5 replies to this topic

[smastroyin]

Hello everyone,

As we have in the past, this year we are having an annual predictions contest. However, the addition this year will be a community projection of Red Sox players. We will be taking submissions in spreadsheet form. See instructions below.

The idea was given birth by PKB in one of the various mega-threads of the off-season. Here is what he had to say:

Jumping off from the lesson of the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" and also the results of Tango's fan projection project, I think it'd be cool if we were able to set up a community projection for Sox players this season.

I'm curious what the combined wisdom of several hundred Sox fans (or more, with lurkers, or whoever takes the time to do it) would be on this. Different than the regular projection contest, I think the output here would be a single SoSH community projection for these guys, and we could track it's performance versus various projection systems out there (PECOTA, Shandler, ZIPS, Marcel, whatever). I know the second part we've done before but I don't think we've done a full community projection here.

You can find an entire thread discussing the project if you go into the Geekage forum. Or you can click here.

Data will be collated and projections will be created in a format somewhat similar to a PECOTA player card. For purposes of getting this done before Opening Day, the deadline for submission will be March 15.

The spreadsheet will also have a bunch of the regular topics from the annual prediction contest. Those data will not be analyzed until a little later in the season, however the deadline remains March 15.

Nip was kind enough to host the spreadsheet Here.

Instructions:

1. Download spreadsheet.
2. Fill in spreadsheet.
3. email spreadsheet to redsoxprojections@gmail.com. submissions entered any other way will likely be ignored.

Thanks everyone, and please participate - the project is open to anyone who can read this message, which means lurkers are also included.

Edited by smastroyin, 16 February 2006 - 10:31 AM.

[smastroyin]

As of today there are only 8 entries. I know some people will want to wait until all of the various pieces are in place, but I urge everyone to try and get their projections in as soon as they can. Thanks.

In the meantime, I thought I would give a little preview of what some of the data might look like. This is the data so far for the projection of Coco Crisp's AB. These and other charts will be generated with the data assuming we get enough.

[smastroyin]

I know everyone and their brother is waiting to see where various pieces fall into place, but let's all remember that this isn't exclusively a contest and try to remember the noble efforts of your organizers.

Interpret this as a healthy reminder to get your submissions in. As it was for Julius Caesar, March 15 is the last day for entries.

Thanks

Edited by smastroyin, 02 March 2006 - 02:29 PM.

[smastroyin]

Rather than depress yourself thinking about steroids or the horrific choice of Buck Martinez as manager of the US WBC team, how about filling in your Red Sox projections?

So far we are a little light on entries. The most likely reason being that many are waiting for the roster moves to go down. This isn't likely to happen before spring training ends, nevermind happening by tomorrow, which is the deadline for entries. As such, as I just posted in the geekage thread, if you can't decide which player to trade away, simply fill in full lines for all players and let your team totals go high. It would be better, though, if you decided which players were most likely to be traded and adjust your projections in that way.

Again, there will be a lot of work going into compiling the results which is why the deadline was set two weeks before opening day.

Thanks

[smastroyin]

A couple of people have asked for extensions which will be granted. I will be extending to March 19. That's next Monday.

I am wondering if some of the poor turnout isn't people trying to hard to be accurate and getting all of the numbers to come into line. To these people I would suggest that you concentrate just on the playing time and rate stats and forget about the counting stats that get to those numbers, e.g.

AB/OBP/SLG for hitters
IP/ERA for pitchers

As a second addendum here, the contest stuff at the bottom can be submitted later, up until opening day. Feel free to submit those entries separately. And, yes, you can submit a contest entry without projections.

I will say that a lot of the loudest voices in pooh-pooh'ing other peoples projections have not taken the time to submit anything.

Also, I will start a thread in feedback to try and figure what could have been done and what could be done in the future to increase participation.

Thanks to everyone who did participate up to this point.

Steve

Edited by smastroyin, 16 March 2006 - 08:18 AM.

[smastroyin]

All data has been processed at least in a minimum sort of way. You can check out a bunch of charts at

http://www.pbase.com...yin/projections. I do not want to direct link all of the charts here but I will preview the team projections for RS, RA, and Pythag. Wins.

Please also check geekage for some additional results that will be posted over the next few days.

For Runs Scored



As you can see, most people thought the Sox would score around 900 runs with a couple of optimists having them well over 1000.



Runs allowed was a more normal distribution with a lower peak and less clustering in the middle.



In general, SoSH is optimistic, with a mean win proejction of about 99 wins. Probably you have to figure that this should be dropped by two-three wins just due to crappy performance from unpredictable sources which noone can really project ahead of time.

When we figure out how to organize the data on the board, we will have more discussion about the results.

Edited by smastroyin, 03 April 2006 - 08:17 AM.