Saturday, May 01, 2010
Updated CHONE projections for hitters
Posted by Sean SmithI've done them on baseballprojection.com, though it was quite a chore, more than I expected. It takes enough effort to get the data from the MLBAM gameday files into a form that I can use for projections, plus time to try and make sure I've got players with their new teams. I doubt I'll be able to do too much with this, I'm going to shoot for monthly updates. I may not get to the pitchers at all this year.
There was a methodology change, I was doing the regression before I applied the player's current age to the projections, and this resulted in lower than they should be projections for very old and very young players. The way I think it should be done is all players are regressed to their league's average, regardless of age. While the entire population of 42 year olds should hit worse than the population of 27 year olds, the 42 year olds who are in the major leagues should hit as well as the 27 year olds in MLB. This has generally been true over the course of history.
The above is part of the reason Jason Heyward had a -6 projection in my preseason file, and now is at +13. He's the perfect storm though, what he also has going for him is being regressed to the major league mean instead of the AA mean, and finally, he's done a pretty good job hitting for the Braves.
A few other guys off to great starts and upping their projections are Paul Konerko (+11 to +16) and Kelly Johnson (+2 to +8). Most players probably haven't changed much though. Want to know who else has a significant change? Then look through the file, and have fun.
Sean Smith is a lifelong Angels fan despite never visiting the west coast until April 2006. His work can also be found at baseballprojection.com and Anaheim Angels All the Way and he can be contacted by email.
Thanks Sean. It looks like the projections have a lot of faith in Miguel Olivo. I’m actually debating between carrying him, Doumit, or Olivo right now. Any thoughts?