Effective Forecasting: It's in the numbers

History repeats itself; whether it’s relating to the prepayment habits of an interest rate sensitive consumer, the behavioral aspects of the stock market, or individual baseball player statistics …history repeats itself!

Here’s the concept to understand: Why does history repeat itself? If you can answer this question, regardless of what you’re analyzing, you’ll be one step ahead of everyone else. The key word here is:  Limitations.

Why does history repeat itself when accessing a baseball player’s ability? Yep you guessed it: Limitations! There are limitations in a ball player’s ability and they come in two forms: physical and mental. Alex Sanchez is never going to hit 50 homeruns in a MLB season, even if he IV’s a direct line of horse growth hormones for 3 years (and apparently he tried some form of steroids). It’s just not within his physical structure. Sanchez has a certain range of offensive abilities that are quantifiable and forecast-able within a certain degree of accuracy. On the other end of this spectrum was a player like Craig Biggio who for years was able to synergize his mental & physical attributes enabling himself among the fantasy elite. Unfortunately, players similar to  Biggio's body type are also the type for fade off fast as their body's age. While a player like Mike Sweeney can still mash a ball 500 feet with a wretched back, a player like Biggio needed 100% of his health.  

We know, again within a certain degree of accuracy, that batters do not hit a peak until their 28^th birthday, some sooner, some later, but within a bell shaped range we know what to reasonably expect given the limitations of each player...barring an infusion of steroids of course....BTW: Look for overall offensive numbers to continue to decline thanks to the new testing in place.

Coming out of the minors we know that there will be a discrepancy in a player’s first year stats, verses his minor league stats. However, based on his past performances we can reasonably access who has and doesn’t have the potential to post a decent WHIP or strikeout total. It’s not exact, but it’s reasonable and it relies on history repeating itself.

As important as it is to follow history in an up trending pattern during a player’s career and conversely down trending during their latter seasons, it’s also important to throw out the anomaly seasons. This is just part of what our player projections algorithm is programmed to do.

Armed with a collection of Baseball data since 1880 (125 years), we use a hybrid non-linear regression formula to backward integrate the data. From there we basically use our statistics program (MatLab) to find the most important variables that have any statistical relevance from year to year. Using the end result of variables (moving trend analysis being the most weighed) we are able to produce results that are within acceptable ranges in predicting a player’s forward season.

From that point we scrutinize each player's computed projection and make what I call “subjective injections”.  Factors such as playing time are always subjective, as are human elements such as incentive, which obviously can not be factored by a machine, thus we intercede subjective analysis on at least 25% of the players (100% related to playing time expectations). 

Below is a series of charts showing how we stack up against the notion that projecting Baseball statistics is guess work. It is certainly not, especially when handled correctly by a statistician. Here's a graphical look comparing how we've done since our inception in 1999: 

The Chart above (to the right) depicts the reliability of using previous year's statistics to predict future year statistics for the top 50 batters. As you can see, history is a good indicator. However the mean is within 50-70% within the 15-35% tolerance levels. The Chart to the right (above) shows the value that Fantistics adds to the predictability of baseball statistics, our 6 year mean lies between 65-90% accuracy between the tolerances, an incremental gain of 34%!  Although pitchers are historically a very difficult group to predict or prognosticate. Fantistics has been remarkably accurate in predicting the trend for starting and relief pitchers over the last 10 seasons (last 6 in the charts).

 As you can see in the display above from left to right, our pitching projections are admirably respectful given the uncertain nature in pitcher predictability. The Chart to the right (above) shows the value that Fantistics adds to the predictability of baseball statistics, our 6 year mean lies between 45-70% accuracy between the tolerances, an incremental gain of 51%!

In projecting the direction of fantasy values (see Picking Winners & Losers above) among the position players we are averaging over a 70% accuracy percentage as a group. Last year we re redesigned our pitcher projections model with 3 new Sabermetric indicators, and the results were extraordinary.  (This accuracy computation involves evaluating the top 175 position players and their fantasy values from the prior season and correctly forecasting the direction of their values, up or down, the following season.) To see detailed listing of last season's predictability, click here (PDF file).

As a final note, reliable forecasting would be extremely difficult if it were not for the large number of games played during a baseball season. A full season of 162 games provides us with a whole lot of information to make a reliable forecast based on the supple sample size.  

In closing, remember that Fantasy Sports are a great way to enjoy America's pastimes, and winning your fantasy league takes a lot of determination. Choose your information sources with zest as bragging rights are hanging in the balance. Enjoy the upcoming Season!

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Anthony A. Perri is the founder and the resident "Stats Nerd" here at Fantistics. Anthony is the designer of the Fantistics Projections, Grading, & the VAM drafting strategy models. His fantasy expertise has been published in several national publications, including being featured as a guest expert on Major League Baseball's official website. Anthony has worked as a He can be seen hanging around the MLB spring training facilities (wishing they let him play) during the months of February and March. Having won a "trophy room full" of Fantasy Sports Championships over the last 15 years, he hopes to continue to lead you in the same direction. 

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