How’s the East look now?

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Who are the three best ballplayers on the Orioles + Yankees today?

I'd say the O's three best players are Gunnar, Adley, and Burnes in that order.

I'd say the Yankees three best players are Judge, Soto, and Cole.

[Sports Guy]

13 minutes ago, Pickles said:

No, I think the algorithm is at its worst when projecting young players and old players.  

Stop with all the absurd strawmen and respond to the things I'm actually saying.

We don't need all your hypotheticals.  Do you take the under on the O's at 87 wins?  And do you think the Yankees will finish 7 games ahead of the O's this year?

If you answer no to either one, then you agree with me and agree the projections are flawed.

 

I have said the whole time I think that these projection systems are bs. I’m not arguing the entirety of the system or if we should care about them. All I’m saying is it’s really stupid to basically penalize the idea behind the system that they reward success, which is what you are doing. Of course that’s how they are going to do it.  Why would you reward the unknown or failures over success?

Now, we agree that there are major flaws, which is why I think it’s bs but I can tell you this, I don’t think they are far off on their total wins number either, if you are doing it in a o/u scenario.  If I were setting the number, I would probably put it at 89.5, so I don’t think 87 is some off the wall take.  Now, I do think the Yankees number is too high but I also can acknowledge that the Yankees have a chance to have the best pitching in the sport and they added Soto, so I can see how they could really jump up. 

I think the Os are more complete right now but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees win the division because the Os pen was middling at best.

 

Edited February 7 by Sports Guy

[Just Regular]

2 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'd say the O's three best players are Gunnar, Adley, and Burnes in that order.

I'd say the Yankees three best players are Judge, Soto, and Cole.

That's the easy part!     Orioles + Yankees combined

Maybe you can angle Holliday in in a year.    I know Elias said Holliday 2B the other day, but it makes a good 3B contrast if you evaluate Holliday's present capabilites vs. DJ LeMahieu.     

And maybe Gunnar Henderson and Jordan Westburg are such close friends their keystone combo rapport cannot be replicated, so everybody just has to move around for the good of the team (sorry, Scott Boras).

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'd say the O's three best players are Gunnar, Adley, and Burnes in that order.

I'd say the Yankees three best players are Judge, Soto, and Cole.

16 fWaR for the Yankees in 2023 with Judge missing a lot of time.

13.1 for the Os.

May be tough for our best 3 to catch their best 3 if everyone is healthy. 
 

What will be interesting to see is if Judge’s value is pushed down or up because of the CF move. 

 

[Pickles]

4 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 

I have said the whole time I think that these projection systems are bs. I’m not arguing the entirety of the system or if we should care about them. All I’m saying is it’s really stupid to basically penalize the idea behind the system that they reward success, which is what you are doing. Of course that’s how they are going to do it.  Why would you reward the unknown or failures over success?

Now, we agree that there are major flaws, which is why I think it’s bs but I can tell you this, I don’t think they are far off on their total wins number either, if you are doing it in a o/u scenario.  If I were setting the number, I would probably put it at 89.5, so I don’t think 87 is some off the wall take.  Now, I do think the Yankees number is too high but I also can acknowledge that the Yankees have a chance to have the best pitching in the sport and they added Soto, so I can see how they could really jump up. 

I think the Os are complete right now but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees win the division because the Os pen was middling at best.

 

It's not about "rewarding success."

It would be equally absurd to accuse me of saying the algorithm "penalizes for upside."

It's about the algorithm being at its  worst when projecting old and young players. I'm not making generalized statements about the projections being BS.  I'm giving a very solid specific example.  I've given an example from the current Yankees team.  There are many more out there, but I don't think they're needed.  

Basic logic tells us that young and old players have the most variable in their performances.  Thus, they're going to be the most difficult to project.

[Pickles]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

16 fWaR for the Yankees in 2023 with Judge missing a lot of time.

13.1 for the Os.

May be tough for our best 3 to catch their best 3 if everyone is healthy. 
 

What will be interesting to see is if Judge’s value is pushed down or up because of the CF move. 

 

The top of the Yankees roster is probably better than ours.

Our advantage lies in roster spots 5-40.

[Just Regular]

Notable sharp fellow James Holzhauer put some stock in them building his bankroll in the five years after he finished college to establish a nest egg so he could refine his life's purpose to maximizing a Jeopardy! opportunity.

https://tht.fangraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/01/Diary-of-a-Mad-Sports-Bettor.pdf

[Pickles]

8 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

Notable sharp fellow James Holzhauer put some stock in them building his bankroll in the five years after he finished college to establish a nest egg so he could refine his life's purpose to maximizing a Jeopardy! opportunity.

https://tht.fangraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/01/Diary-of-a-Mad-Sports-Bettor.pdf

Cool article.

[Spy Fox]

Fangraphs' projections also just came out and this is how their model sees it. 

[Frobby]

20 minutes ago, Pickles said:

 

It's about the algorithm being at its  worst when projecting old and young players. 

That’s your feeling but I don’t know if the evidence would support it.  

My own feeling is that young players are harder to forecast than old players.  Old players by definition have a long track record.  We have tons of evidence about how a typical player’s performance will deteriorate after reaching a certain age.  Obviously some players decline faster than others, some become injury prone as they age while others don’t, but in general we know the pattern and there are known factors (e.g., height, weight, position) that tend to bend the age curve in a certain way.  For younger players, you don’t have nearly as much data to go on and the range of possible outcomes is much larger and more random, it seems to me.  I remember when PECOTA came out for the 2009 season, it projected that Nick Markakis would do significantly worse than in 2008.  To that point he’d improved by about 50 OPS points a year from his rookie season through 2008, and he was going into his age 25 season, so that projection seemed bonkers.  But it turned out to be mostly correct, and Markakis never approached his 2008 season again.  So, you never know.  
 

[Bahama O's Fan]

20 minutes ago, Pickles said:

The top of the Yankees roster is probably better than ours.

Our advantage lies in roster spots 5-40.

That's what I was thinking. How bout we compare the bottom 3 or 5 of the 26 man (projected) because we should have a decided advantage there.

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

That's what I was thinking. How bout we compare the bottom 3 or 5 of the 26 man (projected) because we should have a decided advantage there.

Why should we have an advantage there and will that advantage even matter?  Those guys aren’t likely make or break type guys.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

Fangraphs' projections also just came out and this is how their model sees it. 

One thing to remember about these projection systems is that they always pack the standings tighter than will actually occur.  That’s because they assume every team hits their Pythag and scores/allows the number of runs that their underlying stats would suggest.  But pretty much every year, a few teams will beat their Pythag by 5+ wins, or score 30-40 runs more than they “should” due to unusually good RISP hitting that year, etc.  And you never know which teams those will be.  

[Say O!]

Re: NYY.  Their big three of Judge/Soto/Cole have been so consistently dominant that I suspect the projection model volatility is narrower and/or the below 50% cases are still the three highest in the AL.

[Spy Fox]

Fangraphs also published an article today Six Takeaways From Our 2024 Playoff Odds Release.

The first takeaway is The AL East Is A Buzzsaw and here is their paragraph about the O's. 

Quote

The Orioles and Rays are in a dead heat for second, which might surprise some – the O’s just won a billion games, after all. But they outperformed their raw statistics meaningfully, and we’re projecting their competition to get tougher this year. Adding Corbin Burnes is obviously great, and we think they’re now one of the best run prevention teams in baseball, so mission accomplished there. Still, this is the projection of a club just below the game’s elite tier, which contains four teams: the Braves, Dodgers, Astros, and Yankees. The system simply doesn’t care that the O’s won 100 games last year; it projects each player individually and goes from there.