Happy PECOTA Day!

[Ducksnort]

7 hours ago, Orlando said:

These projections have me sick to my stomach. 

Don't let it. It's bullshit. Plain and simple. We know what this team is capable of.

[poppysox]

19 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

Project whatever win/loss record you'd like. There shouldn't be 7 AL clubs projected to have a better median record. 

Seems obvious.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I think we have many players who are ascending and it appears Pecota is weighted too heavily on career vs. recent performance.  For example, Tim Anderson is much better than a 2  win player and basic scouting over the past two years would support that notion.  Unless you think he’ll forever be hampered by COVID, then Yoan’s projection should be more heavily weighted on his 2019 production than anything else.  And how in the world could any model predict 5 wins total as the median outcome for Giolito & Lynn?  Hopefully I’m reading something wrong here, because if true that’s just plain embarrassing.

With Tim it's not about ascending. It's that he succeeds in a way that no one else does. Projection systems will never fully capture his value because it judges him vs the avg player. I agree Tim and Vaughn projections are low and they're due to data issues; vaughn being not enough data and Tim being an incredibly unique skill set that succeeds in a very unprecedented way,

I think the giolito one isn't great because it's still utilizing data from when he was a different pitcher entirely but it's really only a win shy of most others that view him highly. Lynn's on the other hand isn't terrible. Father time gets everyone and expecting regression at this age and beyond isn't ludicrous. Moncada is a tricky one. I think covid mattered but Yoan has to show that 2019 wasn't a fluke before its fair to say that is a poor projection. Frankly his 99th percentile being the same as madrigal is comical though but that brings me to madrigal who BP is much higher on than most so for some players they may understate there are ones they also may overrate.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

Interesting discussion. There are those who believe in this team as we all should and there are those who point to depth and strength of competition as factors to say we were not as good as our record suggested last year.

It's pretty easy to straddle the fence here and see both sides as having valid points. There is a lot of variance involved in young teams and it's very difficult to project them.

We all want to believe that Moncada is 2019 Moncada , Abreu is still an MVP,  Madrigal will still hit .300 and eliminate his mistakes, Keuchel and Lynn regression isn't as bad as predicted, Robert will be worth 6+ WAR,  the young relievers are as good as we saw last year, Eloy and Timmy continue to be a monster hitters,  Vaughn can hit as well as McCann did last year, Crochet can stay healthy ,  Katz is capable of miracles and LaRussa is a positive.

I am very much looking forward to see how it all plays out. There are no "for sure" outcomes in my head.

“Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game. The American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’ You could look it up.”

“I’m just happy to be here. Hope I can help the ball club. I know. Write it down. I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out.”

 

[35thstreetswarm]

Sometimes it's fun to say PECOTA things in narrative form to see how they sound when not framed in the language of pseudoscience, and imagine how they'd fly in any thread other than this one.  Like this:  "Yasmani Grandal is far and away the best player on the Chicago White Sox and the face of the franchise.  He is twice as good as the next tier of players on the team."

[mac9001]

There's certainty on overinflated confidence in some of our hitters. Moncada and Robert are the epiphany of high risk. Anytime you're dealing with a young hitter with a K-rate north of 30% there's a very high probability his major league tenure is tentative.  Both those guys needs BABIPs north of .300 to produce at league average. There's obviously a lot of celling and projection with both those guys, but don't fool yourself into thinking they come with high floors. The probability of failure with both those guys is a real concern. 

[southsider2k5]

Here's the thing.  I know everyone is hung up on depth, but let's not pretend that the Sox record last year was all based on everyone being healthy and having career years.  The Sox rotation past Giolito and Dallas, was god awful.  Nine starting pitchers in 60 games isn't something where the Sox were going with Plan A most nights, and they still found a way to win almost 60% of their games.  They saw complete failures out of 3 offensive positions in 3B, DH, and RF, and yet were still one of the top offensive teams in all of baseball.  The pen also went through a ton of pitchers, and still has a ton of depth both in top notch relieving prospects, as well as potential failed starters would could be added out there.  In no way can you argue that the Sox had an ideal year last year.  There is still a ton of room for growth, plus the have some margin for error.  Granted, this could have been the off-season where they addressed adding to depth, but they didn't.  But 83 wins?  As a median result?  I still can't see it.  The computers don't like one off's, and this Sox team is full of those.  They also have trouble projecting kids with no history into spots, and we are loaded with those as well.

