The Distant Memory of April
As we prepare to wrap up another publishing season, I've been looking back through the inbox to scan for overlooked questions or dialogues I had privately with different readers that may have remained unresolved. I've sent at least a few readers some private thoughts in the past few days on conversations we were having that were still open.
Tomorrow, I'll talk briefly about plans for next year and what's not yet decided and we'll also make available our annual reader survey. I'll also give one final update on our two SSDS teams to tell you how they have done heading into the final days of the season.
As always, I was looking back too at our original projected standings for 2007, as published in this space on March 28. I've never made any claims associated with projected standings as I don't imagine I'm any better at projecting team standings than anyone else and I do them more for fun than anything. Still, this year's projected standings haven't turned out to be a complete disaster anyway at least based on where things stand today. Boston's ahead of the Yankees in the AL East but given the Wild Card, we're on a pace to have successfully predicted all four AL playoff teams, depending on how that Wild Card holds up. We had picked Cleveland in the AL Central and Los Angeles in the AL West.
In the National League, the NL East and NL West have both gone in a fashion similar to that we projected (we had the Mets and San Diego projected to win the divisions) but the NL Central doesn't even resemble our original expectations.
One thing that struck me as I look back at questions sent to me throughout 2007 is just how heavy the weight April performance was getting in readers' minds. We were able to do get data on the most searched names in our interactive projection module for different times of the season and while there were some players whose early performance never turned around for the better (players like Clay Hensley who spent most of the year in the minors), it's remarkable how many questions were from readers asking when I was going to give the upgrade/downgrade a player seemingly deserved after a hot or cold start.
I did give in at least once this season prematurely. Kevin Kouzmanoff started off so terribly that it wasn't so much that I had downgraded his ability substantially (his forecast fell from .280-something territory to .260-something territory) as much as I said I would be amazed if the Padres continued to give him a chance. I give them great credit for sticking with him. After a start that saw him still hitting .137 as late as May 15th, the Padres stuck with him. I'd estimate that a contined opportunity for such an inexperienced player hitting so poorly so late is a once every few years type of thing and Kouzmanoff could have easily disappeared back to the minors and finished with a .137 average on the season. Instead, he went on to hit .288 since May 15 and has been every bit the player originally projected since then. I don't know why his start was so terrible but I suspect it was a mix of bad luck and a lack of experience.
Another player who has come up often is Justin Verlander, to whom I've only given a gradual upgrade from a 4.37 projected ERA to the most recent 4.16. In other words, his forecast has held pretty steady despite the no-hitter and the great start. Certainly, he's been better than I expected this year but it does now appear correct that he wasn't upgraded after the hot start. Since the beginning of July his ERA is 4.43.
Felix Hernandez's dominating start to the season seems like ancient history now. After three lights out starts in April, Hernandez has posted monthly ERAs of 6.30, 4.60, 3.05 and 4.73 in May through August respectively. It's so easy to get caught up in a player's hot start and I don't believe the drop-off was due to injury here.
Jeremy Bonderman remains one of the most searched player names in our interactive projection module. I'm not sure why but I suspect that it's because of his pure stuff. Readers apparently keep waiting for the day when I'm finally going to give him that sub-4.00 projected ERA that they've been waiting for. Bonderman looked to be on his way to defying the forecasted ERA this season when his ERA remained in the low 3's into June but he has since become human again and now has an ERA of 4.72 on the year.
Remember the struggles of David Wright to start the season? His name so dominated my inbox in late April that I actually dedicated several blog entries to reminding readers that there wasn't yet proof that his power was gone and that it was too early to jump ship. I imagine there aren't many readers complaining about his performance now and he's exceeded my original expectations no matter how he finishes the season at this point.
Albert Pujols was another name which kept coming up and if you look at his pace now, while he's not going to have his best season, he's still on target to have a plus-.300 average, 35+ home runs, 100+ RBI and 100+ runs scored and those numbers should not on their own be a fantasy team killer, even if you were expecting more. In any case, his slow start certainly didn't represent a sudden decline in skill and since the end of April, he's topped .320 in every month and hit 7 home runs every month except May.
While many players never rebound, it's so much easier to find players who did perform according to their track records more than what April said they would. Some players never did get on track (e.g. Andruw Jones) but generally, those days when April numbers seemed so heavy in the ledger are long gone and I want to remind readers of that as the rookies come up and look so good in the first week of September. While as recently as this past Saturday, I didn't expect Boston rookie Clay Buchholz would even get more than one more start let alone throw a no-hitter in it, at the same time I wonder how many readers have scrambled to the waiver wire to pick him up because they're now expecting repeat performances for the rest of September. Believe me, I'd be excited to see him become the next Johnny Vander Meer and throw another one but betting on it would rightfully offer the most microscopic of odds.
I've noticed in leagues that everytime a new pitcher gets his first save, there seems to be a mad scramble to claim him. The strategies I offered back in mid-August about "Disregarding Categories" (you can find this multi-part series in our blog index at the August 14-15 dates) remain just as true as the season winds down. Be sure to focus on the areas that give your team the highest percentage chance to win. Will five more saves really make a difference at this point? If not, don't become overly concerned with which rookies might get a shot as the closer, for example.
Anyway, tomorrow's my final entry of the season and will be more administrative than anything. Then, we'll close out our final publishing week of the season with one more round of our usual Thursday-Sunday reports including some extra reports on Sunday to give "Week Ahead" stats summaries for three full weeks rather than one. In the meantime, I hope those readers who are still in the hunt really stay focused now as you're almost home.
