Archive for Meta Analysis

Well, I got my yearly, “Talk to the Boss First Before Publishing” article out of the way halfway through January. I started looking into hitter playing time and previously they were just one column in one of the tables. This year, we dove into why our projections came in near the bottom with some computer-generated projections beating them. Besides the results, there is a ton of other information so if someone blows off the specific results, at least read the summary.

Collection Information

Last season I collected about 20 projections right before the final last weekend when most fantasy managers draft. This is when projections needed to be their best. Here is the tweet I sent to mark when I pulled them.

Mark time now…

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) March 21, 2024

In all, I collected 20 different projections. Eight were not freely available to the public. They will be just be labeled Paywall X. Here are the ones people could freely get from the internet.

• ATC (aggregate of other projections)
• Baseball-reference’s Marcels
• Clay Davenport
• Draft Buddy
• THE BAT X
• FanGraphs Depth Charts (aggregate of Steamer and ZiPS)
• Fantasy Pros Zheile (aggregate of other projections)
• Fantrax
• Razzball (Steamer Based)
• Razzball Grey (Grey’s personal projections)
• Steamer (FanGraphs)
• ZIPS

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2025 edition of The Process is now available. Like last year, only the appendix will have new studies and research. I wrote several studies with additional contributions from Jenny Butler, Patrick Davitt, Bryan Fitzgerald, Jake Maish, Carlos Marcano, Roger Strong, and Adam Warner. Read the rest of this entry »

1. I must have the auction/draft order done before traveling.

Every year the Tout Wars auction is held in New York City. I knew I would get to town 24 hours before my auction and planned to create my auction strategy. On my flight, I turned my knee and could barely walk by the time I got to my room. I spent the next 24 hours dealing with the knee. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the break, I’m going to run a few quick studies. If you want to request, add it to this Twitter thread.

I am running a few quick fantasy baseball studies over the next few days. I'll take suggestions. The two I have planned:

1. If a hitter's AVG is below his projection, how much rebound is expected?

2. How much does a month's ERA/FIP/xFIP matter when looking forward?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) July 16, 2024

The final study I’ll run is looking at how much stock should a person have in a month of pitching stats. I wanted to understand these correlations since I quote them a ton. The usual suspects top the list with an interesting find on WHIP projections. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the break, I’m going to run a few quick studies. If you want to request, add it to this Twitter thread.

I am running a few quick fantasy baseball studies over the next few days. I'll take suggestions. The two I have planned:

1. If a hitter's AVG is below his projection, how much rebound is expected?

2. How much does a month's ERA/FIP/xFIP matter when looking forward?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) July 16, 2024

Over at the Pull Hitter Patreon, there was a discussion on starting pitcher Wins from shi … bad teams (e.g. Paul Skenes). Here are the results I found. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the break, I’m going to run a few quick studies. If you want to request, add it to this Twitter thread.

I am running a few quick fantasy baseball studies over the next few days. I'll take suggestions. The two I have planned:

1. If a hitter's AVG is below his projection, how much rebound is expected?

2. How much does a month's ERA/FIP/xFIP matter when looking forward?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) July 16, 2024

Someone I know said they drafted for batting average (AVG) this spring, but their team is struggling in the category. They wondered how much upward regression should be expected. This is a simple study with a reasonable answer, some but not all. Read the rest of this entry »

With two prominent players, Mike Trout and J.T. Realmuto, just needing meniscus surgery, I examined hitter production before and after surgery. With a limited sample, some struggles should be expected. Read the rest of this entry »

You should all know by now that Statcast recently made their bat tracking data public. This is a big deal! Our own Ben Clemens made some early observations and also shared what the data does and doesn’t tell us, which included a correlation table between the new metrics and the familiar.

Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t believe it’s been over five years since my daughter stepped in and wrote this post. In a few days she graduates from high school so I’ll be taking the week off (no weekend waiver wire article or chat) to enjoy time with family. As much as we enjoy this stupid game, friends and family mean so much more to us. I’m so pround of Ruby and can’t wait to watch her walk across the stage this weekend. -JZ

Note: I promised my kid she could write one of my articles this summer and as the summer winds down, I’m keeping my promise. -JZ

How do people do this? Writing for like 3000 hours. Then you get all mad that it must be 400 words. And figure out what to write. Then it can’t be big or small it has to be perfect. Then your kids take up all the internet. Then you have to know what BB% and Avg. for the player and it just gets soooo confusing. Then your brother is eating DILL PICKLE sunflower seeds and they smell GROOOOOSSS. When he snaps it and he spits on you. Are we there yet with this article?? This is so boring how do get this to be fun. All you do is sit and write. Then you are all itchy because you mowed the day before and the bugs bit you. Do you know what a parents favorite time of the year is SCHOOL XD. I would rather be in an ac room on my phone than at school. My favorite part of school is leaving 😉 Your brother thinks he can do math but he can’t. Anyway back to baseball. My dad lied to me about Coleverson [Culberson] can’t hit a home run but he did. Anyway, I am done. 204 words.

Post originally ran on August 9th, 2018

In my latest Big Kids article, I noticed three rookie hitters (Tyler Black, Joey Loperfido, and Jordan Beck) are struggling with the major league strike zone. Here are their AAA and MLB strikeout and walk rates.

With the trio seeing major differences, I compared all hitters transitioning from AAA and divided them into those making a debut and veterans. The results line up with what I’ve observed so far, hitters are struggling to adjust to the major leagues. Read the rest of this entry »