"Funny Projections"?

[Gordon Gekko]

*There are a total of 30 MLB teams.
*Each team plays against another team 162 times during the season.
*Assuming a regular 162 game season for each team, there will be a total of 2,430 wins and 2,430 losses during the course of the season. This is a FACT.
*The latest pitching Baseball HQ projections have totals of 2,957 wins and 2,700 losses for all SP and RP.

[jbluestone]

Do u read any of their material?

[Michael@HQ]

GG,

Here's an excerpt from this page:

In handling playing time this way, any attempt to reconcile AB and IP on a global basis will result in a gross overstatement of team totals. This is by design, and will naturally improve as roles are firmed up as we get closer to Opening Day. Other touts, who "force" their projections into available playing time in order to create accurate Rotisserie values, are likely making arbitrary decisions about the sorting out of roles, and in the end, providing a less accurate view.

Eventually, anyone who is a free agent will be projected for close to no playing time (although how late did Pedro Martinez sign last year), with the other totals looking more reasonable on both a global and a teamwide basis as the possibility of off-season transactions shrinks.

[Gordon Gekko]

Do u read any of their material?

i normally don't read much of the HQ information. i basically look at the projections only.

[Gordon Gekko]

GG,

Here's an excerpt from this page:
Eventually, anyone who is a free agent will be projected for close to no playing time (although how late did Pedro Martinez sign last year), with the other totals looking more reasonable on both a global and a teamwide basis as the possibility of off-season transactions shrinks.

I certainly understand what you are saying. However, 524 phantom wins seems excessive to me. That's an extra 17 phantom wins per team.

So if I'm reading you correctly, come the end of March, the phantom 524 wins (or at least most of them) should disappear.

I'm assuming all the other categories are "inflated" as well.

[Michael@HQ]

Gordon Gekko,

I don't personally work on the projections, so someone else might speak up who knows more about it than I do. My sense is that as spring training approaches the number of wins excluding free agents who haven't signed yet will hit or be close to 2430. There'll still be a few free agents with wins in their projections that may throw off the total if you don't exclude them from your total.

[RAY@HQ]

I certainly understand what you are saying. However, 524 phantom wins seems excessive to me. That's an extra 17 phantom wins per team.

So if I'm reading you correctly, come the end of March, the phantom 524 wins (or at least most of them) should disappear.

I'm assuming all the other categories are "inflated" as well.

Michael's explanation above is entirely correct. To expand on it and to answer your question above, it's not categories that are inflated right now: it's playing time that's overestimated, and that in turn leads to overestimation of all of the counting categories.

The reason for this is exactly what's described in the link Michael provided above. And it does explain the overestimation entirely: if you look at our playing time projections right now for each team's pitching staffs at the moment, they run anywhere from about 110-125% playing time right now, just due to uncertainty about roles, remaining free agents, etc. If the current overage on Wins, for instance, is at 22% today, that's about what I would expect.

Each team's projected playing time will converge back to 100% at its own rate, as questions about roles and playing time get answered. We don't mandate that each team's analyst get back to that point until very late March, but some will get there sooner.

[krgrecw]

Ray, the White Sox have two closers projected for 30+ saves

[RAY@HQ]

Ray, the White Sox have two closers projected for 30+ saves

Yeah, that's reflecting a belief from our ChiSox analyst that they're looking to move Jenks. Not something we typically latch on to in the projections, but there is some evidence to suggest to back up the theory. We'll hedge that downward soon if it doesn't come to pass.