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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Yesterday, I discussed four pitchers whose xBB% marks were well below their actual BB% marks. Given their penchant for throwing strikes, they look like good bets to improve their control this season. Today, I’ll check in on five starting pitchers who posted walk rates below their xBB% marks. A jump in walk rate could be in their futures, which would result in a higher ERA and WHIP, all else being equal.

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Along with the xK% formula I devised and updated last year, I also developed an xBB% equation. Unfortunately, it isn’t as good as the expected strikeout rate formula, as our community has really struggled to determine how the various underlying skill metrics should interact to result in an expected walk rate. That said, my version is still the best I’ve seen, so it’s better than nothing. But there are seemingly consistent underperformers and overperformers, so don’t take a pitcher’s xBB% as gospel.

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Yesterday, I shared with you the names of a group of starting pitchers whose xK% was much higher than his actual K%. So today I’m going to check in on the opposite end of the spectrum, those starters whose xK% was well below their actual K% marks. You might call this group your bust candidates. Well, that is if people are paying for a repeat of their 2014 strikeout rates of course.

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Last year, I shared my updated xK% equation, which blends a pitcher’s overall strike percentage with his called, swinging and foul strike rates to produce an expected strikeout rate. While its wonderfully high adjusted R-squared tells us how well it works, it’s even better used when dealing with a small number of innings since the metric uses pitches thrown, greatly alleviating sample size issues. It’s therefore a huge help when projecting young starting pitchers for my Pod Projections who were up in the Majors for just a grande sized cup of coffee.

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At the end of October, I asked a very serious, important question — Is There Any Hope For Mike Moustakas? I was quite negative, which is something that is hard not to come away feeling when staring at Mike Moustakas‘ statistical record. But then upon typing yesterday’s ESPN Home Run Tracker Analysis: The Upsiders and finding his name appear, I discovered a positive, and then another one and then another one. Behold, reasons for optimism! These new discoveries are tempting me to up my Moustakas forecast in my 2015 Pod Projections (available now!).

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