Well... Pecota doesnt like us at all...

[Lou]

40 minutes ago, Hubs said:

I’m an eternal optimist because being a pessimist is like praying for bad things to happen. Why live your life like that?

I will never understand how people live their lives being so pessimistic. And, no, they're not being realists. They're just miserable people. 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

8 hours ago, floplag said:

They have us as a barely 500 team with a negative run differential.

+4 Run differential

[ten ocho recon scout]

8 hours ago, Taylor said:

See you all in 2020!

We'll probably still be reading machado and harper mystery team rumors by then, so may as well.

 

[Troll Daddy]

77-87 wins is a fair guesstimate 

[Fish Oil]

Noe Ramirez will have the lowest WHIP on the staff? The WHIPS for the five starters are within a range of .05?

I'm not pretending to be an expert, but some of these numbers look like someone just threw darts at a board.

 

[Jay]

6 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Truly though, I think this season will once again boil down to the health and success of our rotation. 

yep.

[Jay]

4 hours ago, Lou said:

I will never understand how people live their lives being so pessimistic. And, no, they're not being realists. They're just miserable people Angels fans. 

 

[Docwaukee]

9 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

I'm having flashbacks to the Fangraphs FV article where someone not understanding how the process works reaches a faulty conclusion...   

Anyway, they are predicting the Angels offense to produce the third most runs in the AL, and a .340 OBP, .001 behind the Yanks and Sox....  Seems optimistic but given the ages of most of the offense it's nice to see.   Pitching is where they see problems... Given the short and injury laced track record of most of the pitching staff it makes sense, but since projection systems typically miss more on younger guys and players coming back from shortened seasons I guess there are reasons to be optimistic.

TL/DR, much like the Steamer projections that have the Angels as a 84 win team, Pecota likes the offense, hates the pitching...   This is one of those times where we gotta hope the front office's faith in Doug White and the analytics department proves to be right,and they end up making a difference.

Time will tell.

 

They actually don't hate the pen.  In fact, they've got us in the mid to upper AL for pen WAR.  

I think the biggest off season pivot this year was starting pitching.  I think they intended on going in a much different direction.  There was a lot of talk early about durability yet they went with 1yr deals on guys who are more upside guys than those you can count on for length.  

I think it tells you their stance on Keuchel and how they feel about next year's FA SP class.  

[Docwaukee]

22 minutes ago, Fish Oil said:

Noe Ramirez will have the lowest WHIP on the staff? The WHIPS for the five starters are within a range of .05?

I'm not pretending to be an expert, but some of these numbers look like someone just threw darts at a board.

 

there are no extremes.  it's the nature of a projection system.  

[WeatherWonk]

11 hours ago, Blarg said:

Baseball, because of roster, injuries, length of season and player volitilty both positive and negative, is an exercise in futility to predict its outcome at almost any given part of the season.

I look at these as simple baseline numbers that only represent abstract averages.

Man, that is so true. Injuries can change everything across 162 games. So can unexpected trades.

I realize that predictions and immediate results are the life-blood of baseball analytics and fantasy leagues these days. But it is often a path to disappointment, when random injuries or trades intercede. 

Let the season come to you;  rather that try and "job" the results, beforehand. 

Seriously, who predicts the results of the stock market, with any degree of accuracy, seven months out?

Stocks will move in concert with overall trends in the economy;  good or bad. Black swans and outlier results still happen. Baseball teams can live and die by injuries to their team or other injuries within their division. Unexpected signings or trades (like the Astros acquiring Verlander and Cole) can make huge swings in predictions.........or be completely unpredictable at all! Fewer variables than what affects stocks, have great effects in baseball. 

Regularly successful teams in baseball buy "insurance" against "black swans" (like major injuries), by making sure that they have the depth, or excess in quality, to overcome these occurrences. 

That's really not the Angel way, lately. Arte is hoping to strike it rich in penny stocks from the farm. 

[Docwaukee]

The more I've had a chance to digest the PECOTA projects, the more I think about how hard it's gonna be for the Angels pitching to be 70 runs worse than last year without catastrophic injuries.  

