David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.

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BringVottoHome
13 years ago

Geeze, if Marcel is right, it’s going to be one brutal season for the Blue Jays.

The projections, for example, show Albert Pujols as the HR leader with 34 – so I’m hoping they’re a bit on the conservative side.

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Al Dimond
13 years ago
Reply to  BringVottoHome

LOL, if you RTFA there’s an explanation linked from the first page stating that the projections are definitively *not* projecting Pujols to lead in HR with 34.

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BringVottoHome
13 years ago
Reply to  Al Dimond

That’s still what the projection says, whether or not the creator stands by them.

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AustinRHL
13 years ago
Reply to  Al Dimond

No, it isn’t what the projection says. It says that Albert Pujols, on average, will hit 34 home runs this season, which is more than any other hitter’s median/mean outcome. It is almost guaranteed that someone in the Major Leagues will hit more than 34 home runs, because approximately half of the players will outperform their projections. It’s just like projecting teams’ finishes in a division: the teams’ median outcomes (which are what you are projecting) will probably be quite a bit closer than the actual results of the division at the end of the season, in which some teams will have underperformed and some will have overperformed. For instance, team A might be projected to win the most games on average, but that average would be only, say, 89 games. However, if you simulate the season, the winner of the division might win 92 games on average, but the division winner will not be the same team every time. It’s a crucial point that you absolutely have to understand when looking at a list of projections.

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tangotiger
13 years ago
Reply to  Al Dimond

Austin: wonderful post, thank you for being so clear and concise.

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intricatenick
13 years ago
Reply to  Al Dimond

Publish the distributions!

Let’s see means + standard errors then. If you want people to understand, make it easier. If you wanted to get creative I’m sure you could use R to gin up visualizations that could be attached to each projection value.

Say I click on Pujols .414 wOBA Marcel projection – I could see a distribution of the simulated results rather than just the simple mean. I’m sure this would be useful for fantasy as well. Rather than reading an article praising a player’s upside I could just note it in the distribution.

Just my two cents. Keep up the great work!

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Eric
13 years ago
Reply to  BringVottoHome

I actually thought the Jays projections were pretty decent, considering Marcel hates everyone. The pitchers projections looked solid, especially Drabek

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