[MeanJoeCrede]

PECOTA has the Braves FOURTH in their DIVISION. Same division they have the Mets winning by the largest margin of any division in baseball. Can anyone look at the Braves lineup and see them as bottom third in the entire NL? Take PECOTA with a huge grain of salt.

[35thstreetswarm]

On 2/9/2021 at 10:04 AM, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Didn't PECOTA project the Sox to win something like 75 games in 2005?

Low 80s.  They did project the WS champion Royals would win 72 games in the year they won it all, I believe. 

[Eminor3rd]

15 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

Do you think 7 AL teams should have higher median outcomes than the White Sox? Hendriks is a big upgrade on Colome. It’s not just about the ninth inning. Hendriks put up a 4 fWAR season in 2019. Multi inning weapon capable of 3 wins as a reliever. Lynn is exactly what they needed. Some areas of possible regression but lots more of significant upside. ALC will be a battle with Twins and Sox but the Sox are one of the top teams in the AL. Covid and no minors basically tainted the data sample so the Pecota projections are pretty much useless for a team with as much potential variance as White Sox. I think Vegas is more in line with what’s expected and those who agree with Pecota should be running to pound the under at betting sites 

I'm not going to make the argument that 7 AL teams should have higher median outcomes than the White Sox, but I don't think it's an implausible argument to make, and I certainly don't think it's so "off" that it's proof that a system is garbage like some are arguing.

Quote

Hendriks is a big upgrade on Colome. It’s not just about the ninth inning. Hendriks put up a 4 fWAR season in 2019. Multi inning weapon capable of 3 wins as a reliever.

Hendriks is absolutely better than Colome, and fWAR supports this. However, fWAR is a DIPS-based statistic, and what that is measuring is how much of the "work" of the outs that are occurring can be directly attributed to the pitcher versus the defense/circumstance. Hendriks is better, essentially, because he allows much less contact and thus eliminates the factor of defense, resulting in fewer baserunners. However, that does not mean that his performance is guaranteed to produce better results, simply that it is more likely to produce better results. And what we saw in 2020 with Colome was nearly perfect results, even if he didn't actually pitch as well as Hendriks is likely to, and even if he relied on good defense and batted-ball luck to do so. So, if the question is "Is the 2021 White Sox closer role likely to allow fewer runs than it did in 2020?", the answer is almost certainly no. I agree that Hendriks could be deployed in a multi-inning role with some regularity, which would improve his gross production, but I'm very skeptical that the White Sox will do that. And even if they did, it would have to be a LOT more in order to make up ground toward a season of 0.81 ERA.

In this instance, we are comparing a projection to what actually happened last year. Even if what actually happened last year was unlikely, it's still our baseline if we're trying to find out if the team got better.

Quote

Lynn is exactly what they needed.

Yes, Lynn is exactly what they needed.

But they GAVE UP something they also needed in order to get it. In the process of filling that glaring hole, they reopened the SAME hole. The White Sox problem is that they did not have ENOUGH pitching, so they needed to acquire pitching by using a resource OTHER than pitching. In fact, it's even worse than that, because since Lynn makes so much more money than Dunning they actually paid BOTH in current pitching talent and in money to make the upgrade. If you have some oranges but you need many more oranges, you should buy oranges with money or trade for oranges with something else. You should not trade oranges you already have, and you CERTAINLY should not trade both oranges and money. You may still end up with more oranges than you started with, but you have drastically reduced your total yield in oranges.

This behavior isn't something we normally have to unpack as fans because it makes so little sense that it hardly ever happens in real life.

"But Lance Lynn is better than Dane Dunning."

Yes, but now you only improved your rotation by the DIFFERENCE between them. FanGraphs seems to be down right now but I think Lynn projects as about a 3.5 fWAR pitcher and Dunning projects at about a 2 - 2.5 fWAR pitcher (though to arrive there with ZiPS you have to adjust his IP, which is projected as like 70 innings or something). Most Sox fans see adding Lynn as adding 3.5 wins, but really it's adding 1 - 1.5 because the WHite Sox decided to SUBTRACT Dunning's 2 - 2.5 directly in the process. They spent $8m to add a win, and they still need just as many pitchers as they did before the move. 