[Stradling]

9 hours ago, Dochalo said:

The more I've had a chance to digest the PECOTA projects, the more I think about how hard it's gonna be for the Angels pitching to be 70 runs worse than last year without catastrophic injuries.  

Yep.   

[TroutBaseball]

Is there a place that archives the pre-season PECOTA along with the actual end of season record?

[beatlesrule]

Pecota has been pretty much dead on the Angels record the last 2 years. 

[Inside Pitch]

15 minutes ago, TroutBaseball said:

Is there a place that archives the pre-season PECOTA along with the actual end of season record?

If you search for Pecota and a particular year you can find most of that info -- I did a quick search for 2015. http://www.edgevegas.com/2015-mlb-season-win-total-pecota-projections/  They had the Astros winning 77 games, The Royals 72, the Red sox winning 87 games...   The real numbers were -- 86, 95, and 77 respectively.   In the NL they had the Mets winning 82, the Cards 88, and the Dodgers 97 -- the ended up at 90, 100, and 92.   They missed hard on some teams but their NL predictions were solid overall.   Here are the 2016 predictions http://www.edgevegas.com/2016-mlb-season-win-total-pecota-projections-william-hill-futures/ 

This article attempted to grade out the various systems after the 2016 season https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2017/1/8/14189138/pecota-zips-steamer-marcel-projection-systems-graded, pretty solid read IMO and does a good just of pointing out the strengths/flaws of projection systems.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Inside Pitch

[Blarg]

The Strengths: They put a lot of thought into it

The Flaws: Every year shit happens you can't predict

 

[beatlesrule]

44 minutes ago, Blarg said:

The Strengths: They put a lot of thought into it

The Flaws: Every year shit happens you can't predict

 

They've been extremely accurate the last two years regarding the Angels.

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, beatlesrule said:

They've been extremely accurate the last two years regarding the Angels.

actually, they haven't.  The win/loss has been accurate but the only reason for their accuracy in record to record is because a bunch of people they didn't predict to get innings actually got innings.  In other words, they were right because injuries happened they didn't predict.  

[beatlesrule]

So their win/loss for this year might just be as accurate. They certainly have a good track record.

[Docwaukee]

6 hours ago, beatlesrule said:

So their win/loss for this year might just be as accurate. They certainly have a good track record.

it might be.  but only if we sustain injuries again.   which the projections are actually sort of predicting by the limited number of innings it has for our top 5 starters.  

to reiterate something I mentioned earlier, it doesn't take into account guys being replaced for poor performance.  The team isn't going to let Barria pitch to a 5 era over 110 ip unless there is no one else to toe the mound.  Canning or Suarez will replace him if they are able yet they have canning with a low 4's era in far fewer innings.  That doesn't make sense.  Why would you give a guy who's performing better that few innings and throw out the poor performed instead?

My point is that performance will dictate innings (for the pen as well).  Most players will perform within a certain variance.  If that variance is above their mean, they're gonna play more.  

So if most of the players stay healthy, the pitching staff will outperform those numbers.  

[eligrba]

11 hours ago, beatlesrule said:

They've been extremely accurate the last two years regarding the Angels.

How did the know about the future catastrophic injuries to the starting pitching when completing their algorithms?

They got lucky. 

[eligrba]

40 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

it might be.  but only if we sustain injuries again.   which the projections are actually sort of predicting by the limited number of innings it has for our top 5 starters.  

to reiterate something I mentioned earlier, it doesn't take into account guys being replaced for poor performance.  The team isn't going to let Barria pitch to a 5 era over 110 ip unless there is no one else to toe the mound.  Canning or Suarez will replace him if they are able yet they have canning with a low 4's era in far fewer innings.  That doesn't make sense.  Why would you give a guy who's performing better that few innings and throw out the poor performed instead?

My point is that performance will dictate innings (for the pen as well).  Most players will perform within a certain variance.  If that variance is above their mean, they're gonna play more.  

So if most of the players stay healthy, the pitching staff will outperform those numbers.  

Good point.

If players receive more playing time for playing above their mean, then their mean increases unfortunately creating a problem when the player begins playing below their new mean which may actually still be above their original mean but may be hidden by their extended time playing above the original mean causing some flops and wonks to demand a change, trade or signing of a free agent if the Angels are serious about winning.