How Optimistic Are Fans?

by
January 19, 2010

Fangraphs shows 220 non-pitchers with Fan forecasts. The total WAR of those players forecasted is 685 wins. With my personal forecasts, I have those exact players at 496 wins.

Seeing that all non-pitchers in 2009 came in at just under 600 wins, and seeing that there were nearly 700 non-pitchers in 2009 (meaning that there are plenty of players still left to be forecasted), my personal forecast probably serves as a reasonable baseline.

On that basis, Fans are expecting 38% more marginal wins than will be generated. That works out so that the average team wins about 94 games.

Hope truly springs eternal, as everyone thinks they are a playoff contender. Not to worry though. At some point, the Fan forecasts will be recalibrated to knock out the optimism, so that the total WAR (nonpitchers + pitchers) will come in around 1000.





 

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don
15 years ago

How generous are fans compared to other projection systems with regards to playing time?

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scatterbrian
15 years ago
Reply to  don

My thoughts exactly, though CHONE is the only one on this site projecting WAR totals.

CHONE currently has 1367 players forecasted at 379.7 WAR over 489,515 PAs. Those 685 wins came in 125,778 PA. So both tango and CHONE are showing the fans are overly optimistic.

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