"But maybe they could ONLY have gotten Lynn by including Dunning."

Then get a different pitcher. There will SO MANY other options. How many 2 win pitchers signed for $8-12m this offseason? How many other, better pitchers were traded for prospects instead of MLB talent? If the guy at the fruit stand will only accept oranges in the deal, he's an idiot and you should go to a different store.

Quote

Some areas of possible regression but lots more of significant upside. 

I would amend this to say some areas of LIKELY regression. And it is much easier for a player who just played over his head to return to his norms than for a young player to learn new things to get closer to his promise. In truth, each instance of potential regression and upside is a unique event with its own probability. We, as humans, are particularly ill-suited to parse and sum them objectively to arrive at a net result. Which is why we use mathematical models, like... you know, PECOTA.

Quote

Covid and no minors basically tainted the data sample so the Pecota projections are pretty much useless for a team with as much potential variance as White Sox.

That's certainly a plausible claim, but I don't know how you could possibly have evidence for it at this point, so I don't think it qualifies as a very good conclusion. Certainly not one that could survive scrutiny based on the information we have today.

Quote

I think Vegas is more in line with what’s expected and those who agree with Pecota should be running to pound the under at betting sites 

Yeah I mean, that's a fine opinion to hold, but we all need to understand that's as far as it goes. It's a hope we share. It's completely possible, but here's the kicker -- even if the every player on the team has a career year and the Sox win it all, it does NOT say anything about PECOTA. All that would mean is that a whole bunch of unlikely things occurred at once. PECOTA is not a genie claiming the Sox will end up the 7th best team in the AL. It's giving you its MEAN outcome out of tens of thousands of trials. Real life is ONE trial, and all kinds of things can happen.

What it illustrates for us is that for the Sox to win, they need to achieve higher percentile outcomes. In other words, they nearly all of that upside to manifest. And this is, honestly, exactly where they were last year -- and it's pretty much status quo for this front office.

 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

47 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

I'm not going to make the argument that 7 AL teams should have higher median outcomes than the White Sox, but I don't think it's an implausible argument to make, and I certainly don't think it's so "off" that it's proof that a system is garbage like some are arguing.

Hendriks is absolutely better than Colome, and fWAR supports this. However, fWAR is a DIPS-based statistic, and what that is measuring is how much of the "work" of the outs that are occurring can be directly attributed to the pitcher versus the defense/circumstance. Hendriks is better, essentially, because he allows much less contact and thus eliminates the factor of defense, resulting in fewer baserunners. However, that does not mean that his performance is guaranteed to produce better results, simply that it is more likely to produce better results. And what we saw in 2020 with Colome was nearly perfect results, even if he didn't actually pitch as well as Hendriks is likely to, and even if he relied on good defense and batted-ball luck to do so. So, if the question is "Is the 2021 White Sox closer role likely to allow fewer runs than it did in 2020?", the answer is almost certainly no. I agree that Hendriks could be deployed in a multi-inning role with some regularity, which would improve his gross production, but I'm very skeptical that the White Sox will do that. And even if they did, it would have to be a LOT more in order to make up ground toward a season of 0.81 ERA.

In this instance, we are comparing a projection to what actually happened last year. Even if what actually happened last year was unlikely, it's still our baseline if we're trying to find out if the team got better.

Yes, Lynn is exactly what they needed.

But they GAVE UP something they also needed in order to get it. In the process of filling that glaring hole, they reopened the SAME hole. The White Sox problem is that they did not have ENOUGH pitching, so they needed to acquire pitching by using a resource OTHER than pitching. In fact, it's even worse than that, because since Lynn makes so much more money than Dunning they actually paid BOTH in current pitching talent and in money to make the upgrade. If you have some oranges but you need many more oranges, you should buy oranges with money or trade for oranges with something else. You should not trade oranges you already have, and you CERTAINLY should not trade both oranges and money. You may still end up with more oranges than you started with, but you have drastically reduced your total yield in oranges.

