Baseball Prospectus released PECOTA 07
posted in projections |For those unfamiliar with it, PECOTA is the stats projection created at Baseball Prospectus. While no predictions can claim to be 100% accurate, PECOTA is a well-respected system and does a pretty nice job of it.
I’m sure many of the other Tigers bloggers are doing the same as me, glancing over it and making notes for things to look into more. Just a few notes and impressions that I formed.
1) Jeremy Bonderman has an 88% improve rate, which we didn’t need a machine to tell us for a 24-year-old of his caliber, but it’s always nice. Of course the stats it gave him are worse than his 2006 numbers. The way PECOTA works is based on similar players. Among those listed were former Tiger Bill Gullickson and current Padre Jake Peavy. Gullickson won 20 games for the Tigers, best I recall right now, that’s the last 20 game winner in Detroit.
1.5) Actually except for Kenny Rogers, the Tigers probable rotation all come back with a high chance of improving and pretty high upside.
2) Although it does see Justin Verlander coming back to earth some, a sophomore slump after so many innings. I agree.
3) Similar players to Andrew Miller were Carlos Zambrano and a certain Rich “Goose” Gossage. Not bad company for the young player, I’d say.
4) If you aggregated the numbers, it doesn’t really find a closer for the Tigers, giving Todd Jones surprisingly decent (by his standards!) numbers but few saves. Joel Zumaya has nice numbers but few saves. (by the way: similar player? Pedro Martinez)
5) Chris Shelton = good. Sean Casey = not as good. Although Casey has a 34% improve rate, Shelton’s weighted average puts his OPS greater than .800.
6) It hates Gary Sheffield. I think it’s underestimating him. But Curtis Granderson came back with a decent OPS of .800. If he stops striking out so much, maybe better. Ray Lankford came back as a similar player. Again, good company to be in for a young player. Speaking of young player, Cameron Maybin projects favorably and he may not even see the major league roster this year. Delmon Young, minus the bat tossing, and Elijah Dukes are the similar players.
7) Brandon Inge came up similar to former Tiger Travis Fryman. And he has some upside and chance of improvement too.
Craig Monroe? Low VORP. (Value over replacement). Marcus Thames? Much better. And Jose Conseco-esque, apparently.
9) Neifi Perez? 56% improve rate. Can’t help but improve on a black hole of suck, he still have negative VORP.
10) Overall I think the Tigers pitchers seem to fare better than the batters. Nothing new there.
Finally) I have to check out my young fantasy players, some real analysis in the coming days!
As always, I just have to endorse BP as something even a casual baseball fan would enjoy as a daily read. It costs less than quite a few sports magazines and is more informative.
Sphere It
Well, it does have Granderson’s strikeouts down by ~40, good improvement if it comes to fruition.
Sheffield was disappointing, comparing numbers maybe they should have kept Young :/
Kenny, Bonderman and Sheffield were the biggest changes/surprises I saw.