Tomorrow, I'll talk briefly about plans for next year and what's not yet decided and we'll also make available our annual reader survey. I'll also give one final update on our two SSDS teams to tell you how they have done heading into the final days of the season.
As always, I was looking back too at our original projected standings for 2007, as published in this space on March 28. I've never made any claims associated with projected standings as I don't imagine I'm any better at projecting team standings than anyone else and I do them more for fun than anything. Still, this year's projected standings haven't turned out to be a complete disaster anyway at least based on where things stand today. Boston's ahead of the Yankees in the AL East but given the Wild Card, we're on a pace to have successfully predicted all four AL playoff teams, depending on how that Wild Card holds up. We had picked Cleveland in the AL Central and Los Angeles in the AL West.
In the National League, the NL East and NL West have both gone in a fashion similar to that we projected (we had the Mets and San Diego projected to win the divisions) but the NL Central doesn't even resemble our original expectations.
One thing that struck me as I look back at questions sent to me throughout 2007 is just how heavy the weight April performance was getting in readers' minds. We were able to do get data on the most searched names in our interactive projection module for different times of the season and while there were some players whose early performance never turned around for the better (players like Clay Hensley who spent most of the year in the minors), it's remarkable how many questions were from readers asking when I was going to give the upgrade/downgrade a player seemingly deserved after a hot or cold start.
I did give in at least once this season prematurely. Kevin Kouzmanoff started off so terribly that it wasn't so much that I had downgraded his ability substantially (his forecast fell from .280-something territory to .260-something territory) as much as I said I would be amazed if the Padres continued to give him a chance. I give them great credit for sticking with him. After a start that saw him still hitting .137 as late as May 15th, the Padres stuck with him. I'd estimate that a contined opportunity for such an inexperienced player hitting so poorly so late is a once every few years type of thing and Kouzmanoff could have easily disappeared back to the minors and finished with a .137 average on the season. Instead, he went on to hit .288 since May 15 and has been every bit the player originally projected since then. I don't know why his start was so terrible but I suspect it was a mix of bad luck and a lack of experience.
Another player who has come up often is Justin Verlander, to whom I've only given a gradual upgrade from a 4.37 projected ERA to the most recent 4.16. In other words, his forecast has held pretty steady despite the no-hitter and the great start. Certainly, he's been better than I expected this year but it does now appear correct that he wasn't upgraded after the hot start. Since the beginning of July his ERA is 4.43.
Felix Hernandez's dominating start to the season seems like ancient history now. After three lights out starts in April, Hernandez has posted monthly ERAs of 6.30, 4.60, 3.05 and 4.73 in May through August respectively. It's so easy to get caught up in a player's hot start and I don't believe the drop-off was due to injury here.
Jeremy Bonderman remains one of the most searched player names in our interactive projection module. I'm not sure why but I suspect that it's because of his pure stuff. Readers apparently keep waiting for the day when I'm finally going to give him that sub-4.00 projected ERA that they've been waiting for. Bonderman looked to be on his way to defying the forecasted ERA this season when his ERA remained in the low 3's into June but he has since become human again and now has an ERA of 4.72 on the year.
Remember the struggles of David Wright to start the season? His name so dominated my inbox in late April that I actually dedicated several blog entries to reminding readers that there wasn't yet proof that his power was gone and that it was too early to jump ship. I imagine there aren't many readers complaining about his performance now and he's exceeded my original expectations no matter how he finishes the season at this point.
Albert Pujols was another name which kept coming up and if you look at his pace now, while he's not going to have his best season, he's still on target to have a plus-.300 average, 35+ home runs, 100+ RBI and 100+ runs scored and those numbers should not on their own be a fantasy team killer, even if you were expecting more. In any case, his slow start certainly didn't represent a sudden decline in skill and since the end of April, he's topped .320 in every month and hit 7 home runs every month except May.
While many players never rebound, it's so much easier to find players who did perform according to their track records more than what April said they would. Some players never did get on track (e.g. Andruw Jones) but generally, those days when April numbers seemed so heavy in the ledger are long gone and I want to remind readers of that as the rookies come up and look so good in the first week of September. While as recently as this past Saturday, I didn't expect Boston rookie Clay Buchholz would even get more than one more start let alone throw a no-hitter in it, at the same time I wonder how many readers have scrambled to the waiver wire to pick him up because they're now expecting repeat performances for the rest of September. Believe me, I'd be excited to see him become the next Johnny Vander Meer and throw another one but betting on it would rightfully offer the most microscopic of odds.
I've noticed in leagues that everytime a new pitcher gets his first save, there seems to be a mad scramble to claim him. The strategies I offered back in mid-August about "Disregarding Categories" (you can find this multi-part series in our blog index at the August 14-15 dates) remain just as true as the season winds down. Be sure to focus on the areas that give your team the highest percentage chance to win. Will five more saves really make a difference at this point? If not, don't become overly concerned with which rookies might get a shot as the closer, for example.
Anyway, tomorrow's my final entry of the season and will be more administrative than anything. Then, we'll close out our final publishing week of the season with one more round of our usual Thursday-Sunday reports including some extra reports on Sunday to give "Week Ahead" stats summaries for three full weeks rather than one. In the meantime, I hope those readers who are still in the hunt really stay focused now as you're almost home.
posted by David Luciani at
3:15 PM
