Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too much hype?

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 3:03 PM EDT

A while back I purchased Bill James' 2008 projections (March update) to evaluate players for my fantasy baseball league. This offseason, I carried out a review of BP's, Bill James' and CBS Sportsline's 2007 preseason projections. It really wasn't all that close. Bill James' 2007 projections came out in front by a mile. Relative to each other, they were all pretty good. But CBS overestimated hitter production across the board and BP underestimated it across the board. No one really distinguished themselves with the pitcher projections.

Having settled on a projection source, I wanted to see how Detroit and Cleveland were projected to matchup. At first glance, Detroit's offseason moves make it seem like they're going to handily beat us. That said, I've felt that Detroit aging roster should put them in line for some drops in production, thus mitigating the addition Cabrera. Factor in the continued development of Garko, Gutierrez, Asdrubal, etc..., and you should really have two evenly matched teams in Cleveland and Detroit. Here are the results.......

Note

Total runs scored determined by totaling the runs created by individual players

Offensive production normalized for 6300 plate appearances

Total earned runs allowed determined by totaling the earned runs allowed by individual pitchers

Pitching production normalized for 1450 innings pitched

Team runs allowed calculated by adding in 60 unearned runs to each team's earned run total (in line with the median and mean for recent seasons)

Bottom line: Even with all the fuss about Detroit's offseason moves, they look to be only marginally better (2 wins) than the Tribe

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Ben Francisco Projections

Francisco, Ben

RC: 21
RC/27: 5.35

BB: 12
K: 24

AVG: .275
OBP: .333
SLG: .442
OPS: .775

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 3:09 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

Thanks, this is an interesting read. But do you have any idea how Bill James estimated Plate Appearances? I have a hard time seeing, for example, Sheffield getting 566 PA or Guillen getting 623.

It looks to me like a healthy Detroit team has a small advantage as you pointed out, so the question to me is how likely they are to reach those PAs.

by jds16 on Mar 21, 2008 4:07 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

566 PA for Sheffield seems reasonable to me. My guess is Guillen's PAs assume that playing 1B is going to help his knees to the extent that he can take the field more often. I drafted Guillen for my fantasy team based on this gamble.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

Are these your estimates? Or straight out of James?

by dgcambridge on Mar 21, 2008 4:08 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

James

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

If it's subscription content, it's likely to come down.

I like the little touch where he reports the team earned run rate as ER/IP rather than ERA. That's like reporting a batting average like 30.0%.

by dgcambridge on Mar 21, 2008 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

Feel free to multiply ER/IP by 9?

Anyway, this isn't content off a website.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 6:34 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

Jones and Borowski both with ERAs under 4. Sometimes you have to wonder.

by supermarioelia on Mar 21, 2008 4:11 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

The sun is bound to shine on a dog's ass every once in a while, no?

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:13 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

Not that surprising. Here's JoBo's last three seasons per ERA:

3.82, 3.75, 5.07

Now here's the same three seasons per FIP:

4.09, 3.89, 4.08

And just for kicks, xFIP:

4.55, 4.84, 4.22

So per ERA, he had a bad year. But per FIP, he's been very, very consistent. And per xFIP, he actually had a damned good 2007.

Now, we don't have to believe FIP or xFIP are the be-all-end-all anything, but we do know that they're more stable than ERA. So it seems like the odds are he'll have another pretty good year per FIP and xFIP, and more often than not, that will translate to a decent year per ERA. It just didn't happen that way last season, that's all.

by Jay on Mar 22, 2008 3:30 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

Am I missing where the links are? I don't see them.

by talonk on Mar 21, 2008 4:15 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

To what? The numbers are behind a subscription firewall.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:12 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

Must be my work firewall then ...

All I see is Here are the results .....

Then absoultely nothing until

Note

Total Runs ....

I'll have to look at this diary when I get home I guess.

by talonk on Mar 21, 2008 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

Ah! The results are presented in the form of a bitmap publicly posted on flickr.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 6:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted

Thanks. The Cabrerra effect will be big for them, no doubt. I'm hoping that the regressions for Magglio and Granderson are more profound than this. In Granderson's case, it's hard to see him getting all those triples again. For the most part these look like fair estimates, except for Rodney's 70 ip and Sowers' 4.01 ERA.

by jhon on Mar 21, 2008 4:43 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted

Yeah. If anything they NEEDED Cabrera to counter the decline of an aging team. Cabrera is as good of a pick up they could have made. Actually, there probably isn't a better player in baseball in terms of production AND age.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions

