Today, I'll give you few interesting items from around the net.
PECOTA
On Monday, I looked at some 2006 PECOTA expectations for Tiger hitters involved in spring training position battles. Yesterday, in his Detroit Tiger Weblog, Billfer took a look at the pitchers and he noted that the projections for young Tiger pitchers are pretty favorable.
Injury Projections
I received another bit of positive news on the Tigers in an e-mail correspondence with Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus yesterday. Many of us have been fretting all winter about the number of players with high injury risks on the Tigers. Based on his methodology of injury projection, Carroll thinks that our fears are exaggerated. In fact, he considers them to be one of the least risky teams in the league in terms of having players with high injury probabilities. Injury projection is certainly an inexact science but Carroll has done a lot of great work in this area and his information was a pleasant surprise.
Diamond Mind Simulations
SG of the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog did some simulations of the 2006 season using the Diamond Mind Simulation and ZIPS projections. After repeating the season 100 times, the Tigers won an average of 82 games and won the division 19% of the time. The average win totals of the rest of the division were:
Minnesota 86
Cleveland 84
Chicago 82
Detroit 82
Kansas City 65
Obviously, these simulation based projections need to be taken with a grain of salt but I thought it was interesting that Chicago and Cleveland are not projected to do as well as last year. My personal feeling is that both teams will fall back a bit this year but not quite as far as this simulation suggests.
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Great news on the Injury front. If this team stays healthy, the pieces could be in place. I could only hope.
ReplyDeleteEddie, the pitchers and catchers report in a few days so we get to abandon realism and start dreaming now. :-)
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I don't doubt that through the simulations the Tigers would've found themselves above .500 at season's end, but I wouldn't have suspected an average of over .500 across 100 seasons. I find myself very suspicious of the results, but am more than happy to be wrong about what I think the fortunes of the real life 2006 Tigers will be. ;)
ReplyDeleteCasimir, I'm not sure but the simulations may not have taken injuries into account in a realistic way. If they were to stay healthy in real life, I think a .500 record might be reasonable.
ReplyDeleteLee, I agree that the health of the ballclub is a sizeable qualifier. Perhaps I am overestimating, but I think that the success of the lineup will hinge greatly upon the availability of Guillen (injury prone) and Pudge (older Cs can drop off rather quickly). I don't believe they need to or will be able match 2004's numbers, but if they can (pardon the pun) be in the ballpark of that season, .500 can be attainable.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of stuff is why I come here. You'll find information of a sort that you're just not going to get from the Free Press or Detroit News, who obviously have to cater to the less obsessed. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteBert, I was also happy to hear Carroll's assessment and I told him the same thing you just said - that those of us who are close to the Tigers often expect the worst. I still think that they have a lot of risky players but maybe other teams are in worse shape in that respect. A bigger question with the Tigers might be their ability to replace players once they get injured. That was a problem last year.
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