Originally posted by GOD Loves You:
quote:Originally posted by sportsbettingman:
For those who laugh at projections...what do you do while drafting?
Draft the players I want to build my team. I have a certain way I attack each individual draft; I don't need to have any projections in front of me to know what I am doing, I know beforehand.
I and many people who are successful at playing fantasy baseball(not claiming greatness myself ) can look at a certain player and give a ballpark figure on what they will "probably" achieve for the season.......but to actually sit down and create projections for every single player really is the ultimate example of futility.
28 HR's for so-and-so....really? That exact number? Not 26 or 29, 28, exactly? Like Dan said, almost every single projection is adding or subtracting a few from this stat category and taking an average of the past few years. Rarely do you see anything aggressive, unless it's from the next hot rookie.
Depending on how you look at it, there's 750-1280 players on MLB rosters, can you honestly tell me it's worth the time to sit down and forecast the future for each and every one? I understand why the media/websites do it, but individuals......
[/QUOTE]Let me ask you a question: What is worth more--a guy who gets 20 homers and 10 steals or a guy with 10 homers and 20 steals? How about a guy with 40 saves vs. a guy with 17 wins? You can ballpark it but if you want to understand player values you need real numbers.
Going back to the example, if I project a guy with 20 homers, do I think that's what he'll absolutely hit? Of course not. But I need to do it for a few reasons. One is so that I have something to add. I'm going to target total numbers for my team. You can't add plus power and medium power. Nor can you add 20-30 home runs plus 20-30 home runs, but you can say 25 + 25 and know that you have around 50. Maybe it's really 40 or 60 but it is a way to estimate.
Getting back to that 25 that means 20-30. Let's say I have a guy who I think can get up over 25 but not quite hit 30. I know I might be wrong but that is my best guess. I'm not going to put him down for 25 just because you think I should have nice round numbers. I'm going to put him down for 27 or 28. My expectation is not that he'll hit exactly that but rather that he's just as likely to hit 25 as he is to hit 30, and also just as likely to hit 20 as he is to hit 35. If I put him down for 25 I'm saying he is as likely to hit 20 as he is to hit 30 and that is not a true representation of my thinking.
Once I have that number I put it together with my other numbers for the player and I can create a value for the guy. Some people do valuations in terms of $ values. Basically, you create a system in excel that can tell you the value of players even if they have completely different qualities. Excel doesn't understand plus power so I have to feed it a number. Now maybe this sounds pointless to you but even using numbers you'd find acceptable I will have a very good idea about which of Juan Pierre or Adam Dunn will be worth more next year. Will you? Really? Are you sure about that?
[ February 13, 2010, 12:04 PM: Message edited by: bjoak ]
Chance favors the prepared mind.