Community Forecasts

I've talked a lot about projections by systems such as PECOTA and ZIPS. Those kinds of projections are very useful but are based on algorithms which don't consider human factors. Sometimes fans of a team know some circumstances better than a computer. An avid tigers fan might know better than a computer how much Omar Infante and Marcus Thames are likely play this year. He or she might have more information about the health status of players like Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield. These kinds issues are important in forecasting and largely ignored by computer algorithms.

So Tom Tango (Tangotiger), the same analyst who developed the Fan Fielding Survey, has decided to collect data from fans which he will aggregate and compare to computer based projections. He needs more Tigers data so if you would like to participate, go to his Community Forecasting page at Tangotiger.net. He will present the results at the beginning of the season and I assume he'll make comparisons to PECOTA, ZIPS, etc once the season is over.