Baseball Prospectus Annual 2015 - a quick review

[mjl]

I got antsy waiting for the digital version of the Annual to come out and picked up a paper version, also thinking that the statlines would be easier to read in a hard copy than digital. In retrospect that may have been a poor choice.

(note: I may update this when I get home and have the book in front of me, but right now was a convenient time to write.)

Pluses:

The writing is very good and surprisingly funny in a lot of the player capsules. I think my favorite throwaway line so far was something like "Will Startup is the definition of a replacement-level lefty reliever and also the definition of a replacement-level office computer." The capsules are also very good for giving insights that don't come through well in the standard stat lines.

Most of the team essays have been interesting.

Minuses:

The team essay for the Angels was long and incomprehensible. That happened to be the most recent one I've read, so it sticks in my mind, but it was also the first one I just skimmed.

PECOTA is surprisingly divergent from a lot of other projection systems in a lot of cases and also from the capsules. It looks like the people writing the capsules didn't have access to the projections when writing, because there are a lot of cases where I would have appreciated a bit of explanation about why PECOTA was so positive or negative on someone, but instead the capsule basically agreed with my instincts and the numbers didn't. The examples I can remember offhand were that it projected Lincecum for a 3.80 or so ERA, which I realize matches up reasonably well with his xFIP but it would have been nice to see something in the capsule about why he's underperformed his xFIP so badly the last three years instead of a writeup along the lines of "he doesn't have his fastball any more and he's going to have to learn to pitch with limited tools", and the writeup for Kluber talked about what a breakthrough he made and how great he is, and PECOTA projects him for a worse-than-league-average 3.98 ERA.

[Sharky]

Also the paper stock couldn't be cheaper. Every year it has gone downhill in that respect. Good content though.

[Moonlight J]

go look at the Matt Joyce capsule

[bryanbutler]

go look at the Matt Joyce capsule

come on, MJ, don't tease us like that!

[Moonlight J]

Picture a carefree teenager wanting to live her life every day to its fullest. Meanwhile, her dad, while cooler and more free-spirited than most other pops on the block, wants what is best for his daughter. This means a strict curfew and, most importantly, keeping her away from "that boy." She knows he means well but does not understand why she can't make her own choices. Dad tries to explain his side as best as he can but even his friends tell him, "Come on, let her live a little" and, "You were young once; let her make some mistakes." He remains steadfast in his decision to shelter her, keeping everyone's best interest in mind. All the while, the ne'er-do-well down the street is just waiting for his chance to disrupt the household's order. You've figured this out by now, but: Joyce is the daughter, Joe Maddon is the father and that dastardly boy is all of the left-handed pitchers in the league. Now that the family is broken up, will step-dad Mike Scioscia try to win the kid over by relaxing the rules?

[bryanbutler]

nice .

[Gregg]

Picture a carefree teenager wanting to live her life every day to its fullest. Meanwhile, her dad, while cooler and more free-spirited than most other pops on the block, wants what is best for his daughter. This means a strict curfew and, most importantly, keeping her away from "that boy." She knows he means well but does not understand why she can't make her own choices. Dad tries to explain his side as best as he can but even his friends tell him, "Come on, let her live a little" and, "You were young once; let her make some mistakes." He remains steadfast in his decision to shelter her, keeping everyone's best interest in mind. All the while, the ne'er-do-well down the street is just waiting for his chance to disrupt the household's order. You've figured this out by now, but: Joyce is the daughter, Joe Maddon is the father and that dastardly boy is all of the left-handed pitchers in the league. Now that the family is broken up, will step-dad Mike Scioscia try to win the kid over by relaxing the rules?

You just possibly posted the best commercial for the product.

I have not been a user in the past but this looks like fun and too good to pass up.

[mjl]

The writing really is excellent. If what you want is a bunch of amusing capsules about players, with occasional statistical insights, it's great for that.

Another minor PECOTA annoyance from last night: re Ethier, the capsule says something like "has any player ever had this complete of a dropoff? Every offensive stat was down, including some you haven't heard of, and the underlying numbers don't make it look like luck at all. He's going to be the world's most expensive pinch hitter for the rest of the contract." and PECOTA says he's going to rebound to his 2013 numbers.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Something that will explain almost every question/disagreement you have with PECOTA: it weights older seasons much heavier than most other projection systems. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that's what it does.

