VegasWatch has a great analysis of pre-season team win predictions, comparing a bunch of different writers, baseball experts, ESPN “experts”, and computerized systems. I’ll get right to the point:
The statgeek approach beat the pants off the insiders. I can’t wait to read BPro’s “I told you so” article about the Chicago White Sox. Here’s the list of the average absolute error between projected and actual wins (current wins pro-rated to a full season).
5.0 Neyer 5.1 PECOTA 5.3 BPro Hit List 5.5 Crasnick 5.5 SPInteractive 5.7 Karabell 5.9 Caple 6.0 Gammons 6.1 Law 6.3 Stark 6.4 Kurkjian 6.4 Olney 6.8 Phillips
Rob Neyer, well done.
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I’ll stick up for the likes of Buster Olney and Tim Kurkjian a bit, though. In order to optimize projections, you need to understand a bit of statistics — actual record is both a product of talent and luck and the final standings are more spread out than any reasonable projection should guess. Guys like Olney and Kurkjian might be good at projecting the relative talents of teams, just not precise win totals. Steve Phillips, ex-GM? No excuses. He should go back to claiming the Mariners have a brilliant defense.
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Update: I asked VegasWatch to run the errors for some baseline projections: last year’s record, 81 wins for every team, and last year’s record regressed to the mean. Here’s how those “systems” did:
8.4 81 wins
8.1 2006 record
6.9 2006 Pythag
6.7 2006 Pythag regressed
So, yes, Steve Phillips pretty much performed like a smart monkey.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.