Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 1749
Location: Researching my theory that a lime hat is more effective than tinfoil
Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 2:37 pm Post subject:
shoewizard wrote:
matt wrote:
In other words, he thinks we are going to suck donkey balls. 3.85 ERA for Webb?
Well...HE , being Dan, doesn't think anything, other than that his preset formulas and calculations are correct, and this is what they spit out.
I have his 2006 ZIPS in a spreadsheet.
Check out my Jackson comment I just posted to him,.
I know, but thanks still. You raised some good points regarding Jackson. The Buddy Biancalana Hit Counter beat you with his comment though: "Shouldn't the mean prediction be even worse than the pessismistic one?"
Projections for this type of team (so many young players) are going to be difficult. I enjoy checking out Dan's projections but I've never compared them during or at the season to check the accuracy.
I'm sure the accuracy is better for established players than guys in their first two years (like Dylan's). Barring career years or collapses (TC in 2005 and then 2005), they are probably accurate at accounting for age, park, etc. Young players don't usually have a lot of great data to rely on. If they are really good, they are too good for their level and get moved up.
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 1555
Location: clawing my eyes out, praying for sleep. booyah.
Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:27 pm Post subject:
i was always under the impression that sinkerball pitchers project worse than they tend to be for some reason or another. is that the case?
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Hank, you're dead to me.
Give me an outfield of Chris Young, Grady Sizemore, and Rocco Baldelli and I'll give you a fantasy team juggernaut.
Baldelli?
Of all the Tampa OF guys, Baldelli certainly isn't the guy I'd take first...
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Old school Hollywood baseball,
Joe Girardi is ten feet tall,
Old school Hollywood baseball,
Me and Frenchy walk a ton.
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 107
Location: Tucson, Arizona
Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:30 pm Post subject:
I kind of compensated without explanation. I doubt anyone can get a combo of Sizemore, Crawford, and/or Delmon since they're probably going to be gone in the first 20-25 picks. Unless you're looking for them specifically.
I'm thinking Sizemore in the second or third, Baldelli in the 13th, and Chris Young in the second to last round. Buying "low" on the latter two I guess.
There was also the centerfielder theme.
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BTW, I did a comparison between my projections and Dan's. His are almost exactly mine with a Park Factor adjustment. I don't use a PF adjustment in mine. You take them and appy, say a 5 year avg of the ESPN component PF's and mine turn into his.
So if you buy the offense, you've got to buy the pitching (assuming it's an inverse adjustment). If you don't buy the pitching (it's too high!) then so is the offense.
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 2404
Location: Gold Canyon
Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:45 am Post subject:
More thoughts on the 2007 D-Backs from Bob McManaman. Note the last line of his article references these 2007 ZIPS.
Bob McManaman wrote:
As young as the Arizona Diamondbacks might appear, there's a good chance they will have only two rookies in the starting lineup next season.
That's because, technically, shortstop Stephen Drew and right fielder Carlos Quentin each amassed more than the 130 at-bats needed to remove themselves from rookie status after being called up from the Triple-A Tucson Sidewinders.
Conor Jackson, who started 127 games at first base, also is no longer a rookie.
Among position players, that leaves center fielder Chris Young and catcher Miguel Montero as the only true rookies, and they spent the season's final weeks with Arizona.
"It was very significant," manager Bob Melvin said, referring to the importance of the players' 2006 experience as a way to bridge the transition to 2007. "It was significant because not only have most of these guys been here - they weren't just September call-ups - but we were in a pennant race for a while.
"We were playing teams like L.A. and San Diego, and these guys were part of the fit, getting to know the division, getting to see the pitchers, getting to know the stadiums. That was a huge benefit for a lot of these younger players."
Will it make them All-Stars? Probably not, but experience never hurts.
"You can't really base anything on what it's like or how a player will play until you get here," said Quentin, 24, who hit .253 in 166 at-bats, with more than half (25) of his 42 hits going for extra bases.
"It allowed us to get the jitters out, so to speak, and give us that much more of a head start coming into next year. Personally, I'm very happy they gave me the opportunity to get up here and have the experience."
"It was just important to get it out of the way," said Drew, 23, who became a mainstay following a midseason rib injury to veteran Craig Counsell.
"The more experience you have, the more relaxed you get. We all needed that. You never know until you play at this level, and although I didn't have a doubt, other people, in their minds, may have doubts about you."
Don't doubt Drew. In 209 at-bats, he produced 66 hits, batting .316, with 13 doubles, seven triples, five home runs and 23 RBIs. Counsell, in nearly twice the at-bats (372), hit .255 with just 29 more hits, one more double, three fewer triples, one less home run and just seven more RBIs.
Young, 23, casts similar projections and could become the best of the bunch if his multitalented abilities grade out to form. He's a plus defensive player with a plus-side arm, a legitimate stolen base threat, and a player whom many believe will hit for power.
One statistical service, for instance, predicts he will lead the D'backs in home runs next season with 29.
More thoughts on the 2007 D-Backs from Bob McManaman. Note the last line of his article references these 2007 ZIPS.
