Bill James Projections

by davidsabin on Nov 18, 2008 11:08 PM EST Comment 13 comments

I have been looking at some of the Bill James projections for 2009; I have never really used them before. It seems like they are a little more on the liberal side as compared to Marcel and Chone. I think I would give him credit for at least trying to incorporate some common sense rather than just spitting out numbers.

What are your opinions on the Bill James projections? Some projections will be off, I realize this, but from past years does he seem excessively optimistic or in the ball park?

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Excessively optimistic

If every hitter performed at Bill James’ level, you would see almost every team in baseball score 1000+ runs. Take his predictions with a grain of salt.

I find Zips to have a lot more value, and those stats are free. If you want to pay, PECOTA is the best around IMO. And you cannot beat the player cards, with trend analysis, likelihood of breakout/decline, etc.

by guru4u on Nov 18, 2008 11:59 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

HQ

IMO HQ has the best projections.. Updated weekly i believe. IS pecota updated at all after the season starts?

by krgrecw on Nov 19, 2008 12:22 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Ive always heard Shandler was good...

and I was going to buy it last year, but BP’s articles clinched it for me. BP is soooo much more than fantasy.

How worth it is Shandler?

PECOTA is not updated weekly, but it is updated regularly and the fantasy stough is updated roughly every week or two from the time it comes out until the mid/end of April…

by alskor on Nov 19, 2008 12:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Also, HQ is pretty damn expensive.

by alskor on Nov 19, 2008 12:33 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

HQ

ever since i got my first Forecaster 4 years back i have been in love with that site. It can get pretty expensive but is worth it to me. weekly updated projections. IF joe Blow goes down for 6 weeks that weekend they will reproject his stats and also the player who will benefit from the injuries Every night you get a daily run down of a couple players in the AL and the NL and how they did for the day and if the improvement was real or just luck. Than on top of that everyday you get a specific topic covering a specific category with player list.: Power hitters, speed, bullpen buyers guide, starters, batting average, minors and they have a daily call up where all the players that get called up that day get talked about and graded. The forums are a big plus.. Massive, massive forums. TOpics on all kinds of fantasy gaming, minors, major. Hell YOu can post a topic about Pablo Sandovals 2009 worth and 2 days later have 2 dozen replies to it . They have custom draft valuators. . They judge players on underlying skills not the stats they produce. I’d reccommend it. They don’t have the same kind of articles that BP may have but how much stuff in the BP articles can you get on ESPN or yahoo?

by krgrecw on Nov 19, 2008 1:01 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Alright, youve got me seriously considering it

One thing that turned me off last year… didnt Shandler sell the site…? Or it was rumored someone was buying it…?

by alskor on Nov 19, 2008 1:15 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yes

But supposidly it will allow him to have even more time to update the site and be more active within it. Atleast that is kind of how it was put to me. I’ve been on that site for around 5 yrs and didnt really see a difference last year(which I believe he had sold it coming into the 08’yr). All in all, it is my usual go to site when looking at what a player is doing over the last week, month and yr to date. I also enjoy the book, which i would buy before the site, and you can download the proj’s by just buying the book and using the code in it.

by TexasHeat on Nov 19, 2008 9:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I can vouch as a loyal HQ subscriber that this is all true and then some

Also in reference to the selling, i believe he sold it to a marketing group, they dont really get involved on the actual product, just the appearance and well marketing…. i havent noticed any change.

The forums by the way are worth the money alone… because of the price point you dont deal with the trolls that you deal with well… here, and HQ employees are always on and responding to posts… its really awesome.

Check out my baseball analysis blog FANalytics

by jbluestone on Nov 19, 2008 11:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i agree that shandler is right at the top, if not the best.

free chris getz!

by larry on Nov 19, 2008 9:59 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Bill James Projections

Three things to note:

1) Theyre usually excessively optimistic, but its a good way to find sleepers.

2) Rookies typically get eye-poppingly good projections. Take them with a grain of salt.

3) Ignore the pitcher projections – James doesnt have much to do with them. He explained before that he doesnt believe it was productive to make pitcher projections because theyre so inaccurate, but he lets other people come up with a set (usually similar to ZiPS & CHONE) because people expect them. The hitter projections are his bread and butter.

4) One strength is the projections for stars/superstars. I tend to find James does best on these. ZiPS & CHONE both seem to lose perspective after a point and give in to a steep regression to the mean. Thus ZiPS & CHONE never seem to predict the league leader to have more than 32 HRs or so… or 105 Rs/RBIs.

The James projections have their weaknesses, but if you understand them they can be really useful. I do look forward to them coming out each year. I do think ZiPS is the best of the free systems. I subscribe to BP and get the PECOTAS (BP is well worth the money!) and those are much better than the other projections, but they dont really have a single number set/slash stat line. Everything is expressed in terms of probabilities. They do put up a weighted mean projection line for fantasy purposes… and that’s the real prize. The PECOTA weighted means trump all my other data evaluating players.

by alskor on Nov 19, 2008 12:29 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Bill James

His VORP (Value Over Replacement Projections) is about 68.7.

by The Colonel on Nov 19, 2008 4:41 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Well, you also have to realize

That marcel and Chone and pecota are pessimistic because they regress everyone to the middle, so basically they are designed to be statisticall accurate… e.g. they will nail the middle 68% to a T, but will struggle on the high end and low end of the spectrum.

The truth is that all the projection systems end up really really close in over accuracy, no matter how you measure it… The beauty of HQ, is it moves you away from projections to buying skills…. Because projections are inherently inaccurate, pay for enough skills and you will get what your looking for.

Check out my baseball analysis blog FANalytics

by jbluestone on Nov 19, 2008 11:58 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

BaseballHQ

What kind of stuff is available this time of year? Im strongly considering subscribing – based on the reviews you guys just gave me – but should I wait until like February or so? Is there new content year round…? Or do they start to gear up for 09 at some point…?

by alskor on Nov 20, 2008 2:20 AM EST reply actions 0 recs