Archive for FANS

Yesterday, I compared hitters’ FANS projections to their Depth Charts projections in order to identify the biggest discrepancies between the two. For more information on why I’m doing this or what FANS and Depth Charts projection entail, I cordially invite you to click here.

I’m here to repeat the exercise but with pitchers instead. Focusing on playing time (as measured by innings pitched), K/9, BB/9 and saves. I’ll mix in starters and relievers at my discretion or where obviously necessary, like for saves. Like I did yesterday, I’ll try to limit each blurb to three sentences.

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Last year, I performed this very exercise, in which I compared FANS projections — projections generated by fans — to the Depth Charts projections — a composite of Steamer and ZiPS with playing time allocated by generally informed FanGraphs staff. I intended to highlight the largest discrepancies and offer a quick take on them.

I explain my interest in FANS during the inaugural of this exercise. Said interest pertains largely to anticipated versus most likely outcomes for a player and how those disparities manifest themselves in price distortions on draft day.

This time around, instead of discussing five National League outfielders at length, I’ll focus on the largest differences between FANS and Depth Charts projections in playing time, home runs, stolen bases, wOBA and WAR for a couple of players per category. I’ve set a personal goal for no more than three sentences per player so I don’t spend all day doing this. Because I could, and nobody wants that.

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A month ago, I compared Depth Chart projections — a composite of the reputed Steamer and ZiPS projection systems — to fan projections, compiled on each player’s page as “FANS.” I proceeded to look at the largest differences between the two systems — loosely considering the aggregation of independent fan projections a “system” — and identify which system better projected that particular player.

For hitters, the Depth Charts won by a landslide, 7-2. Turns out that fans frequently projected better production from prospects than what said prospects actually produced. It’s the cognitive bias I expected to see; I anticipated that fan(tasy owner)s associate hype with swift, robust production. I call it the Mike Trout Syndrome, named after the generational talent who has conditioned fans to expect immediate and immense production from all top prospects.

So how did the fans fare versus the Depth Charts regarding pitchers? Funny you ask. Here are the five starting pitchers whose Depth Charts FIPs varied most dramatically from their FANS FIPs:

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Back in February, I compared preseason projections between reputed projection system Steamer to those submitted by FanGraphs readers, dubbed “FANS.” The concept was simple: identify National League outfielders whose Steamer and FANS projections varied wildly and predict a “winning” projection. (In the same vein, Community poster Bobby Mueller compiled some nice summary statistics.)

Alas, I needlessly task myself with determining who fared better: the Depth Charts — which are Steamer and other reputable projection system ZiPS, with playing time allocated by FanGraphs staff — versus the fans.

Because the present author, whose analytic capacity is debatable but authorship of this piece is absolute, retains sole proprietorship of quasi-analysis that has a moderate to high probability of spiraling out of control, he has chosen three statistics with which to compare qualified major league hitters: weighted on-base average (wOBA), an offensive rate statistic (not that it offends anyone, per se, but, well, you know); Fielding (Fld), a defensive statistic, probably; and wins above replacement (WAR), an overall performance metric.

Yours truly has elected to discuss only the most egregious differences in projections and declare winners between them accordingly. Granted three nominees within three categories, an outcome in which a winner is not declared is highly improbable. Alas, a true, rightful and, above all, 100-percent authoritative champion may very well be crowned in due time. So, who will it be: the wisdom of the masses, or the wisdom of two computers?

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