This behavior isn't something we normally have to unpack as fans because it makes so little sense that it hardly ever happens in real life.

"But Lance Lynn is better than Dane Dunning."

Yes, but now you only improved your rotation by the DIFFERENCE between them. FanGraphs seems to be down right now but I think Lynn projects as about a 3.5 fWAR pitcher and Dunning projects at about a 2 - 2.5 fWAR pitcher (though to arrive there with ZiPS you have to adjust his IP, which is projected as like 70 innings or something). Most Sox fans see adding Lynn as adding 3.5 wins, but really it's adding 1 - 1.5 because the WHite Sox decided to SUBTRACT Dunning's 2 - 2.5 directly in the process. They spent $8m to add a win, and they still need just as many pitchers as they did before the move. 

"But maybe they could ONLY have gotten Lynn by including Dunning."

Then get a different pitcher. There will SO MANY other options. How many 2 win pitchers signed for $8-12m this offseason? How many other, better pitchers were traded for prospects instead of MLB talent? If the guy at the fruit stand will only accept oranges in the deal, he's an idiot and you should go to a different store.

I would amend this to say some areas of LIKELY regression. And it is much easier for a player who just played over his head to return to his norms than for a young player to learn new things to get closer to his promise. In truth, each instance of potential regression and upside is a unique event with its own probability. We, as humans, are particularly ill-suited to parse and sum them objectively to arrive at a net result. Which is why we use mathematical models, like... you know, PECOTA.

That's certainly a plausible claim, but I don't know how you could possibly have evidence for it at this point, so I don't think it qualifies as a very good conclusion. Certainly not one that could survive scrutiny based on the information we have today.

Yeah I mean, that's a fine opinion to hold, but we all need to understand that's as far as it goes. It's a hope we share. It's completely possible, but here's the kicker -- even if the every player on the team has a career year and the Sox win it all, it does NOT say anything about PECOTA. All that would mean is that a whole bunch of unlikely things occurred at once. PECOTA is not a genie claiming the Sox will end up the 7th best team in the AL. It's giving you its MEAN outcome out of tens of thousands of trials. Real life is ONE trial, and all kinds of things can happen.

What it illustrates for us is that for the Sox to win, they need to achieve higher percentile outcomes. In other words, they nearly all of that upside to manifest. And this is, honestly, exactly where they were last year -- and it's pretty much status quo for this front office.

 

I can't like this post enough.

Your last point, that I bolded, is the most important to me. No one is saying the White Sox can't be good; they could be very good! In fact, projection models think so too, as their win outcomes range from 83 up to 105, but what all fans should be tired of is needing everything to go right to reach the potential the front office has sold for years. The job of the front office was to take this very talented core that is going to have some ups and downs, and give them much more likely production in pair with it. If you add two starters (even in the 8-10 million dollar range) and a real RF'er this off-season, you're looking at a team whose mean win total is now at 88-89ish, with all that youth and "variance." And with the idea that Giolito and Anderson are legitimately undervalued due to data/input issues when trying to evaluate them vs the avg. A common misconception of the "models don't project young players" isn't that they don't or can't, it's that a lot of young players fail and that's accounted for. We, as fans, may not believe OUR players will fail, but the reality is development comes in funky patterns and the sum of those patterns results in the outputs we see. So it's not that they don't project young players well, it's that there's more variance in those projections and as fans we're less likely to see that downside. 

What is exhausting is the front office not supporting the risk of those young players with proven vets; while also not requiring us to give up assets. There's a guy in this thread saying you HAVE to give Zack Collins and Dylan Cease a chance to play all the time. Why? The Dodgers are literally telling Gonsolin and May to take a seat and move to the bullpen until your number is called because depth is imperative and having proven assets when competing for a title increases your chances of competing for that title. You want to give Vaughn a shot because of your internal scouting, fine whatever but you could have given him a look/shot while also signing a proven MLB hitter to be your DH - further lessening the risk and burden of Vaughn. The job was to spend money when the window opened, that's what was sold. Well the window is open, and we're still stuck here rooting for a roster that needs to exceed their expected outcomes in order to be at the top of the totem pole. 

