Archive for Meta Analysis

We’re already four games into the season! We know that fastball velocity stabilizes quite quickly and while it’s too early to all out panic about anything, it’s far more acceptable to panic, or get excited, about a pitcher’s velocity than anything else. Obviously, not every pitcher has thrown a pitch this season yet, and stats are only updated through Saturday’s games as I type this. So this obviously isn’t a comprehensive comparison, but we’ll keep rolling out updates.

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Almost exactly six years ago, I published a study that suggested pitcher spring training strikeout and walk rates had some predictive value for the upcoming season. Not a lot, of course, but there was definitely something there that shouldn’t be ignored like the rest of spring stats. I looked at all pitchers who have logged at least 15 innings this spring, and then compared their strikeout rate to the Pod Projection strikeout rate. Let’s discuss the 10 starting pitchers that enjoyed the largest spikes. I’ll take a look back at the end of the season to see if these surges really were prescient.

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A plethora of information is available to fantasy owners with most just a repeat from one season to the next. For this reason, it’s tough to find anything new or helpful. Joe Rosales has stepped forward this year to provide six pages of useful injury nuggets in the Bill James Handbook, especially relating to catchers. Here are some of the highlights

1. Baseball Info Solutions is now collecting detailed injury information

Finally, and good luck. Building a comprehensive database is the key component to really understanding injuries. From personal experience, it’s just a pain-in-the-ass to track in-season injuries and also compile the end-of-season database. While, I’m sure the information is not going to be free to the public, at least the information is being collected for someone like Mr. Rosales to compile.

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The major league season is starting in just a few days. Fantasy owners are making the adjustment from pre-season to in-season mode. Before owners concentrate 100% on in-season topics, they should take a step back for a few minutes and reflect on their final rosters and the process they used to acquire them concentrating on what worked and what didn’t. Here are some areas to consider and how I struggle with them.

Player Valuation Process

This area is probably the one area I struggle with balancing the most. Do I over think the player values and more importantly do I make actual decisions based on these valuations? I start all my valuations by creating a composite projection system from several websites and generally probably lock myself into these projections to create player values depending on the league’s format. Usually, I just check each value and adjust them as I see fit.

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Yesterday, I listed and discussed nine hitters who I ranked significantly higher than the rest of my fellow RotoGraphers. Today, I move on to starting pitchers. I limited this list to those in my top 60 and also did a bit of cherry picking. Why? Because of this comment I added to the starting pitcher composite rankings post:

Before I get a million questions, remember these are projected end of season rankings based on dollar values earned. It’s absolutely not exactly how I would draft these pitchers, as I will always prefer a lower IP guy with better ratio projections than a higher IP guy with worse ratios, but more wins and Ks to boost his dollar value. That preference is not reflected in the ranking above, as it’s a strategic choice, not a mathematical one.

So I excluded guys like Rick Porcello, Julio Teheran, and Cole Hamels, whose betters rankings are likely due to differences in how we ranked players. All get most of their value from volume, rather than strong ratios. It’s more valuable to discuss players I ranked better due to a more bullish projection.

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Every year after we post our positional rankings, I run my Pod’s Picks series, highlighting the players I am more bullish and bearish on compared with the consensus. I didn’t want to completely skip the series this time, so because I’m strapped for time before opening day, I’m going to do a hitter version that lumps all positions together. I’m also only going to discuss my picks, which are the players I am most bullish on versus the rest of the rankers. I figure advice on who to draft, rather than who to avoid, is a bit more valuable.

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As a projectionist, one of the most difficult players to forecast are rookies with no previous MLB experience. While there have been many attempts at translating minor league performance into Major League equivalents, we will never get the conversion perfectly right. It’s hard enough to project established veterans, so with such varying competition, a more limited body of work with which to analyze, and wildly fluctuating league and park factors, minor leaguers are a real challenge.

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On Saturday, fantasy baseball nerds across the land gathered inside the clubhouse at Richmond County Bank Ballpark in Staten Island, for our first in-stadium Tout Wars extravaganza. It was a cool experience, and four auctions were completed in one day! As usual, I participated in the AL-Only league, but this time, I was returning as the defending champion. Now if only my leaguemates would have allowed me to win Aaron Judge for $3 again.

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On Monday, we launched Fantasy Baseball Week on The Hardball Times, and I started things off by researching whether last season’s breakouts were solid investments the following year. Spoiler alert: they are actually terrible investments. Of course, that’s as a group. That means that not every breakout from the previous season is going to fall flat the following year. So let’s discuss some of the big breakouts from last season and try to figure out whether they end up as part of the poor investment bust group or hold onto their gains.

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Yesterday, I transitioned my Pod Projections vs Steamer projections series to the pitching side. I compared our ERA forecasts and discussed 11 pitchers with upside in the metric. Today, it’s time to check on a smattering of hurlers I’m projecting for a worse ERA than Steamer.

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