Very interesting.... having another movie flashback (I have no RL) to Broadcast News where Albert Brooks character sits in his apartment watching his co-workers televise a breaking news story. He calls the producer to cue her on some inside info and soon sees it incorporated into the live broadcast:
Quentin's slide the last month and a half probably really killed his projections. Should have demoted him after he hit 4 HR's in 16 AB's, then started taking bids.
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The pen is mightier than the sword, if that pen is shot out of a gun
Projections for this type of team (so many young players) are going to be difficult. I enjoy checking out Dan's projections but I've never compared them during or at the season to check the accuracy.
Projections for any type of team are going to be difficult - the goal of everybody doing computer projections is to be slightly less inaccurate than the other guys doing computer projections in a given year.
Mean Error of Predicted OPS vs. Actual OPS, Min 300 PA
As for Brandon Webb, my projections include team defense and, to be perfectly frank, the Diamondbacks' defense has been less than sterling. What also hurts Brandon Webb's mean projection is that, due to the park, Webb's performance is going to be very sensitive to any changes in his G/F ratio - a few extra sinkers that don't sink and Chase isn't going to protect Webb. As I noted in the above link, a more of Webb's fly balls become homers than Eric Milton's flies!
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Dan Szymborski
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 3245
Location: In front of my computer
Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 7:31 am Post subject:
Hey, Dan, welcome to our little slice of heaven. We appreciate you coming over here to comment.
I've said to others that on a macro basis, nobody is going to be right much more than 2/3 rds of the time.....and you guys are all ekeing the extra percent here or there wherever you can.
The projections are a fun starting point for me, not an end point. There are so many subjective factors that affect performance that will never be predictable. But we all believe we are intuitive enough to say with absolute certainty that our favorite players will beat your projections.
As for Brandon Webb, my projections include team defense and, to be perfectly frank, the Diamondbacks' defense has been less than sterling.
How is the defensive contribution calculated, Dan? With such a turnover, both during this year and coming into next, for the defensive positions I would think it extremely difficult to nail down.
DSzymborski wrote:
What also hurts Brandon Webb's mean projection is that, due to the park, Webb's performance is going to be very sensitive to any changes in his G/F ratio - a few extra sinkers that don't sink and Chase isn't going to protect Webb.
This isn't just a quesiton to Dan, but to anyone. Do sinkers stop sinking? I mean, we really haven't seen a pitcher with a G/F ratio like Webb's in the history of the modern game. We hear anecdotes that sinker pitchers perform better when tired or not overthrowing the ball, so age and lost velocity wouldn't seem to hurt them like a strikeout pitcher.
I agree that if Webb suddenly turned into a different pitcher that he'd struggle a lot in Chase, but what would ever cause this turn?
DSzymborski wrote:
As I noted in the above link, a more of Webb's fly balls become homers than Eric Milton's flies!
While yes, Webb has a higher percentage of HR/FB than Milton, his raw HR number are almost half. 29 for Milton to 15 for Webb. This seems like a fuzzy number statement. Because Webb is such a GB pitcher, the total amount of FB is going to be low and if someone hits a HR off of you, it most likely went in the air. I don't see this as a liability to Webb at all unless, again, you think the sinker stops sinking.
Also, I'd love to know how you picked up or calculated your park factors for the individual components. I took my projections and threw in a five year avg of ESPN's component PFs and came pretty close to your numbers for the components the adjust. (ESPN doesn't have a K PF).
This isn't just a quesiton to Dan, but to anyone. Do sinkers stop sinking? I mean, we really haven't seen a pitcher with a G/F ratio like Webb's in the history of the modern game. We hear anecdotes that sinker pitchers perform better when tired or not overthrowing the ball, so age and lost velocity wouldn't seem to hurt them like a strikeout pitcher.
I agree that if Webb suddenly turned into a different pitcher that he'd struggle a lot in Chase, but what would ever cause this turn?
It's not the G/F ratio, in and of itself, that makes Webb so good. While he's on the end of the spectrum, he's not an historic outlier (I'll list the guys who've posted 3.00+ G/F ratios since Webb came up):
Webb's Webb because of the total package: repertoire, stuff, command, control, and the gray matter. Any single one of Webb's peripherals is relatively normal, but they don't all tend to come together in one pitcher. Also, I think Webb's a perfect example of how watching a given player can pick up where the numbers leave off. Webb's still learning how to pitch and adding to his repertoire - it took Kevin Brown until his 30s to put it together and his stuff didn't move anywhere near as much as Webb's does. What's amazing is that he's had the deck stacked against him, in terms of context (park + defense + offense + manager), every year he's been in the majors, and he's still been so good.
Right now he's 150 innings short of qualifying for BBref's active ERA+ leaderboard, but he'd be number five if he did.
I think we saw what could cause a change in Webb earlier this season: injury, mechanics getting out of whack. He didn't have his off-speed stuff in any meningful capacity for awhile, and when his arm slot changed he didn't even have the comebacker.
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