[Chicago White Sox]

4 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Here's the thing.  I know everyone is hung up on depth, but let's not pretend that the Sox record last year was all based on everyone being healthy and having career years.  The Sox rotation past Giolito and Dallas, was god awful.  Nine starting pitchers in 60 games isn't something where the Sox were going with Plan A most nights, and they still found a way to win almost 60% of their games.  They saw complete failures out of 3 offensive positions in 3B, DH, and RF, and yet were still one of the top offensive teams in all of baseball.  The pen also went through a ton of pitchers, and still has a ton of depth both in top notch relieving prospects, as well as potential failed starters would could be added out there.  In no way can you argue that the Sox had an ideal year last year.  There is still a ton of room for growth, plus the have some margin for error.  Granted, this could have been the off-season where they addressed adding to depth, but they didn't.  But 83 wins?  As a median result?  I still can't see it.  The computers don't like one off's, and this Sox team is full of those.  They also have trouble projecting kids with no history into spots, and we are loaded with those as well.

The reason depth matters so much now though is there will be five playoff teams instead of eight.    The margin of error is simply much narrower now.

[Eminor3rd]

44 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I can't like this post enough.

Your last point, that I bolded, is the most important to me. No one is saying the White Sox can't be good; they could be very good! In fact, projection models think so too, as their win outcomes range from 83 up to 105, but what all fans should be tired of is needing everything to go right to reach the potential the front office has sold for years. The job of the front office was to take this very talented core that is going to have some ups and downs, and give them much more likely production in pair with it. If you add two starters (even in the 8-10 million dollar range) and a real RF'er this off-season, you're looking at a team whose mean win total is now at 88-89ish, with all that youth and "variance." And with the idea that Giolito and Anderson are legitimately undervalued due to data/input issues when trying to evaluate them vs the avg. A common misconception of the "models don't project young players" isn't that they don't or can't, it's that a lot of young players fail and that's accounted for. We, as fans, may not believe OUR players will fail, but the reality is development comes in funky patterns and the sum of those patterns results in the outputs we see. So it's not that they don't project young players well, it's that there's more variance in those projections and as fans we're less likely to see that downside. 

What is exhausting is the front office not supporting the risk of those young players with proven vets; while also not requiring us to give up assets. There's a guy in this thread saying you HAVE to give Zack Collins and Dylan Cease a chance to play all the time. Why? The Dodgers are literally telling Gonsolin and May to take a seat and move to the bullpen until your number is called because depth is imperative and having proven assets when competing for a title increases your chances of competing for that title. You want to give Vaughn a shot because of your internal scouting, fine whatever but you could have given him a look/shot while also signing a proven MLB hitter to be your DH - further lessening the risk and burden of Vaughn. The job was to spend money when the window opened, that's what was sold. Well the window is open, and we're still stuck here rooting for a roster that needs to exceed their expected outcomes in order to be at the top of the totem pole. 

Right -- particularly in the case of pitching, there's a well-established model for how to juggle depth. The White Sox seem to not understand that it exists or are unwilling to try it. If one or two of our guys is hurt or ineffective and Bernardo Flores is suddenly pitching meaningful games, it's a completely unforced error.

[Eminor3rd]

18 hours ago, KrankinSox said:

And then he started clicking again going into the playoffs. Do you remember his 480+ foot blast in Game 3? 

Yeah, remember that 500-foot bomb Mazara hit in 2019?

Luis Robert is immensely talented and has enormous upside, but he's got a LOT to work on to become consistent, so his performance for 2021 is high risk. 

[35thstreetswarm]

I'm just glad we'll be better than those garbage, NL East bottom feeding Atlanta Braves.

[pcq]

4 hours ago, Eminor3rd said:

I'm not going to make the argument that 7 AL teams should have higher median outcomes than the White Sox, but I don't think it's an implausible argument to make, and I certainly don't think it's so "off" that it's proof that a system is garbage like some are arguing.

