from Amazon
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Forecasting Pujols’ AB
From 2001 to 2005, this was Albert Pujols AB: 590, 590, 591, 592, 591
Consistent! That’s the word, right? Wow, I will forecast Pujols for 591 AB in 2006, and I’m definitely going to be right! Yes, consistent, healthy. That’s Pujols. We all know what happened to Pujols this year. His final AB total was 535.
What did Marcel say before the season started?
531.
Now, you may be thinking:
That’s cherry-picking! But, no, that’s not true. Marcel was built with a regression towad the mean, and that includes playing time.
Go ahead. Go find me every hitter who had 2750 to 3150 AB over his previous 5-years, 1670 to 1870 over his previous 3 years, and 560 to 620 AB in the previous year. Make sure you have somewhere between 20 and 50 hitters. Tell me the average number of PA in the next year. I swear I don’t know the answer.
But, that’s the whole point of Marcel, that it has built a very simple model that will tell you how many AB a hitter will get, as an over/under. The regression on playing time is enormous, and it’s why it can forecast players as well as it does.