Especially with Rodney's shoulder tendinitis

keeping him on the DL during the first week or two of the season. I'm not sure Detroit will feel that comfortable using him too often until he can prove he can remain healthy. Even though their bullpen options are questionable, I'm not sure they can afford to push him too hard until probably June at the earliest, which makes the idea of him reaching 70+ IP for the season seem unlikely.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

May the Tribe be great in 2008! :-)

by indiansfan on Mar 21, 2008 8:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

I honestly can't keep all of these projection systems straight. How many have we discussed over the past month and a half?

by supermarioelia on Mar 21, 2008 4:52 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance

i project we will talk about two more before the season starts.

by Brick. on Mar 21, 2008 5:31 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too

are the james'predictions for miggy and dontrelle pre-league-switch?

by emil minty on Mar 21, 2008 5:28 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too

Post. Its the March update.

by crazymoloh on Mar 21, 2008 5:32 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too

seems like a significant offensive jump for miggy from 24 to 25, given the league switch and the fact that the marlins'/tiggers' park pactors were more or less identical in '07.

by emil minty on Mar 22, 2008 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

These all tend to the mean, but in an actual season there are players who breakout well above the curve, and players who will totally collapse. Wheras our players are clustered on the right side of the age curve and thus more likely to have a randomly great "breakout" season, and more Tigers older all around and positioned for a catastrophe.

This is why I like our chances even better than the projections will. I don't know who, but one or more (I think it'll be two or three) of the guys in the Tigers' lineup will be of little or no value.

by jhon on Mar 21, 2008 6:57 PM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance:

this is a good point. predictions are supposed to be "safe bets". Variance will hit both teams, but there certainly appears to be more room for gains for us and losses for them due to the age of most of these players.

by hans on Mar 22, 2008 3:06 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

ah, good ole Bonderman. I like how James predicts roughly the same K:BB ratio as Bonderman had last year and an almost full run less in ERA (I know James didn't predict it, his system did). Another year, another sub 4.50 ERA prediction for him, the only thing is he's only once in the past four season produced an ERA lower than 4.50 (2006 at 4.08)while posting K:BB ratios over 2.0 each year. Keep predicting it, I'll believe it when I see it.

by hans on Mar 22, 2008 3:15 AM EDT reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

A lot of things look silly at first glance. Take a second look at Bonderman's numbers. This time dig a little deeper than the overall stats. Bonderman's FIP (fielding independent pitching) last year was 4.22. Clearly those K:BB (not sure why you excluded hits from the equation) numbers are PERFECTLY in line with a much lower ERA.

p.s: Also, don't forget Bonder pitched hurt the last 10-12 games of the season. His had very good numbers before he posted some horrendous stats with a bad elbow.

by crazymoloh on Mar 22, 2008 10:32 AM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

ah, but if you look back in the past four years, he's consistently posting ERAs over his FIP to the tune of almost 3/4ths of a run on avg. each year. Hence you can look at his FIP from each of the previous years and predict that he was somehow unlucky and that he should have better numbers the following year, but this has happened only once (2006) and even then his ERA overshot his FIP by 0.77. Every year its the same story.

by hans on Mar 22, 2008 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

For the past four seasons, Bonderman's ERA has failed to match to his FIP. In fact, he has been in the top five FIP-ERA in every one of those seasons. Has Bonderman just been consistently unlucky or is he not as good as pitcher as his peripherals suggest? I don't pretend to know that answer, but when other repeat offenders are Mark Hendrickson and Joel Piniero, I might tend to think the latter.

by ClarkM on Mar 22, 2008 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

exactly. Until he proves he can produce more in line with his FIP for at least two seasons, I'm thinking hes a little bit of a statistical outlier on some of these projection systems, he just consistently under-performs

by hans on Mar 22, 2008 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

It's a fault with the basic stats, not the projection system. Pitchers do not all tend to the same BABIP, which is essentially where FIP-ERA variance comes from. Some tend toward a higher BABIP, some toward a lower BABIP, but you need several seasons to start seeing through the noise of natural BABIP variance.

I agree with your basic conclusions about Bonderman.

by Jay on Mar 22, 2008 4:45 PM EDT up reply actions

Re: Detroit's Predicted Dominance: A little too mu

Like others have posted, I really think the addition of Cabrera and Willis isn't going to make nearly as big an impact as many people think. Detroit had a few players with career or close-to-career years offensively and I just can't see them approaching those numbers again (with or without a projection). If you factor in the regression, Cabrera will be filling in the gaps, rather than pushing them way over the top offensively. That and Willis is kinda average now, so no worries there. Also! there bullpen is already having trouble staying healthy and the season hasn't even started yet.

by Pronk33 on Mar 22, 2008 2:26 PM EDT reply actions