Hendriks is absolutely better than Colome, and fWAR supports this. However, fWAR is a DIPS-based statistic, and what that is measuring is how much of the "work" of the outs that are occurring can be directly attributed to the pitcher versus the defense/circumstance. Hendriks is better, essentially, because he allows much less contact and thus eliminates the factor of defense, resulting in fewer baserunners. However, that does not mean that his performance is guaranteed to produce better results, simply that it is more likely to produce better results. And what we saw in 2020 with Colome was nearly perfect results, even if he didn't actually pitch as well as Hendriks is likely to, and even if he relied on good defense and batted-ball luck to do so. So, if the question is "Is the 2021 White Sox closer role likely to allow fewer runs than it did in 2020?", the answer is almost certainly no. I agree that Hendriks could be deployed in a multi-inning role with some regularity, which would improve his gross production, but I'm very skeptical that the White Sox will do that. And even if they did, it would have to be a LOT more in order to make up ground toward a season of 0.81 ERA.

In this instance, we are comparing a projection to what actually happened last year. Even if what actually happened last year was unlikely, it's still our baseline if we're trying to find out if the team got better.

Yes, Lynn is exactly what they needed.

But they GAVE UP something they also needed in order to get it. In the process of filling that glaring hole, they reopened the SAME hole. The White Sox problem is that they did not have ENOUGH pitching, so they needed to acquire pitching by using a resource OTHER than pitching. In fact, it's even worse than that, because since Lynn makes so much more money than Dunning they actually paid BOTH in current pitching talent and in money to make the upgrade. If you have some oranges but you need many more oranges, you should buy oranges with money or trade for oranges with something else. You should not trade oranges you already have, and you CERTAINLY should not trade both oranges and money. You may still end up with more oranges than you started with, but you have drastically reduced your total yield in oranges.

This behavior isn't something we normally have to unpack as fans because it makes so little sense that it hardly ever happens in real life.

"But Lance Lynn is better than Dane Dunning."

Yes, but now you only improved your rotation by the DIFFERENCE between them. FanGraphs seems to be down right now but I think Lynn projects as about a 3.5 fWAR pitcher and Dunning projects at about a 2 - 2.5 fWAR pitcher (though to arrive there with ZiPS you have to adjust his IP, which is projected as like 70 innings or something). Most Sox fans see adding Lynn as adding 3.5 wins, but really it's adding 1 - 1.5 because the WHite Sox decided to SUBTRACT Dunning's 2 - 2.5 directly in the process. They spent $8m to add a win, and they still need just as many pitchers as they did before the move. 

"But maybe they could ONLY have gotten Lynn by including Dunning."

Then get a different pitcher. There will SO MANY other options. How many 2 win pitchers signed for $8-12m this offseason? How many other, better pitchers were traded for prospects instead of MLB talent? If the guy at the fruit stand will only accept oranges in the deal, he's an idiot and you should go to a different store.

I would amend this to say some areas of LIKELY regression. And it is much easier for a player who just played over his head to return to his norms than for a young player to learn new things to get closer to his promise. In truth, each instance of potential regression and upside is a unique event with its own probability. We, as humans, are particularly ill-suited to parse and sum them objectively to arrive at a net result. Which is why we use mathematical models, like... you know, PECOTA.

That's certainly a plausible claim, but I don't know how you could possibly have evidence for it at this point, so I don't think it qualifies as a very good conclusion. Certainly not one that could survive scrutiny based on the information we have today.

Yeah I mean, that's a fine opinion to hold, but we all need to understand that's as far as it goes. It's a hope we share. It's completely possible, but here's the kicker -- even if the every player on the team has a career year and the Sox win it all, it does NOT say anything about PECOTA. All that would mean is that a whole bunch of unlikely things occurred at once. PECOTA is not a genie claiming the Sox will end up the 7th best team in the AL. It's giving you its MEAN outcome out of tens of thousands of trials. Real life is ONE trial, and all kinds of things can happen.

What it illustrates for us is that for the Sox to win, they need to achieve higher percentile outcomes. In other words, they nearly all of that upside to manifest. And this is, honestly, exactly where they were last year -- and it's pretty much status quo for this front office.

 

I am not clear on how much the Sox are improved but the competition will likely be improved. We are still waiting to confirm a full season schedule. 

[Soxsi75]

6 hours ago, MeanJoeCrede said:

PECOTA has the Braves FOURTH in their DIVISION. Same division they have the Mets winning by the largest margin of any division in baseball. Can anyone look at the Braves lineup and see them as bottom third in the entire NL? Take PECOTA with a huge grain of salt.

