Projections: The Long Game

[Riverbrian]

In regards to our current offense: I've never been in a baseball front office or had access to the numbers that they crunch but I'm going to go ahead and assume that they make projections. 

I am also going to assume that statistical projections in the sport of baseball are not a straight line. If a player is projected to hit .280... that player isn't going to hit .280 every week or every month. There will be good months and bad months fluctuation that requires the long game to reach those projections. 

Assuming the projections eventually come to fruition. I'm going to assume that the front office didn't project our hitters to be where they are over the long game. This means that the players that are currently below those projections (The entire team basically... I assume) are due for an incredible hot streak to reach the projections.  The Twins should be hitting a nice long stretch of scoring 8 runs a game in the future. 😎😄

Considering this: My guess (strictly a guess) is that the front office will be reluctant to change course drastically because they would be selling low and cashing out before the good times bring the numbers up to the projections. 

Here are the potential problems with those long game projections.  

1. Injuries - Players get hurt, we don't know who or when but they will get hurt. You can't play the long game, when injuries are a cannonball right through spreadsheet.  

2. Accuracy of the projections- I'm going to assume that in 2022... That the Twins didn't project Nick Gordon to OPS .743 or Max Kepler to OPS .666 or they would have started Gordon in LF and Max Kepler on the bench on opening day... or they would have addressed the OF with someone that they projected to do better. The Tigers certainly had higher projections for what they got from Javier Baez last year. The A's, Royals and Padres (Twins as well) I assume didn't have Brent Rooker projected as high as he is producing right now. The A's for sure because he wasn't the opening day starter on one of the worst on paper teams in baseball. Yeah I know... the long game probably suggests that Rooker is going to go down hard in the future.  

I'm not saying the projections have no value, you have to do your math in the off-season to build a roster but no matter how often these projections end up accurate or close to accurate. I have no idea... how accurate they are. I'm just going to say that it's incredibly risky... to play this long game.  

[jorgenswest]

Slash stats aren’t very useful in season. They need such a large sample. I would hope they wouldn’t look to in season slash stats to make decisions. The have pitch level data and batted ball data that stabilizes much faster and can project performance better than previous slash stats.

Based on the pitch and batted ball level data I am not too concerned about Nick Gordon. I am also not too encouraged by Ryan Jeffers thus far. I try to ignore the slash stats. 

[ashbury]

Forecasting baseball is hard.

I could leave my reply at that, but I want to draw a distinction between

• forecasting how someone's end-of-year stat line is going to look, now that we know the actual results one-quarter of the way in, versus
• forecasting how that player is going to do from here on out.

You just have to live with the former, but you make decisions on the latter.

Use Carlos Correa as an example.  Say the FO had Carlos penciled in for an .800 OPS in addition to playing GG caliber SS.  So you pencil him in as your everyday shortstop.  Now, on the morning of May 13, we see him with an OPS of .649.  Supposing that he's really an .800 hitter, you could blend 25% of what he's done so far with 75% of your .800 projection and guess he'll end up around .760 at season's end.  Kind of like blending ethanol into your gasoline, by mistakenly pouring a blend with too little alcohol into the drum to start with and then figuring out how far off you will be if you finish by filling with the regular blend.

But ballplayers aren't barrels of automobile fuel.  They aren't pairs of dice, or poker cards, or coins that you flip, either.  There's the Gambler's Fallacy where you figure you must be due for tails after flipping heads 3 times in a row; you'll lose money in the long run if you give different odds than 50/50 for the next flip.  But even if ballplayers aren't coins, it's also a mistake to say a player is due for a hit - it's fairer to say he's OVERdue for that next hit. (*cough* Joey Gallo *cough*)

Because players aren't coins or decks of cards or roulette balls, it's beyond reasonable and merely common sense to re-evaluate your forecast after new data has come in.  Maybe Correa (April aside but going forward) isn't the .800 guy they thought he was.  Even though last year he had an April similar to this year's, by mid-May he was showing much better results while in 2023 he's still scuffling at bat and causing the name Pedro Florimon to come to mind.  In a post above, jorgenswest points out that underlying metrics should hold more sway, and maybe the most granular data suggests Correa's still the same hitter he always has been.  If not, maybe the forecast ought to be .750 OPS from here to the end of the regular season, in which case he's still a starting caliber shortstop and you don't make a move, despite knowing that his year-end stats will be that 25/75 blend but now down to more like .725.  That's still way better than Florimon.

Correa's a tough case though because even if all the metrics point to him being truly a .650 OPS guy from now on, there's not a whole lot you can do about it because of the contract.

Anyway, similar thoughts apply to Gordon, to Kepler, to every player.  The FO can't stand still after establishing their off-season guesses.  But it would be dumb for them to put too much weight on the first 6 weeks of this season, either. 

Do they stick to their guns with their earlier forecasts (the "long game" as you termed it) or adjust?  Probably the latter, but it may not be as abrupt an adjustment as you seem to be hoping for, in terms of visible evidence of change.

For now I think you'll see roster changes and lineup changes only at the margins.