PECOTA takes on standings

[SilentJames]

About Time!

[Frobby]

Power hitters with no defensive value and injury histories tend to fall off a cliff in their early 30s. I'd love to hear a logical reason why Gibbons is going to buck that trend.

Because he's an Oriole, that's why.

But seriously, Jay isn't in his "early 30's," he's 30. And he's not a great defender, but I don't go along with "no defensive value." That is reserved for David Ortiz and Jason Giambi-types. I just don't see him putting up an OPS that is lower than what he did in his first 2-3 years in the big leagues, unless he is playing hurt for a significant period of time, which shouldn't be necessary as this team is constituted.

[Leitch]

Because he's an Oriole, that's why.

But seriously, Jay isn't in his "early 30's," he's 30. And he's not a great defender, but I don't go along with "no defensive value." That is reserved for David Ortiz and Jason Giambi-types. I just don't see him putting up an OPS that is lower than what he did in his first 2-3 years in the big leagues, unless he is playing hurt for a significant period of time, which shouldn't be necessary as this team is constituted.

Just because Gibbons is capable when healthy of being a below average defender but still more useful than a giant rock in the shape of the number 31 doesn't mean he doesn't have the old player skills set(think Boog Powell) that doesn't age well.

[davearm]

Roberts is 29. Huff and Gibbons are 30. I think the declines forecast for those players seem illogical. The fact that they have Markakis stagnant also seems illogical.

Jon's already addressed this, but the trends are what they are, Frobby.

Wagering that the trends are about to reverse themselves is not a very smart bet.

[Frobby]

Jon's already addressed this, but the trends are what they are, Frobby.

Wagering that the trends are about to reverse themselves is not a very smart bet.

I honestly don't know what your post means. However, if somebody would like to give me 5 over/under bets:

1. Roberts .729 OPS

2. Gibbons .768 OPS

3. Huff .786 OPS

4. Markakis .799 OPS

5. Orioles 754 runs scored

I will very gladly bet the over on all five of those, and double down on Roberts.

And just in case you think I'm biased, I think it's worth noting that Marcels, ZiPS, CHONE, Bill James and MLB.com ALL project that Roberts, Gibbons and Huff will beat those numbers, and 3 of the 5 think Markakis will. I realize that PECOTA is thought to be generally more accurate than any of the others, but when it's below ALL of them you have to wonder.

[SteveA]

I am sorry but this is bs to me.

With the upgrades we added, the amount of youth on the team that you figure gets better, the ability for bounce back years from some of our guys and the presence of Mazzone, i don't see how we are only 4 games better than last year.

I know 74 wins could happen, just as 90 wins could happen.

But, i am not sure how anyone, no matter how negative you are, can predict only 74 wins.

And I know PECOTA is strictly a numbers thing and doesn't take alot of what i said into account.

The line on most sportsbooks for an over/under for O's wins is 73.5. On one sportsbook I have an account, it's 73.5 and the odds on over and under are the same, which means there's been balanced betting (as much $ going on the under as on the over). On another sportsbook I know of, it's 70.5 but the odds are severely unbalanced (bet $100 on the under to win $150, but bet $180 on the over to win $100) which means that a high % of the money has been on the over 70.5, as you would expect.

Still, this indicates that the "collective wisdom" of the gambling public is pretty much saying 73 or 74. Now PECOTA is added to that. Yes, I realize that the collective wisdom would have had the Tigers in the 70s last year too, probably. Obviously some of these come out way wrong. But it sure is a lot of conventional wisdom pointing to something we don't want to hear or believe.

I'm considering jumping on that over 70.5 even though I have to bet quite a bit to win anything. So far, I have made just one future bet: Nationals under 68.5.

