Expert's Repeatability

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DOUGHBOYS
Posts: 13088
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Expert's Repeatability

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Sun Feb 20, 2022 8:47 am

'Experts' who do projections have a pretty easy job in doing their figuring. For the most part, they follow the path and trends of a players past and project the same to happen in the future. Some are swayed by analytics. Heck, if throwing the ball hard from 60 feet, six inches, The Baseball Forecaster LOVES you. The crafty left hander, a thing of the past in their eyes.
But heck again, The Baseball Forecaster is similar to the crafty left hander. 'Experts' have sprouted up everywhere. We are busy people. Staying in one place for awhile and reading is asking a lot. Better to get our news through our ears via podcasts.
In a way, 'diluting' the expert pool itself. Anybody can start up a podcast. So the info really isn't coming from 'experts' all the time.
In fact, the 'news' or 'expertise' could be more bad than good.

Anyway getting back to these projections...
Jose Bautista hit 54 homers in 2010. It rocked projections. Of course, nobody expected Bautista to do this. Before, he had been a run of the mill utility player. The year before his 54 homers he had only swatted 13 4-baggers. We can't fault the 'experts'. Nobody can expect a 41 homer increase from any player. My beef with these 'experts' was their projections the following year.
Bautista's 54 big flies presented a problem these experts had never faced. A player who exceeded expectations 5-fold.
Should they project the 13-homer Bautista or the 54-homer Bautista for the following year.
They all chickened out. They projected 30ish home runs in covering their asses instead of speaking their minds about whether Bautista had truly become a prodigious home run hitter or a utilitized 13 big fly guy.
Bautista fooled them all.
He hit 43 homers the following year AND increased his batting average by 42 points from .260 to .302 which proved for the second year that projecting Bautista was an effort of futility.

Nowadays, these experts have a word that they like to fall back on to cover themselves in regards to players like Bautista.....REPEATABILITY.
Experts LOVE players who trend. They make for easy projections. They can whip out a player's projections in minutes for the following year.
Is that really helping their readers or listeners?
No, not really.
We players aren't stupid.
We've seen a player like Juan Soto. We know what he is capable of. What we want is a REAL opinion of him from an expert.
Instead in most cases, we get what he would do over a 150 game season given what he has done in the past and maybe trend him up a little because of his age.
Soto banged 29 homers last year. His career high being 34. So you guessed it, most experts are soothsaying close to the 34-homer mark for next year.
How does this help us?
It doesn't.
We can do that math.

When drafting, we have an idea how we're doing in the 10 categories.
Never, never in my long-legged life have I relied on these blah blah projections to count up my categories during a draft.
In my mind, those who listen to these projections are sheep (post to come later on 'sheep')
Also in my mind, I believe Soto will hit closer to 40-45 homers this year. And I would 'project' that in my home run category during a draft, not some 'expert's' blah blah cover my ass projection.
Repeatability doesn't fit for a player like Soto. I believe we have not seen his ceiling. Experts feel the same, but don't want to move from their comfort zone.
Instead, relying on mathematics.

Every year now, their is a Bautista-like player. A player who hits far more home runs than the year before. A player who says "Screw you, Repeatability!"
Last year, Brandon Crawford had a Bogaerts-type season.
We don't believe in his 'repeatability'.
AT 34 years of age, Crawford set career highs in AVG, HR, and SB. Incredible really.
'Experts' trended those numbers down of course and we as NFBC drafters don't really believe in his repeatability either as Crawford can be had in the middle of double digit rounds.

So what is the message of this post?
Follow what YOU believe. 'Experts' aren't helping us. They have to stay within the four walls of their box. Going outside the box is not in them.
I believe Soto will hit over 40 homers this year. Something he has never done.
I believe Kyle Tucker will be a 35-25 hitter this year. Something he has never done.
I believe Luis Robert will follow a Byron Buxton career path. Something he HAS done.
It really doesn't matter if you agree on these assessments or not. They are all personal beliefs and I will carry my personal beliefs in big drafts next month.
Hopefully, you will do the same.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

JohnP
Posts: 627
Joined: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:00 pm
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Re: Expert's Repeatability

Post by JohnP » Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:32 pm

Good advice Dan. I have been around you long enough to know you will be acting on your predictions. I think we need experts to tell us which experts have the expert stuff.

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