Every projection system has its wins and losses. In that 14-year span from the post above, they were off by about 7 wins per season on average. The biggest misses were in the seasons where the Royals were either very bad or really good. So it doesn't handle the extremes very well. I think we can say that about every projection system.
I think it's also notable that they under-projected the Royals' win total in all but 3 of those seasons. I'd love to see an analysis of whether that kind of systematic pessimism is generally true for all teams.
I have a pet theory that the projection systems are generally biased against young teams and small market teams, because younger players have less data on which to base a projection (duh) and small market teams because those teams are more likely to rely on undervalued skills like speed, defense, and relief pitching, as opposed to slugging and high-dollar starting pitchers.
In other words, I ain't mad at the computers, I think the programmers have more work to do.
I think that most of these systems, generally speaking, actually play it kind of right down the middle. Safe. I do agree with you on younger players with a limited major league track record. Those guys are often misses for all projection systems.
Is there any analysis of how accurate PECOTA ratings tend to be? Because they always seem awful and I don’t understand why they get so much attention
A couple of years ago, Max at Royals Review had a decent list of how PECOTA fared with the Royals and their actual win totals.
https://www.royalsreview.com/2023/2/14/23599378/projection-systems-have-royals-as-one-of-the-worst-teams-in-baseball
Every projection system has its wins and losses. In that 14-year span from the post above, they were off by about 7 wins per season on average. The biggest misses were in the seasons where the Royals were either very bad or really good. So it doesn't handle the extremes very well. I think we can say that about every projection system.
I think it's also notable that they under-projected the Royals' win total in all but 3 of those seasons. I'd love to see an analysis of whether that kind of systematic pessimism is generally true for all teams.
I have a pet theory that the projection systems are generally biased against young teams and small market teams, because younger players have less data on which to base a projection (duh) and small market teams because those teams are more likely to rely on undervalued skills like speed, defense, and relief pitching, as opposed to slugging and high-dollar starting pitchers.
In other words, I ain't mad at the computers, I think the programmers have more work to do.
I think that most of these systems, generally speaking, actually play it kind of right down the middle. Safe. I do agree with you on younger players with a limited major league track record. Those guys are often misses for all projection systems.
I'm just going to hope that Bobby has some of the same pettiness that Patrick Mahomes seems to have.
' that's why they play the game!
Somehow forgot just how great spring can be til I saw those clips - thank you
Barry Bonds posted three consecutive 30/30 season from 1995-1997.
Ahhh, yes. He's the only one, right? That's probably what I was forgetting to remember.