[TradeAngelos]

I was listening to 1300 earlier and Jason Stark was on and he mentioned a site I had never heard of that is playing out the 2007 season game by game using last years stats.It is quite interesting to say the least and I have no clue how accurate it is or if anyone has ever heard of it,but the Sox are kicking some serious tail at this point.Stark was saying that the Sox could be dominate with their starting pitching this year and are his favorite to take the division over the Evil Empire.Here is the site

http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp?i=1

Stark also mentioned that there is a lot of buzz from the scouts about Bedard,saying he took an informal poll of who they thought was about to "expload" and he got more mentions then anybody.He ssaid he really was impressed with Lowen and that IF the big 3 can stay consistent a "competitive" team wasnt out of the question.

[El Gordo]

The line on most sportsbooks for an over/under for O's wins is 73.5. On one sportsbook I have an account, it's 73.5 and the odds on over and under are the same, which means there's been balanced betting (as much $ going on the under as on the over). On another sportsbook I know of, it's 70.5 but the odds are severely unbalanced (bet $100 on the under to win $150, but bet $180 on the over to win $100) which means that a high % of the money has been on the over 70.5, as you would expect.

Still, this indicates that the "collective wisdom" of the gambling public is pretty much saying 73 or 74. Now PECOTA is added to that. Yes, I realize that the collective wisdom would have had the Tigers in the 70s last year too, probably. Obviously some of these come out way wrong. But it sure is a lot of conventional wisdom pointing to something we don't want to hear or believe.

I'm considering jumping on that over 70.5 even though I have to bet quite a bit to win anything. So far, I have made just one future bet: Nationals under 68.5.

Often, "collective wisdom" is an oxymoron.

[El Gordo]

I was listening to 1300 earlier and Jason Stark was on and he mentioned a site I had never heard of that is playing out the 2007 season game by game using last years stats.It is quite interesting to say the least and I have no clue how accurate it is or if anyone has ever heard of it,but the Sox are kicking some serious tail at this point.Stark was saying that the Sox could be dominate with their starting pitching this year and are his favorite to take the division over the Evil Empire.Here is the site

http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp?i=1

Stark also mentioned that there is a lot of buzz from the scouts about Bedard,saying he took an informal poll of who they thought was about to "expload" and he got more mentions then anybody.He ssaid he really was impressed with Lowen and that IF the big 3 can stay consistent a "competitive" team wasnt out of the question.

41-78 with 52 to play? If that is anywhere near totrue this board will be shut down indefinitely due to mourning.

[Baltimoron]

I'm considering jumping on that over 70.5 even though I have to bet quite a bit to win anything.

Its a sucker bet. You are better off betting the straight 73ish line. 1.8 - 1 is a pretty huge money adjustment for 3 wins.

You'd likely do better fading the Sox and Yankees at many books.

[Malike]

I do not have a subscription to BP as of yet, but I do own a PSP and work 1am to 9am so I have ALOT of free time on my hands at night. I decided to run a simulation of the O's 2007 season and while I'm not sure how close or far away from the PECOTA or any others I felt like posting these numbers. Again this is just a baseball game simulation and not something as intricate as PECOTA.

Here goes..

80-82 Season record.

RS- 760, RA- 803

Mora .764 OPS

Hernandez .714

Cpat .764

Miggy .905

Markakis .820

BRob .757

Payton .761

Huff .701

Gibbons .943 400 ish ab's

Millar .778

The bench consisted of Gomez, Bynum, Bako, Fahey and none had significant plate appearances.

Pitching..

Bedard 10-9 4.77, 187 IP

Loewen 12-10 3.80 184 IP

Wright 12-12 4.15 171 IP

Cabrera 10-10 3.98 171 IP

Trax 8-4 4.84 115 IP

Penn 2-3 5.38 90 IP

Team Era 4.78

Again, I wish I had the BP predictions to compare these to, but I went back through 5 plus pages of the board and didnt see any.

