Brewer PECOTA stats

[1992casey]

I think they're overestimating Dillon's playing time a bit with 467 PA...

That would come from the fact that Joe was a full-timer in the minors. PECOTA dishes out a lot of funky PA projections. My gut says that if the gurus messed around with the PA part of the formula, they'd mess up something more important.

[TooLiveBrew]

A couple other projections I found noteworthy:

 

Gabe Gross -- 239 PA, .267/.366/.467 (.833), 8 HR

Joe Dillon -- 467 PA, .286/.376/.501 (.877), 18 HR

 

I think they're overestimating Dillon's playing time a bit with 467 PA (I think Gross' is about right). But man, if we could get that kind of lefty/righty production out of our bench that would be huge. An .877 OPS with 18 HR...that would be bigtime stuff.

Don't ever overlook how good our bench is. It's one reason why bringing in Cameron or someone comparable was so important this offseason. Between Gross & Dillon, I don't think any team can claim to have a better duo of LH & RH pinch-hitters in MLB.

 

[Ennder]

Bench players don't get the proper playtime until they come out with the team depth charts.

[Scooter1027]

Bench players don't get the proper playtime until they come out with the team depth charts.

Agreed, his play time is clearly out of whack. However, I think the point still stands -- whether it's 250 or 450 PA, an .877 OPS is a pretty serious projection. That's starter production, and then some. That would be fantastic bench production, along with the .833 projected from Gross. Heck, they even project a .251/.331/.435 for Eric Munson in 306 PA. I would gladly take a .766 OPS from our backup catcher (for a comparison, they project .717 for Rivera, a .716 for Rottino, and a .683 for Palmisano).

[DrWood]

A couple other projections I found noteworthy:

 

Gabe Gross -- 239 PA, .267/.366/.467 (.833), 8 HR

Joe Dillon -- 467 PA, .286/.376/.501 (.877), 18 HR

 

I think they're overestimating Dillon's playing time a bit with 467 PA (I think Gross' is about right). But man, if we could get that kind of lefty/righty production out of our bench that would be huge. An .877 OPS with 18 HR...that would be bigtime stuff.

Don't ever overlook how good our bench is. It's one reason why bringing in Cameron or someone comparable was so important this offseason. Between Gross & Dillon, I don't think any team can claim to have a better duo of LH & RH pinch-hitters in MLB.

 

 

well, off the top of my head, the Cubs could.

[Ennder]

Well if PECOTA is accurate Murton is a step behind Dillon and Ward is a step beind Gross. The Cubs are also looking to trade Murton still which would eat into their depth. I think bench is another area where the Brewers and Cubs are pretty close, both teams just seem evenly matched overall.

[twobrewers]

Joe Dillon -- 467 PA, .286/.376/.501 (.877), 18 HR

 

I think they're overestimating Dillon's playing time a bit with 467 PA (I think Gross' is about right).

That makes me what to bust out my Dillon avatar again! (But I gotta stick with Gamel)

 

I spent a significant amount of time before the Cameron acquisition arguing that Dillon would be an adequate 3B, allowing us to move Braun to LF. A lot of the projections have Dillon with an OPS of .800+

 

In terms of his PA, I wonder if part of that might be before the Cameron signing. Without Cameron, I think Dillon would have gotten that many PA shifting between 3B, 2B, 1B, and LF as the primary backup. With Cameron, he is going to lose at least 100 PA.

[Tbadder]

IT'S CRAZY JOE DILLON!!! COME ON GUYS!!!

[Oldcity]

http://www.siyumhaseinfeld.com/images/chars/crazyjoe.jpg

 

 

[Oldcity]

After glancing at that, IMO the most pessimistic projection is for Weeks and the most optimistic projection is for Gagne. I also think Villanueva's line would be slightly disappointing to many, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him struggle just a bit in his first full season as a starter (if that ends up being his role).

[pete]

Isn't PECOTA, Nate Silver's entrepeneurship? Secret formulas no doubt. How many times does he have to hit drives into the rough before it loses value? IIRC last year's PECOTA prospect report had Braun as high 20s or low 30s and Troy Tulo as 75 or something.

[Ennder]

Braun was #12 on Goldsteins list last year, Tulo was #24. If you are talking the upside report well it is impossible to really judge that right now but Braun was 36 and Tulo was 75 but of course projecting the first year of someone in the majors is pretty darn rough. PECOTA has still shown the strongest correlations of any predicting system out there so not sure I really understand the complaints.

[DrWood]

Well if PECOTA is accurate Murton is a step behind Dillon and Ward is a step beind Gross. The Cubs are also looking to trade Murton still which would eat into their depth. I think bench is another area where the Brewers and Cubs are pretty close, both teams just seem evenly matched overall.

 

the statement was about PH, not bench. Ward has been an excellent PH in heavy use over the last few years. Gross and Murton have been poor PH in moderate use. dillon has been an excellent PH with few AB. While I think dillon will do well, he still has a limited MLB tenure. There are plenty of AAA stars that never make it. Philly probably is clearly better at LH-RH PH with Dobbs and Taguchi, and a few other options, depending how they sort out that roster. Really, my post was just a reaction to a statement that the brewers would be THE best without really exploring what other teams have.

