The Projection Process Behind Being a Fan
Let’s talk a bit more about what makes the Fan Projections different from those that Rally, Dan Szymborski, and Tango Tiger have and will continue to produce.
The most obvious difference is the amount of math involved. Frankly, we’re not requiring any. There’s no need to copy, paste, and weigh each season like these are your personal Marcels. Now, if that method is the most comfortable in your estimation, then sure, do as you please. Most will probably do a little eyeballing and nudge those up or down based on personal knowledge, anecdotal evidence, or just pure gut feelings.
For instance, yesterday I began filling out my Rays projections and up popped B.J. Upton’s name. Everyone – well, those who read that other site I’m on most of the time – knows about my fandom of Upton. I find him to be a fantastic talent with immense upside. The problem being A) how is his shoulder health and B) how much of the potential is left? He’s already a solid player, but after his 2007 the talk about him becoming a 30/30 producer has been left unfulfilled.
This all came to a head when I reached the home runs drop down. Upton hit 24 homers as a 22-year-old and has hit 20 since. The numbers said … well, I didn’t know what they said. I really, really wanted to go 20+. He has the quick wrists as everyone saw in the 2008 post-season. But then again, potential isn’t static and pitchers figured out how to pitch to his weaknesses last year.
To truncate this process which is probably interesting to no one, I chose 15-19 after a good three or four minutes of internal debate. All of these factors came into play. I added the scouting observations, subtracted the health concerns, and did math without really doing math. Only afterwards did I run the 5-4-3 weighting to find 13-14 homers as the average. Not a huge difference all told, but I think most people are going to have small conflicts like this throughout the process.
Ultimately, the resolutions will guide the final projections. Remember, we’re not asking you to submit the ZiPS, CHONE, or Marcels projections for these players. If we wanted that, we would consult with them. We want everyone to vote as they wish and if that means being a little optimistic or pessimistic about certain players, then so be it. Just remember, your ballot won’t be ditched if you disagree with CHONE.
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To see players projected, does there need to be 30 ballots cast for that player?
It really is best to submit your own projections before looking at others’ projections, it leads to less biased results. You still however can see individual player’s projections.
I finished mine already for the Jays. I wanted to see others.
Now, I can find individual projections, but how do I see the total projections for my whole team on one page?
Can I still wish for 20+ Upton homers even if I project fewer?
Totally illegal. Don’t even think it.
Garbage in, garbage out – the wisdom of the masses is only wisdom under the (usually unwarranted) assumption that the average person is wise, i.e. that you have some model with truth = opinion_i + error_i for persons i = 1, …, n, and such that the expected error is 0. This is never going to be true, and in even typical situations you can find that the bias is quite large.
What exactly are you basing that on? Just curious. Common sense dictates that the wisdom of the crowd evens out the extreme projections and what’s left is the “human touch”, which is what David is after here.
Ask 20 people to estimate the mass of the moon, take the average and see how close they get. Maybe then you’ll understand my point.
Do these people have an astronomy hobby? Otherwise it’s not a fair comparison.
This has been tried and tested already:
http://tangotiger.net/survey/index5.php
It’s worked out quite well. The professional forecasters who used the community playing time forecasts did better than those who didn’t. Much better.
But, if you don’t want to believe it, that’s fine. Don’t pretend however that what you are saying is anything close to true.
I’m surprised that some of you are making projections already without knowing what your teams’ lineups will look like. For example, as a Yankee fan, I know that I can’t really project A-Rod’s offense accurately without knowing who the #5 hitter will be next year.
Just plug in the most expensive free agent. Probably Holliday or Bay. Roll with that.
You’ll find it doesn’t make a difference, really.
It would be my inclination to think that, but I saw the difference with A-Rod when he had struggling-with-RISP Robinson Cano behind him and when he had a red-hot Hideki Matsui behind him.
Yeah, really makes almost no difference. Now I can understand not wanting to project guys like Holliday / Bay / Lackey because we don’t know what league they will be in and what team they will be on, but that’s slightly different.
I think I read a study at the THT site that showed most sluggers numbers were no better (or worse) no matter who was hitting behind them and if so, marginal difference at best.
You might be thinking of Tango’s Pitching Around Batters piece.
ARod didn’t have enough ABs in front of each of those guys to draw any kind of definitive conclusion.
delv: General principle to keep in mind. “Things which are chronologically contiguous are not necessarily causally related.”