On Monday, I set the groundwork for a quest to try to predict a hitter’s HR/FB ratio utilizing the new data first made available last year that tells us the average distance of a hitter’s batted balls. Our goal was to answer several questions:
Yesterday, Mike Podhorzer shared part one of this epic journey and teased that today we would be incorporating batted ball angle to see if that helps our model. I am, in fact, going to do that today.
But first, I am going to take a quick step back and let you know my reasons for doing this. Next, I’ll introduce some data on batted ball angle, as noted above.
As a forecaster of baseball player performance for usage in my fantasy leagues, I am always looking for new data to incorporate into my projections and new methods for predicting outcomes. Home runs are a result that excites all, even chicks dig ’em. But how can we better determine whether Chase Headley’s breakout, for example, was for real? The answer may lie in newly available data collected by our own research extraordinaire Jeff Zimmerman.
Tying for the second most number of votes for a full Pod Projection was Blue Jays third sacker Brett Lawrie. After sky high expectations resulting from an exciting debut that mixed power and speed, the sophomore seriously disappointed in his full season follow-up. Lawrie missed a month of action due to an oblique injury and missed time here and there due to various other nicks and bruises. You have to wonder how healthy he was all season and if those issues affected his performance. This is just another example of why projecting player performance is so difficult. We have to speculate about injuries and their effects and we may never know if we were correct.
The tribe has spoken. Thanks for all the player votes you included in your comments of the first edition of this year’s Pod Projections. The winner was Mark Trumbo with 5 total votes. Clearly, many of you were wondering about his second half when he hit just .227 with 10 home runs after a scorching .306, 22 home run first half. Before I dive into my projection process though, it’s important to be aware that I don’t put much stock into first half/second half splits. They have proven to have limited predictive value, so unless it was a sign of injury or there is some clear explanation that might very well continue, I mostly ignore the splits. With that caveat out of the way, let’s get to the projections.
It’s projection time! Welcome to the first edition of the 2013 Pod Projections. Last year I started the Pod Projection series and in it, I explained the process behind my projections of the five fantasy categories for various players who were most interesting. I included an introduction that described the process in a general sense, so refresh your memory by checking it out again.
Prior to each baseball season, usually in January or February, I put together a massive spreadsheet that rates players in every format I play in. Placing a value on a given player is actually not that hard, assuming you have a decent projection of what that player will do over the course of the next season. Valuing “Albert Pujols” may not always be easy, but if I tell you I have a 1B who will put up 31 HR with a .285/.359/.516 line, that is something you can probably work with.
The issue is that depending on what system you pick, you could end up with some very different values.
Welcome to the first edition of the Pod hitter projections for the 2013 season! If you are unfamiliar with my process, you can read the introduction I published last January. As a reminder, these are not computer generated where I input the data and a spreadsheet spits out a projected batted line. I manually project every category that has fantasy relevance.
The first projection I’ll make is for Wil Myers, the top ex-Royals prospect who was recently shipped to Tampa Bay for James Shields.
This season, center field innings in Texas were primarily split between Craig Gentry and Josh Hamilton. But, Hamilton is now gone and the team has not signed a free agent to replace him in the field. They still seem to be in the market for an outfielder, but it’s conceivable they head to spring training with Gentry and Leonys Martin atop the depth chart. Assuming they find their everyday center fielder from an interal option, would either of these two be attractive fantasy targets?
**Merry Christmas to those who celebrate the light-filled holiday! I am a Jew, and as a result, will be fitting the stereotype to a T, going to a movie followed by a delicious Chinese dinner.
A couple of weeks ago, free agent slugger Mark Reynolds signed a one-year deal with the Cleveland Indians to man first base on a full-time basis. He’s coming off a disappointing season that saw a drop in power that came along with the usual horrid batting average. Oriole Park at Camden Yards had always had a bandbox perception, while Progressive Field in Cleveland has typically been thought of a pitcher’s park, but never mentioned in the same breath as other extreme pitcher’s parks. Based strictly on perception, the ballpark switch is going to hurt Reyndolds’ chances of a rebound. Let’s see what the data says.
