Update [2007-2-16 17:48:28 by lboros]: kip wells community projection is up. [end update]
the edmonds numbers in a moment. first, a few housekeeping items:
- still time to fill out a sim tournament bracket; send it to Cardinal70 at cardinal70@gmail.com.
- and if haven't yet entered Valatan's preseason contest, i've reopened the comments in that thread. as a spam-combatting measure, comments are automatically closed one week after posting; i've manually lifted the ban, so you can go back and post your entries if you want. i'll leave that open until february 28, when the first spring training game is played.
- speaking of which: i've posted a general solicitation for in-person reportage from spring training. if you're down there for any length of time --- a day, a week, whatever --- and feel like sharing your impressions with the VEB community, post a diary or e-mail me at vivaelbirdos@yahoo.com.
- jeff sackmann of the Hardball Times has posted his rankings of the big-league farm systems; he's got the cardinals on the rise at #23, a nice change from the days when every rater put st louis in the bottom two or three. Baseball Prospectus' kevin goldstein had the cards at #27 the other day; even that represents an improvement.
- speaking of sackmann, an SB Nation colleague (Brew Crew Ball) and the creator of the indispensable Minor League Splits --- he's launching a new site, College Splits, that promises college-baseball data in greater detail than you've ever seen. the site should be fully functional by june's amateur draft --- and, given the cardinals' heavy emphasis on college draftees in recent years, College Splits could be a valuable tool. keep an eye on it.
- last preliminary: charlie wilmoth, VEB's SB Nation blog brother at Bucs Dugout, has a cogent preview of the cardinals; worth a look.
| AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBI | R | |||
| 07 proj | 425 | .272 | .373 | .503 | 25 | 86 | 79 | ||
| 06 act'l | 350 | .257 | .350 | .471 | 19 | 70 | 52 |
and here's the range in each category:
| AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBI | R | |||
| high | 500 | .315 | .460 | .588 | 32 | 112 | 105 | ||
| low | 340 | .249 | .320 | .398 | 17 | 62 | 52 | ||
| 2006 | 350 | .257 | .350 | .471 | 19 | 70 | 52 |
only the most pessimistic among us sees edmonds' numbers continuing to decline; as a community, we are almost certain that 2006 was the bottom of the barrel for edmonds. i got curious and decided to check the percentage of individuals who forecast that edmonds' numbers would decline, category by category:
| AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBI | R | |||
| decline | 1 | 2 | 7 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 0 | ||
| same | 1 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| increase | 98 | 97 | 86 | 89 | 96 | 97 | 99 |
you're gonna look at that and immediately think: typical hometown forceast. that's what i thought, for sure. but then i compared our aggregate numbers against those projected by the best-regarded and -established systems, and i discovered that we're anything but pie-in-sky optimists blinded by loyalty to a declining ballplayer. on the contrary, our projection is one of the more grounded ones out there:
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | | | AVG | OBP | SLG | |||
| Bill James | 488 | 85 | 130 | 32 | 1 | 30 | 90 | 86 | | | .266 | .380 | .520 | ||
| ZIPS | 401 | 69 | 105 | 28 | 1 | 24 | 76 | 71 | | | .262 | .379 | .516 | ||
| Marcel | 388 | 67 | 104 | 26 | 1 | 23 | 74 | 64 | | | .268 | .372 | .518 | ||
| Shandler | 389 | 68 | 103 | 25 | 1 | 23 | 78 | 66 | | | .265 | .372 | .511 | ||
| VEB | 425 | 79 | 116 | 21 | 1 | 25 | 86 | 69 | | | .272 | .373 | .503 | ||
| CHONE | 396 | 70 | 100 | 22 | 1 | 22 | 65 | 68 | | | .253 | .365 | .480 | ||
| PECOTA | 340 | 57 | 86 | 17 | 1 | 19 | 60 | 55 | | | .253 | .357 | .476 | ||
| AVERAGE | 404 | 71 | 106 | 24 | 1 | 24 | 76 | 69 | | | .263 | .371 | .504 |
these are ranked in descending OPS order; of the 7 projections, ours is only the 5th-rosiest, and it's almost spot-on the overall averages in OBP and SLG. we project the highest number in only 1 category (batting average). with a couple of exceptions, these other handicappers agree with the vast majority of us that edmonds will improve in every major category; none sees edmonds declining from last year.
VEB community, you done good.
(by the way, i interpolated to derive the VEB totals for walks and doubles; vis-vis triples, i simply assigned edmonds 1, since that's what everybody else was projecting him for.)
VEB predicts more playing time for edmonds than all but 1 other forecaster. since the range of at-bats is so broad (james forecasts 40 percent more playing time than PECOTA does, and VEB forecasts 25 percent more), why don't we index everything to a set number of at-bats --- 400 is nice and round, and close to the average. i'll add runs created and RC/27 to the table; now we get:
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | | | AVG | OBP | SLG | | | RC | RC/27 | |||
| Bill James | 400 | 70 | 106 | 26 | 1 | 25 | 74 | 70 | | | .266 | .380 | .520 | | | 78 | 7.19 | ||
| ZIPS | 400 | 69 | 105 | 28 | 1 | 24 | 76 | 71 | | | .262 | .379 | .516 | | | 77 | 7.04 | ||
| Marcel | 400 | 69 | 107 | 26 | 1 | 24 | 76 | 69 | | | .268 | .372 | .518 | | | 77 | 7.11 | ||
| Shandler | 400 | 70 | 106 | 25 | 1 | 24 | 80 | 68 | | | .265 | .372 | .511 | | | 76 | 6.98 | ||
| VEB | 400 | 74 | 109 | 19 | 1 | 24 | 81 | 65 | | | .272 | .373 | .503 | | | 75 | 6.99 | ||
| CHONE | 400 | 71 | 101 | 22 | 1 | 22 | 66 | 69 | | | .253 | .365 | .480 | | | 70 | 6.29 | ||
| PECOTA | 400 | 67 | 101 | 21 | 1 | 22 | 70 | 65 | | | .253 | .357 | .476 | | | 68 | 6.14 |
that's a pretty consistent set of projections, no? give him 400 at-bats, and all parties agree that edmonds will create 68 to 78 runs --- which would make him worth an extra win or two in 2007. may the GOB make it so.
there's clearly a lot of interest in doing further community projections. i've had a couple of excellent offers from people to help out with compiling, etc., so let's push forward and see how the interest holds up. if you guys have enough stamina to project the whole lineup and (as various people suggested) come up with a VEB community pythagorean projection, i'm game for that.
however, i don't want the projections to completely take over the front page; there will be other things to talk about as spring training unfolds. so i'll do some of the projections here, and others in a diary (with a front-page pointer, so nobody misses it). later today i'll post a projection diary for one of the pitchers, and it'll stay up all weekend; i'll put up those results monday and then move forward until a) we've done the whole team, or b) y'all get sick of community projections.