox finishing 8 games over .500 last year despite going 11-17 in September with most of the lineup putting up OPS's in the .700s? Or like Konerko admitting to playing through a wrist injury for much of the year because his replacement would almost certainly put up worse numbers?

 

I honestly wonder how many times Konerko played when he was hurt simply because the White Sox did not have a better fallback options.

 

And how much of it is just pure luck?

 

Some, for sure, but as pointed out, over the course of 7-9 seasons, depending upon how far back data ultimately does go, it stops being luck at some point.

[Balta1701]

You mean like the White Sox finishing 8 games over .500 last year despite going 11-17 in September with most of the lineup putting up OPS's in the .700s? Or like Konerko admitting to playing through a wrist injury for much of the year because his replacement would almost certainly put up worse numbers?

 

I honestly wonder how many times Konerko played when he was hurt simply because the White Sox did not have a better fallback options.

The solution, obviously, was to shut down Konerko and Youkilis in July and August and finish with an 82 win team?

[Eminor3rd]

In retrospect, I could have dealt with 3 weeks of Dan Johnson while Konerko rested up -- but I don't know if I would have made the decision at the time if Paul said he was good enough to go.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Eminor3rd