Armchair Thoughts

Love me. Hate me. Read me.

Let's first look at a timeline of events:

Sunday March 9, 2014
7:00 pm - Armchair Baseball Fantasy Draft begins
~9:30 pm - Armchair Baseball Rookie Draft begins
11:00 pm - I go to bed.
Monday March 11, 2014
9:00 am - Text message from Joe Johnston:

Hope to see some draft analysis soon Jack. Gotta have something to quench the anticipation of 3 weeks until opening day.

Consider it done, Yung Joseph.

You all know me (save for our new member, Chuck). I'm the guy that insists on providing you with "analysis" (don't laugh) and "insight" (please) by using "complex statistical tools" (ok maybe not). I'm going to keep serving them, hopefully throughout the whole year. You have the option of whether you want to chew on them. But then you also have the option to swallow them or spit them up back all over me. Let's keep it civil this year. Clean up can be a bia.

You want projections?
....
I said, DO YOU WAN PROJECTIONS??? PLAYOFF ODDS???
....
Anyone?
....
Crap.

For whoever is still reading, well I have them.  Here you go, the projected end of season winning percentages:

	Rest of Season	Batter	Pitcher	W%
1	TBD JACK	0.498	0.555	0.527
2	Bats Hit Crazy	0.534	0.499	0.517
3	Yung's $1 Store	0.494	0.533	0.513
4	BilateralLegWeakness	0.493	0.521	0.507
5	Clown Question Bro's	0.517	0.496	0.506
6	Sano Me The Money	0.467	0.544	0.505
7	I got Matsui!	0.521	0.469	0.495
8	Outfield Fly Rule	0.538	0.445	0.491
9	Funky Cold Gardena	0.504	0.448	0.476
10	Goose's Flock	0.434	0.489	0.462

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


Now, before you throw up or diarrhea yourself, there are some caveats that you need to know:
I start by taking the projections of every player.
I only count the batters that are in your starting lineup, since they will play at least 5/7 of the week.
I count all of the stats of the pitchers on your team.
I divide them by 25 (the number of weeks in the regular season)
I look at each category for a given week and calculate the likelihood of Team A beating Team B in that category
I sim the schedule for the rest of the season

As you can see, there are a lot of variables not in play. Injuries, managerial styles, undervalue/overvalue for young players, etc. Even swapping one of your outfielders will have a massive impact because it's assuming you're playing one player over another for 23 straight weeks.

But in the end, it's anyone's best guess as to how the season will play out. If you have any sort of parameters on how this process can be improved, let me know (kindly), or create your own projection system. I'm not for sure that I'd win, but I'd love to make a wager on my method versus someone else's. Heck, if I lose, then I can stop with this madness and spend my time on something constructive (Like getting back to work).

YOU SAID SOMETHING ABOUT PLAYOFF PROJECTIONS?

I sure did.  I simmed out 4000 seasons (not nearly enough, but enough to get a general picture) and found out where each team placed and counted how many times out of 4000 each team finished in the top 4:

	Season's End	Batter	Pitcher	W%	Playoff %	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	TBD JACK	0.498	0.555	0.527	74.0%	28.3%	16.9%	12.6%	9.9%	8.1%	5.6%	4.6%	2.8%	1.7%	1.0%
2	Bats Hit Crazy	0.534	0.499	0.517	62.4%	16.8%	14.6%	13.8%	12.0%	10.1%	8.2%	6.3%	5.1%	2.7%	2.0%
3	Yung's $1 Store	0.494	0.533	0.513	56.3%	14.6%	14.3%	11.9%	10.7%	11.5%	9.0%	6.7%	5.9%	4.9%	2.1%
4	BilateralLegWeakness	0.493	0.521	0.507	48.9%	10.3%	11.2%	11.2%	12.1%	10.3%	11.5%	9.6%	8.0%	4.9%	2.5%
5	Clown Question Bro's	0.517	0.496	0.506	47.7%	9.2%	11.8%	11.5%	11.1%	9.7%	10.5%	9.4%	8.0%	6.3%	4.0%
6	Sano Me The Money	0.467	0.544	0.505	45.4%	9.1%	10.4%	11.0%	11.1%	10.5%	10.8%	10.1%	8.3%	6.6%	3.6%
7	I got Matsui!	0.521	0.469	0.495	32.5%	5.5%	6.8%	7.8%	9.7%	10.4%	11.6%	11.6%	11.2%	10.5%	6.5%
8	Outfield Fly Rule	0.538	0.445	0.491	30.3%	4.2%	6.5%	7.8%	9.2%	10.4%	10.8%	10.9%	11.1%	11.2%	9.4%
9	Funky Cold Gardena	0.504	0.448	0.476	15.4%	1.7%	2.3%	4.1%	6.0%	6.6%	8.1%	11.4%	14.3%	18.7%	18.4%
10	Goose's Flock	0.434	0.489	0.462	5.0%	0.3%	0.6%	1.4%	2.2%	4.0%	5.4%	8.8%	13.1%	20.0%	35.7%

(Sorry that these kind of spill off of the page. I'm not good with formatting.)

As previously noted, this isn't perfect, but it's a baseline.  Do I have exactly a 28.3% chance to win the league? Very unlikely. But I would venture to say it's somewhere around that number.

I can try to do some more insightful analysis at a later date. If you have ideas on what sorts of studies or whatever you'd like to see, let me know. (E.g. Who had the best draft? Who has the best keepers? Which player has the best contract right now?) I won't have all the answers, but I'll try my best.

Also Goose, you might want to stock up on some speed. Paul Goldschmidt is projected to lead your team with 12 SBs.