[Kevin Seitzer]

How is that annoyance minor? It casts doubt on the entirety of their system, in my opinion. At a minimum it's exceptionally poor editing. Making sure your numbers align with your narrative is pretty elementary stuff.

The only way they could do that is to publish in April rather than in February. To publish in February, they have to be writing the book and working on PECOTA in parallel. There are ways to push up the PECOTA completion, but that's a big challenge when they are on their fourth system architect in the last eight years (Silver, Davenport, Wyers, Pavlidis).

[Kevin Seitzer]

Seems to me that regardless of the timing of the release, they could employ effective editors to track narrative versus projection. If there are discrepancies, they should be addressed before going to market. Can you imagine if a major stock trading company operated the same way? "Gas futures look to be on a sharp downward trajectory and there doesn't appear to be any relief in sight. Avoid at all costs." Projection: gas futures rebounding.

You're still talking about some sort of delay in publication for that editing process to happen. I don't know if it would be worth it. I can understand BP's decision that it isn't. Being first to market with an annual is a big deal, or if not first, as close to that as you can be.

I understand why it annoys you. I think the costs to fixing it are bigger than you appreciate.

[mjl]

Something that will explain almost every question/disagreement you have with PECOTA: it weights older seasons much heavier than most other projection systems. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that's what it does.

yeah, I also get the impression that PECOTA doesn't do a lot with skills components (new pitches, better lateral pitch movement, improvements in O-swing%, that sort of thing), but I could easily be wrong there; I'm making assumptions based on PECOTA having been around longer than the currently available swing and pitch tracking technology and that FG gives me more insight into how the sausage is made. But it's frustrating when the capsules explicitly say "we know there's been a skills degradation or improvement and previous seasons are less relevant" but the projection system clearly doesn't get that.

[Kevin Seitzer]

yeah, I also get the impression that PECOTA doesn't do a lot with skills components (new pitches, better lateral pitch movement, improvements in O-swing%, that sort of thing)

Neither does any other public projections system. ZiPS and Steamer dip their toes in that water, but just ever so slightly, not nearly to the extent you are describing.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Run the projections earlier? Set a date, say, three weeks in advance of release to market where intensive editing should occur? Or, since people continue to shell out good money for it, just say fuck it and release it as-is with a big picture of a middle finger on the cover.

The projections are currently the gate for the project. They start running the projections the day the season is over and send the book to the publisher the day the projections complete. So you're basically suggesting they push back publication by a couple weeks to do the editing in light of the projections. There's a cost to them for doing that, probably a cost that they perceive to be bigger than the cost to having inconsistencies.

I'm not saying there's no solution. I'm saying it's not a simple scheduling problem that could be resolved by the application of a teaspoon of common sense. It's a tradeoff. There are ways to increase the margin for that tradeoff on the technical side, but remember that BP runs on a shoestring budget. It's not like they can hire a staff of programmers to come in and fix everything and all is good to go.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I see no reason that BP should actively choose sacrificing accuracy as a necessary factor in attempting to be first to market. I must be missing something here. There are far more technically demanding algorithms that can be run annually by a far smaller group of people in a far shorter amount of time. Do they reinvent the algorithm annually?

Oh absolutely there are far more technically demanding algorithms that can be run annually by a far smaller group of people in a far shorter amount of time. But how many of those are run by a hobbyist or two who have other day jobs and who hand the algorithm off from one main architect to another every couple years and who are constantly reinventing the algorithm?

If so, why do that in the offseason?

During the season there is other stuff to do. BP isn't raking in tons of cash where they can throw money at a problem and get full priority on people's time whenever they want it. They operate on a small budget with a lot of part-time staff working on nights and weekends, people wearing multiple hats, and a lot of turnover in that staff, as well as turnover in management.

Edit to add: If you see all that and think, "That's nice but they are asking for my money. Why should I care and why should I pay for something that isn't up to the quality I want?" I'm not trying to argue with you about your desires as a consumer.