Projections have Twins headed for fourth-straight 90-loss season

[jay]

Thank you for responding.

 

The referenced formula seems simplistic and has no qualifiers--I'll use it for discussion purposes. The expected 1.8 additional wins generated by this incremental OPS would be well within the error margin of the original estimate of wins postulated in the thread and likely within the error limit of the cited formula itself! Ergo, noise.

 

Well, I didn't want to define the entire concept. Here's an excellent link if you'd like to read more about it: http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2009/08/silly-ops-tricks.html

 

You're probably right that either result is well within the error range for both scenarios. However, if that's your definition of what makes it noise, there wouldn't be a single move you could make that wouldn't qualify. Even a big free agent signing and the expected gain in wins would be well within the error range of what could actually happen without that FA given all the dynamics of an individual season.

 

If you played the season a million times, you'd find these teams would get extremely close to averaging the 81 and 82.8 numbers respectively. Although individual seasons are within error range of each other, that expected number doesn't change.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I'm not following you completely here. Why does ZiPS use the 563 PAs and 143 games for Pinto if they're completely meaningless numbers? Why publish all of the expected "counting stats"?

 

Why not just release the rate stats without all of the further detail if it's so meaningless?

 

Illustrative purposes only. Good for vets like Mauer, not so much for rookies like Pinto who will be battling for playing time (or even a roster spot).

 

Basically, depth charts, roster composition, and health reports are not direct inputs into ZiPS. I think this is covered in most overviews of the system.