[pete]

I thought PECOTA was a Nate Silver creation. Am I wrong? Are the formulas secret? Isn't Kevin Goldstein another non-scout who sells his own products? Who says it has the strongest correlations of any system?

 

My recollection is that the PECOTA top prospects for last year is the one you're noting had Braun/Tulo as 36/75. Those two guys ran away with the ROY competition. That's atrocious. Makes me wonder what Pence's rating was. Like I said, I wonder how many times he has to hit drives into the rough before somebody wonders if he is a good golfer - so to speak.

[Ennder]

You are taking a list way out of context though. That list is their overall upside for their entire careers. Not what they did in 2007.

[TooLiveBrew]

the statement was about PH, not bench. Ward has been an excellent PH in heavy use over the last few years. Gross and Murton have been poor PH in moderate use. dillon has been an excellent PH with few AB.

 

Good point on Ward. I guess I see PH numbers from year-to-year as presenting small sample problems... but Ward did very well in 2006, and just fine in 2007 (but his PH OBP of .423 was stellar). I definitely see that he's done well, but since it's only 125 PA total ('06 & '07) we're talking about, I guess I'd expect 2008 to be more like the .765 OPS he posted in PH situations (or his career # of .770) in 2007 than he did in 73 PA in 2006. For example, if he'd collected just 4 fewer hits, 3 fewer BB, and wasn't hit by the one pitch he was, you're talking a .283 BA & a .342 OBP. Still nice numbers, but I think it highlights the tiny samples involved in PH numbers. I trust career numbers more, but don't discount the job done in PH situations.

 

On the same angle, I'd expect Gabe's numbers to move closer toward his career .753 OPS. If Gross puts up freak monster PH numbers like Ward did in 2006, I would feel the same in that I'd expect him to regress, too.

[pete]

but I think Braun, Tulo, and Pence are gonna have pretty good careers.

[Ennder]

I just think you are being unrealistic about the system. You are saying the system is poor because of one of the more obscure stats it spits out didn't instantly project Braun, Tulo and Pence as top players. It actually projected an .845 OPS for Braun in his rookie year so it is hardly like it was down on him. The 90th percentile for Braun was a .968 OPS so it obviously pegged him as being pretty high upside and if you assume that part of his BABIP was luck last year that is probably about an accurate projection.

 

It projected an .827 OPS for Pence with his 75th percentile projection being .894(he had an .899) so again it pegged him as an instantly quality player. It had Tulo down for an .810 OPS as a rookie(he had an .838).

 

The PECOTA system was pretty darn good when it comes to projecting those 3 players considering it just had minor league stats to go on.

[TooLiveBrew]

How does PECOTA typically fare translating minor-league to MLE's? All three of those projections look extremely good.

[pete]

Save the straw man arguments. I didn't say "the system is poor because of one of the more obscure stats it spits out didn't instantly project Braun, Tulo and Pence as top players." Please. The system did poorly with those three players despite your selective choice of statistics, and bolstering your argument by claiming accuracy of missed projections only raises the question of all the others who were projected higher and how they performed.

[endaround]

Any system that predicted Braun's season is most likely crap by any measure. Prediction based on extreme outlier events is a stupid thing to do. Braun had a historic season for a rookie, the fact that PECOTA didn't hit on it isn't a big deal.

[Ennder]

Whatever, you are pointing at a stat that isn't supposed to predict the current season at all for your argument. The system didn't fail, your understanding of what stats to look at did. PECOTA projected all three of those players as impact players for 2007 and all three were that is a success.

 

To give you an example from this year, it sees Adam Jones as one of the highest upside players in the game. But the system projects him for an .778 OPS this season. The upside stat has nothing to do with this years projection.

[TooLiveBrew]

The system did poorly with those three players despite your selective choice of statistics

 

Can you expand? The numbers & percentiles seemed pretty accurate to me.

[RobertR]

It's supposed to be a surprise that a projection system may do better with established major leaguers than with minor leaguers making the transition to the majors? And that the system may have some conservative factors built in to take into account that some players may have down years?

Believe it or not, some Brewers are going to have down years. And some are going to exceed their projections. The fact that of the starters only Jason Kendall projects to be below average for his position, should be seen as a positive. As well as the fact that there are no sub-.320 OBPs projected for the starters.

Yeah, I'll take the overs on Fielder, Weeks, Braun, and Hart, but I'd also take the unders on Dillon, Gross, and Cameron. The system will likely balance out.

Robert

[pete]

Whatever, you are pointing at a stat that isn't supposed to predict the current season at all for your argument. The system didn't fail, your

understanding of what stats to look at did. PECOTA projected all three of those players as impact players for 2007 and all three were that is a success.

 

My understanding is fine. But hey, you argue that it isn't supposed to predict 2007 at all, and in the next sentence say that PECOTA projected them as impact players for 2007.

 

But hey, I guess almost all those players rated as higher than Tulo will be "impact players" sometime during their careers. I wonder what percentage of them will make major league rosters.