Progress Report

As I type this, Opening Pitch is 3 Days, 3 Hours and 20 Minutes away. Now is the time for Alex and myself to buckle down. Currently we have a pretty basic model set up for predicting player performance, but it will have plenty of room for improvement as the season progresses. In order to succeed in Draftbug, it is very important to remember to analyze each situation instead of blindly following a set of rankings. Here are some examples:

1. Home/Away Splits: There are so many variables that can be the cause of this. Whether it's Park Factor, Being Comfortable or, in Ervin Santana's case, not being able to start the game in the dugout.

Example: Wandy Rodriguez is a servicable pitcher on the road in his career, but he's been downright awful at home. It's important to follow the progress of players like Wandy Rodriguez.

2. Difficulty of Competition: Some players get the benefit of playing in a weak division, which lowers their stats for the season, but they often struggle on the few occasions that they have a challenge.

Example: Jake Peavy has a career ERA of 4.50+ vs. only seven teams in the Major Leagues, six of them are in the AL. You can draw the conclusion that Peavy doesn't fare well against teams he doesn't face often, or that the NL is just vastly inferior... It is very important to look at matchups rather than just the skill of the player.

3. Righty/Lefty Splits: You cannot simple go by a standard prediction, because many hitters are much better suited as platoon players. It is important that your model includes platoon stats.

Example:
Jayson Werth Career Triple-Slash #'s vs. LHP: .291/.374/.545
Jayson Werth Career Triple-Slash #'s vs. RHP: .251/.347/.408

4. First-Half/Second-Half Players: Some players notoriously turn it on after the All-Star Break(Johan Santana, Ryan Howard, Mark Teixiera to name a few). However, not many people look at the other end of this. It is a lot harder to find hitters that finish stronger than they close. Grady Sizemore and Lance Berkman are a couple that fit the mold.

The point I'm trying to get across is that blindly following preseason predictions just will not produce accurate results over the course of the season. When Alex and myself are finished brainstorming, we hope that our model will factor in at least these four variables.