Take these with a grain of salt

[Fan4Life]

I do not have a subscription to BP as of yet, but I do own a PSP and work 1am to 9am so I have ALOT of free time on my hands at night. I decided to run a simulation of the O's 2007 season and while I'm not sure how close or far away from the PECOTA or any others I felt like posting these numbers. Again this is just a baseball game simulation and not something as intricate as PECOTA.

Here goes..

80-82 Season record.

RS- 760, RA- 803

Mora .764 OPS

Hernandez .714

Cpat .764

Miggy .905

Markakis .820

BRob .757

Payton .761

Huff .701

Gibbons .943 400 ish ab's

Millar .778

The bench consisted of Gomez, Bynum, Bako, Fahey and none had significant plate appearances.

Pitching..

Bedard 10-9 4.77, 187 IP

Loewen 12-10 3.80 184 IP

Wright 12-12 4.15 171 IP

Cabrera 10-10 3.98 171 IP

Trax 8-4 4.84 115 IP

Penn 2-3 5.38 90 IP

Team Era 4.78

Again, I wish I had the BP predictions to compare these to, but I went back through 5 plus pages of the board and didnt see any.

Take these with a grain of salt

Wow, Loewen and DCab with sub 4.00 ERA's and yet could only manage 12 and 10 wins respectively. Looks like the offense must have continued their current trend out of Spring Training.. Huff with an OPS of .700? But, I must say, if I had only seen the starting pitching projections, I never would have come up with an 80 win season.

[Malike]

Wow, Loewen and DCab with sub 4.00 ERA's and yet could only manage 12 and 10 wins respectively. Looks like the offense must have continued their current trend out of Spring Training.. Huff with an OPS of .700? But, I must say, if I had only seen the starting pitching projections, I never would have come up with an 80 win season.

Yeah, the offense struggled. Like I said though, this was just for fun and I'm not willing to back these predictions but I was semi interested in how close a computer that did the whole season in 90 seconds would be with the "professionals" who sit and and hawk stats all day long for the big companies.

[Baltimoron]

I did some more research on the accuracy of the PECOTA aided team record projections and came across a post on another forum where Nate is still a sometimes poster but used to be prolific indicating the the PECOTA aided team record projections have a standard deviation of about 8.7 games from actual results over the past four years.

The system has been refined over that time, so in theory the number should be a little lower, but we can't really conclude this is the case. Either way, its still pretty good as a perfect system has a standard deviation of 6.3 games.

The standard deviation reflects random random luck, like flipping a coin. We know its 50/50 but we also know over smalll sample size it won't always be half heads and half tails.

You get the 6.3 because a team expected to go 81-81 has a standard deviation of sqrt(162*.5*.5) = 6.3. For a team with a different expected record, it would be sqrt(162*p*(1-p)), where p is probability of winning a game.

[SteveA]

The line on most sportsbooks for an over/under for O's wins is 73.5. On one sportsbook I have an account, it's 73.5 and the odds on over and under are the same, which means there's been balanced betting (as much $ going on the under as on the over). On another sportsbook I know of, it's 70.5 but the odds are severely unbalanced (bet $100 on the under to win $150, but bet $180 on the over to win $100) which means that a high % of the money has been on the over 70.5, as you would expect.

Still, this indicates that the "collective wisdom" of the gambling public is pretty much saying 73 or 74. Now PECOTA is added to that. Yes, I realize that the collective wisdom would have had the Tigers in the 70s last year too, probably. Obviously some of these come out way wrong. But it sure is a lot of conventional wisdom pointing to something we don't want to hear or believe.

I'm considering jumping on that over 70.5 even though I have to bet quite a bit to win anything. So far, I have made just one future bet: Nationals under 68.5.

And I lost that one. Fortunately, I didn't be the over 70.5 for the Orioles!

Thought this thread was worth a bump. It's got some fun stuff in it....optimism by Sports Guy, lots of ridiculing Pecota projects that said Gibbons would decline, debate on whether Tampa would pass us this year, and the underlying assumption that we had good ptiching.