Huge grain of salt is a very nice way of saying. A more directly way is, it is @#$%^&* worthless. 

[shago]

Bottom line: Sox made marginal moves to slightly improve team this off-season, why would PECOTA projections change much?

If the kids keep improving, team does well. If they don't, old 2/3 starters and questionable back-end with limited depth doesn't project wins.

Not sure why this is surprising

[VAfan]

12 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

With Tim it's not about ascending. It's that he succeeds in a way that no one else does. Projection systems will never fully capture his value because it judges him vs the avg player. I agree Tim and Vaughn projections are low and they're due to data issues; vaughn being not enough data and Tim being an incredibly unique skill set that succeeds in a very unprecedented way,

I think the giolito one isn't great because it's still utilizing data from when he was a different pitcher entirely but it's really only a win shy of most others that view him highly. Lynn's on the other hand isn't terrible. Father time gets everyone and expecting regression at this age and beyond isn't ludicrous. Moncada is a tricky one. I think covid mattered but Yoan has to show that 2019 wasn't a fluke before its fair to say that is a poor projection. Frankly his 99th percentile being the same as madrigal is comical though but that brings me to madrigal who BP is much higher on than most so for some players they may understate there are ones they also may overrate.

Hey Ray Ray, I thought I would quote one of your comments that I agree since I'm otherwise usually reacting negatively to your posts. 

[VAfan]

1 hour ago, shago said:

Bottom line: Sox made marginal moves to slightly improve team this off-season, why would PECOTA projections change much?

If the kids keep improving, team does well. If they don't, old 2/3 starters and questionable back-end with limited depth doesn't project wins.

Not sure why this is surprising

The Sox are relying a lot on the development of the players they already have. 

So most people's take on the offseason depends on whether they think that is a reasonable risk or not. 

From my perspective, it makes a lot of sense to go about it that way if you believe in the players you have, and it's the way teams like the Rays have to go about it with the payroll restraints they decide to live under. Projections be damned. 

The interesting thing about PECOTA is that it's not so much off questions about the Sox' starters, which you raise, but our offense, which seems a whole lot more solid to me. I mean, they keep doubting Tim Anderson. How many more years will he have to produce for him to be recognized? Abreu totally flipped the age curve, but it was pretty clear why -- he finally had a winning team and could bring extra focus to leading it.  Moncada? Well, he is a mystery because he only had one great year before Covid hit him. 

[caulfield12]

Not seeing the Dunning move as a mistake, simply because they have (now at least four) alternatives in Cease, Kopech, Rodon and Lopez they believe can outproduce him this season.

They likely never projected him as more than a fifth starter or swingman in the bullpen.

They just have to be right on that evaluation.

It’s nothing like trading Wells, Fogg and Lowe for one pitcher, then not being able to replace him...or giving up Montas and Bassitt in addition to a future MVP candidate for one year of Samardzija.

Those were desperation moves...they simply had to work for the team to compete.

What will make most everyone extremely irate is if they use this “window of unprecedented financial flexibility” not to take on any additional salary or fix the obvious roster/depth issues we’re already well aware of at the trade deadline.

 

[South Side Hit Men]

Attached is a chart from BP showing overall over/under projections over a 16 year span.

Arizona and Saint Louis were the biggest outliers, with Arizona averaging a projected 4 wins higher than actual, and Saint Louis with 5 actual wins higher than PECOTA projections. The White Sox averaged 1 actual win more than the projection over this period.

 

I believe the PECOTA projections for several of the White Sox players will improve substantially starting in 2022, if their development progresses as expected this season. That said, as I stated earlier in the thread, the lack of prior past performance and full season for the core young players accounts for the conservative projections in 2021.

I also think the overconfidence shown by fans using the "eyeball" test is do to last seasons over performance versus expected results due to the absolutely horseshit schedule the White Sox played. There is a reason seven Central teams made the playoffs feasting on the horrid 3 bottom feeders, and all seven were dismissed in quick order.

[Balta1701]

Yeah ok it’s not PECOTA.

 

[35thstreetswarm]

Orioles rocking the 0.0 before a game is even played.  That’s just mean.