The Pod Projections are back! My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X, and the process continues to evolve and improve.

If there was just one thing to be thankful for last year in baseball, it was Carlos Carrasco. I had written a lot about him heading into the season and his performance upon returning to the rotation prompted more articles salivating over the quality of his stuff. So he was a rather obvious candidate to earn the honor of my first starting pitcher receiving the Pod Projection treatment.

For those who forget (how dare you!), Carrasco posted the following line over his final 10 starts of the season:

Despite those sizzling results coming over a relatively small sample size, fantasy owners are going gaga over Carrasco. He is currently the 115th player off the board in the NFBC and is the 28th starter selected, ahead of more established veterans like Gio Gonzalez and Hyun-Jin Ryu. And no, I haven’t stuffed the ballots by joining every single NFBC league and drafting Carrasco.

Read the rest of this entry »

You know that I develop my own player projections, of which I have lovingly dubbed Pod Projections. With over 500 players projected, I thought it would be interesting to compare them with the Steamer forecasts. So Steamer and I is a new mini-series in which I discuss a pair (maybe more, maybe less) of players who I have projected for dramatically different results than Steamer. To do this, I simply compared my wOBA projections with Steamers’, calculated the difference and then sorted.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Pod Projections are back! My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X, and the process continues to evolve and improve.

For Pod Projectionee numero tres, I decided to take commenter Cason Jolette’s (Jason Colette’s mysterious brother?) suggestion to discuss former uber prospect, Astros sophomore outfielder George Springer. His coming out party was cut short by a quad injury, which ended his season two months prematurely. But he was quite impressive at the plate, posting a .352 wOBA, while displaying excellent patience and elite power. But coming off a minor league performance a year prior that included 45 stolen bases, he disappointed with his speed in Houston, as he swiped just five bags in seven tries. Let’s figure out what’s in store for Springer in 2015.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I discussed some of the starting pitchers ranked inside the top 100 who us rankers most disagreed on. Though it was suggested that a better comparison would be solely between ranks within the position and not overall, I’m not sure that matters since it’s all relative. If one ranker devalues pitchers (Jeff), then all his pitchers will be ranked lower, so it’s moot.

Here is a selection of starting pitchers ranked outside the top 100 who we greatly disagree about.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I discussed which hitters us rankers most disagreed on based on our consensus top 300. Today I move on to the starting pitchers. Keep in mind that innings pitched plays a major role in valuations. Aside from the boost in both wins and strikeouts that come with more innings, the ratios have more of an effect. For example, an $8.16 Michael Pineda in 155 innings is worth $15.49 in 200 innings! Now it’s on to the head-scratchers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I investigated our top 300 consensus rankings and discussed hitters in our top 100 with the most disagreement between us rankers. Today I jump outside that top 100 to identify those we disagree with most among the rest of the hitters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we published our consensus top 300 players, including the breakdown between the five rankers. Naturally, there are some players with more disagreement between us than others. So I decided I would investigate those very players. I calculated the standard deviation of the five rankings and sorted. Unfortunately, players lower in the rankings will almost always have higher standard deviations, even though the difference between a rank of 180 and 220 is much smaller than 1 and 15. As such, I split the group into those inside the top 100 and those outside. What follows is a selection of hitters ranked within the top 100 whose rankings are all over the map.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Pod Projections are back! My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X, and the process continues to evolve and improve.

Today’s Pod Projectionee is Cuban rookie Yasmany Tomas, who I drafted in last week’s LABR mixed league. It’s hard enough projecting Major League veterans and even more difficult forecasting rookies with only minor league data to rely on. But trying to predict exactly what a player with no professional experience in a stateside league might do is a true shot in the dark. So this was a challenge and one I would like to share with you.

Read the rest of this entry »

You all know by now that last Tuesday night, I participated in the LABR Mixed league draft. It’s a 15-team league with standard 23-man active rosters and a six player bench. I drew the 11th pick.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, I participated in the 15-team LABR Mixed League draft (full team recap coming Monday). If you were following the draft live and/or were active on Twitter during the evening, you may very well be aware of the firestorm that erupted after my second round selection. I drew the #11 draft slot, which meant that my second round pick was the 20th. I settled on Billy Hamilton and I will explain why.

Read the rest of this entry »