PECOTA Hates the Tigers

[HeyAbbott]

After seeing the projections thus far, I am very tempted to put money down on the Tigers beating the 79 win projection by Vagas odds makers, although I realize the odds will change. I see an 84 win team.

[Cruzer1]

10 hours ago, casimir said:

The Kool Aid was Honolulu blue.

Not allowed to say that anymore!!!!!!!!!!!

[chasfh]

20 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

So here is the argument to back off and just let Javy be Javy: He has put up an OPS greater than 800 three times in his career, he's averaged 170 Ks in those three seasons. IOW, the argument would be that Javy is his best self when he is swinging away with abandon and in *his* career there is zero evidence that he is better when he Ks less. But clearly, any fool can see he would be a better hitter if he were more selective and shorter to the ball. So what is the right answer?

The right answer is get the most out of the 30-year-old that he is capable of giving you.

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, casimir said:

The Kool Aid was Honolulu blue.

Which is probably being discontinued this summer.

[chasfh]

You can see why PECOTA is uncertain about the prospects for forward progress for this team for 2024.

Looks to the algorithm like a lot of short-tenure guys as well as a rookie projected for an up-the-middle position, a struggling erstwhile superstar, and a bunch of new free agents/trade pickups with one year on their deals.

All that said, I think it would be a stunning reversal for us to win only 75 games, unless we start racking up the injuries. But I think if we can get this group to spend more than 90% of their service time outside the infirmary, I think we should have at least a puncher’s chance to win the thing.

Edited February 8 by chasfh

[Edman85]

9 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

We can take any projection with a grain of salt  At least PECOTA and the like are unbiased.  I use them as baselines.  Here is what you can expect to happen if everybody performs to historical norms.  It doesn't stop there though. 

Who do you think will do better or worse in cases where the projection is uncertain.  For example, the projections are usually conservative on young players.  How many wins can the Tigers add if Keith has a breakout season?  How many wins can they add if Flaherty bounces back? It needs to have an unbiased baseline though and I find the projections useful for that.  

There's plenty of reasons for projections to be off the last few years. The "player development revolution" if you want to call it that increases variability. Small samples of 2020 are throwing things off, as are the injury rate increases in that time (which also affects 2021-23 sample sizes some). Also, some teams are better at finding pitch-level matchup splits to exploit, which I'm sure the projection systems may not be able to tease out, and apply when they change teams or have to play less advantageously out of necessity. I do think PECOTA is the best, because I have been impressed with some of the WOWY (with our without you) techniques they have shown that allow them to tease out some matchup and weather data and really cut through the fat at the minor league level.

[Edman85]

27 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You can see why PECOTA is uncertain about the prospects for forward progress for this team for 2024.

Looks to the algorithm like a lot of short-tenure guys as well as a rookie projected for an up-the-middle position, a struggling erstwhile superstar, and a bunch of new free agents/trade pickups with one year on their deals.

All that said, I think it would be a stunning reversal for us to win only 75 games, unless we start racking up the injuries. But I think if we can get this group to spend more than 90% of their service time outside the infirmary, I think we should have at least a puncher’s chance to win the thing.

Well, Pecota doesn't use Roster Resource.

This is the Pecota playing time projections:

[Edman85]

And for Fangraphs projections, playing time projections are here:

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=6#RP

[gehringer_2]

If I were forecasting it,  I'd wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see Lipcius or Sands at all, and I think Ibanez will play more than McKinstry and Jake will get >400 AB,

Edited February 8 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

27 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

If I were forecasting it,  I'd wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see Lipcius or Sands at all, and I think Ibanez will play more than McKinstry and Jake will get >400 AB,

If Ibanez plays like he did last year, he should get the majority of playing time at third base.  

[SoCalTiger]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

If Ibanez plays like he did last year, he should get the majority of playing time at third base.  

But doesn't that make it difficult to determine if Verling is a long term option for third base ? I would defer to playing Verling at third every day . My mind set going in would be to determine if Verling is full time third baseman going forward. I would play Ibanez at second base or DH against lefties where he does real damage. If in time Verling proves not to be the answer at third then sure play Ibanez there until fixture is found ( Jung ? ).

But I think Hinch will agree with you. 

[gehringer_2]

Neither Vierling nor Ibanez may be able to hold down 3rd on a regular basis - it's yet to be determined. We may yet see Vierling back in an OF corner, Ibanez at 2nd and Keith at 3rd - esp maybe later in the season if Keith's arm is trending positive. Or even Kreidler if he finds any hit. 

