The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

Today I’ll continue my series of reviews of several widely available sources of 2008 fantasy baseball projections. Next up are the Hitters’ projections available at CBS Sportsline. I’ll use the benchmarks laid out in my 3/17 post on Hitters.

1. Total At-Bats (AB) for all Hitters, all teams = 201,801, which is significantly greater than the benchmark range of 161,000-163,000.
2. Total AB range for all teams = 5,902 (Phillies) to 7,911 (Nationals) for NL teams, and 6,422 (Rays) to 7,777 (Rangers) for AL teams. Based on results for the past 3 seasons, a much more reasonable range is 5,100-5,400 AB for an NL team, and 5,400 to 5,800 AB for an AL team. You can draw your own conclusions on the likelihood of the Nationals’ Hitters accumulating 2,000 AB more than the Phillies and 1,000 AB more than teams like the Red Sox and Yankees.
3. Total Hits = 55,302, which is significantly higher than the benchmark range of 43,000-45,000.
4. Overall Batting Average is .274, which is slightly higher than the benchmark range of .268-.273.
5. Total Home Runs = 6,343, which is significantly higher than the benchmark range of 4,900-5,400.
6. Total Runs Batted In = 27,829, which is significantly higher than the benchmark range of 21,000-22,000.
7. Total Runs Scored = 28,793, which is significantly higher than the benchmark range of 22,000-23,500.
8. Total Stolen Bases = 3,495, which is significantly higher than the benchmark range of 2,500-3,000.

Conclusion - CBS Sportsline’s Hitters’ projections, when viewed as a whole, appear to be a set of “Best Case” projections rather than “Expected Case” projections. While that may serve you well at the end of you draft/auction when you’re trolling for sleepers, relying on a “Best Case” set of projections throughout your draft will likely result in your drafting mediocre players too soon or paying too much for them in an auction.

I’ll look at CBS Sportsline’s Pitchers’ projections later today.

Until then,

The Sherpa

Today I’ll start my series of reviews of several widely available sources of 2008 fantasy baseball projections. First up are the Hitters’ projections available at MLB.com. I’ll use the benchmarks laid out in my 3/17 post on Hitters.

1. Total At-Bats (AB) for all Hitters, all teams - can’t judge this; unfortunately, the MLB.com summary projections don’t include a Hitter’s projected AB.
2. Total AB for a team - see previous item.
3. Total Hits - see item #1.
4. Overall Batting Average - since AB for individual Hitters aren’t readily available, I used Runs Scored as a proxy for AB. This proxy suggests an overall Batting Average of .280, which is greater than the benchmark of .268-.273.
5. Total Home Runs = 6,592, which is significantly above the benchmark of 4,900-5,400.
6. Total Runs Batted In = 27,510, which is significantly above the benchmark of 21,000-22,000.
7. Total Runs Scored = 28,669, which is significantly above the benchmark of 22,000-23,000.
8. Total Stolen Bases = 3,664, which is significantly above the benchmark of 2,500-3,000.

Conclusion - MLB.com’s Hitters’ projections, when viewed as a whole, appear to be a set of “Best Case” projections rather than “Expected Case” projections. While that may serve you well at the end of your draft/auction when you’re trolling for sleepers, relying on a “Best Case” set of projections throughout your draft will likely result in your drafting mediocre players too soon or paying too much for them in an auction.

I’ll look at MLB.com’s Pitchers’ projections later today.

The Sherpa