RotoGraphs Audio: The Sleeper and the Bust 7/11/13
Episode 36
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. We discuss a pair of outfielders trending in the opposite direction and whether there is any value to be found in the Phillies 1st base replacements.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter and tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.
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Intro by DJ Sinton (no, contrary to popular belief, I do not moonlight as a rap star)
Approximately 40 min of joyous analysis.
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Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Great Samardzija (and Mujica by proxy) analysis and the deep philosophical discussion that follows about how we all value newer information more than later information). But I’m wary about the “We don’t know if a pitcher is in a hot streak at the time” argument (correct this if it is wrong). I’m wondering if this is necessarily true or whether we could (with some work) actually identify a hot or cold streak in the moment? In other words, could we with current information say pitcher X had a bad last game(s) so he has a higher probability of having another bad game, or do you think this is impossible?
Your “Life in Heaven” photo is 70 on the dopeness scale. If the wife loosens the purse-strings, maybe I’ll be able to order a copy of it.
There was actually this exact research done that was published in the Baseball Forecaster several years ago. I assume it was also on Baseball HQ at some point. They looked at varying strings of starts to determine if they were more predictable of a better following start. But I’m not really a fan of that since you need to control for the quality of a pitcher. Obviously, the more good starts a pitcher has in a row, it’s likely because he’s a better pitcher.
I’m not sure how I would do the study, and yes, players are always adjusting. But the majority of the time, it’s just a random bad outing or two and it has no predictive power. Though he’s a sample size of one, Matt Moore this season illustrates this concept perfectly.
What Life in Heaven photo are you referring to?