[casimir]

I like that PECOTA plays the sim through the schedule and goes with those results.  You can see that the run differential isn't necessarily correlated to winning percentage.  On the other hand, FanGraphs seems to take the run differential and apply the win loss record based on that.  I didn't calculate any team just to check, but it looks like the forecasted record might be pythagorean.

The noticeable result is that FanGraphs seems to have a tighter range of win loss records.  All teams are within 64 and 97 wins.  PECOTA has a couple of teams above 100 wins and a couple of teams below 60 wins.

Its just kind of fun to look at.  We can poke holes at the results and how they were arrived at.  Playing time is a good variable to criticize.  There are still a few free agents to be factored in, teams have spring training to get through, there will be injuries, trades, disappointments, surprises, etc, before teams break camp.  And even then, these forecasting systems can have better inputs to use, but there will be more injuries, trades, disappointments, surprises, etc, throughout the season to skew the actuals from the projections.

[Motor City Sonics]

On 2/7/2024 at 6:21 AM, casimir said:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

75.6-86.4?  3rd place in the division?  Is Keith Law working for Baseball Prospectus? 

 

[Edman85]

On 2/7/2024 at 6:21 AM, casimir said:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

75.6-86.4?  3rd place in the division?  Is Keith Law working for Baseball Prospectus? 

He used to https://www.baseballprospectus.com/author/keith_law/

[Motor City Sonics]

THIS GUY HATES CANS !!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[Tiger337]

4 hours ago, Edman85 said:

He used to https://www.baseballprospectus.com/author/keith_law/

They let pretty much anyone write there:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/author/lee_panas/

from 14 years ago.  

[RandyMarsh]

I'd imagine it's hard for any projection system to nail down a team like the Tigers that is so dependent on players that are completely unproven or have such small samples like say a Tork or Greene. In Tork's case it's not super small but he suddenly turned into this major power threat in the last few months of the season so in that regard it's small and Greene has been productive when he plays but has missed so much time already.

Pitching wise we have Maeda who probably isn't that hard to project but everybody else in the rotation just doesn't have much of a track record and/or is oft injured in the case of Skubal. 

These are the biggest reasons why the Tigers are probably one of the most volatile teams to project or predict this year and could be one of those teams where it looks like the projection systems got way wrong at the end of the year in the good or bad side. Lets hope it ends up showing that they were way too down on us. 

[gehringer_2]

20 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I'd imagine it's hard for any projection system to nail down a team like the Tigers that is so dependent on players that are completely unproven or have such small samples like say a Tork or Greene. In Tork's case it's not super small but he suddenly turned into this major power threat in the last few months of the season so in that regard it's small and Greene has been productive when he plays but has missed so much time already.

Pitching wise we have Maeda who probably isn't that hard to project but everybody else in the rotation just doesn't have much of a track record and/or is oft injured in the case of Skubal. 

These are the biggest reasons why the Tigers are probably one of the most volatile teams to project or predict this year and could be one of those teams where it looks like the projection systems got way wrong at the end of the year in the good or bad side. Lets hope it ends up showing that they were way too down on us. 

If I had to choose I guess I'd rather go into a season with the possibility of upside surprise rather than waiting for the disappointment of how much our aging stars had fallen off. But that's just me being jaded by watching decades of too old teams.

And even aside from analytics uncertainty, it's just human nature in the media and even among the players themselves to pay the most attention to the guys with established track records, even after the higher probability is that Father Time is going to take his toll. But there are always enough guys that do manage to stay good late into careers that teams full of stars, even aging ones, will still get the heaviest buzz.

Edited February 10 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

On 2/10/2024 at 12:11 PM, gehringer_2 said:

And even aside from analytics uncertainty, it's just human nature in the media and even among the players themselves to pay the most attention to the guys with established track records, even after the higher probability is that Father Time is going to take his toll. But there are always enough guys that do manage to stay good late into careers that teams full of stars, even aging ones, will still get the heaviest buzz.

Absolutely true of the national guys, which is what I think you might be talking about, right? Aside from the fact that most of them are located in major coastal markets like NY or SF, which leads to regional bias, it’s simply impossible for national baseball panelists to keep up with the inner workings, and thus the vagaries, of 30 different organizations. Especially true of those organizations that have been ciphers for the better part of a decade. Once the Tigers either start nailing pennants to the wall, or else sign/develop a charismatic generational talent, then we will start getting plenty of national attention.

[chasfh]

At least someone doesn’t hate the Tigers so much.

https://theathletic.com/5259377/2024/02/13/detroit-tigers-2024-top-20-prospects-keith-law/