History will little note, nor long remember, what we say here." -- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address. Voted worst prediction in history.
In February, we examined the PECOTA projections for MLB 2015. Based on everything the computers could crunch prior to the start of the season, this is how Baseball Prospectus stacked up all the teams for the 2015 season. Remember that the projections can't predict trades and injuries. They can't predict much else, as you'll see.
The projections had Washington, St. Louis and the Dodgers winning the NL divisions with the Mets, Giants, Marlins and Padres competing for the Wild Cards. That's two of three division winners and two of four Wild Card contestants.
PECOTA saw the Cubs, Pirates and Braves as .500 teams. To that we say: ha!
On the other hand, it correctly tabbed Philly, Cincinnati and Colorado as bottom feeders.
In other words, the fancy computers with their gigagoogles knew about as much as you did with your biases and half-baked opinions. Not exactly an endorsement for SABR membership. About the only thing we can say about the projection is that it recognized improvement in Flushing.
It gets worse. In the junior circuit, PECOTA struck out looking on a fastball down the middle. It identified last place Boston and Detroit as division kings and named the Of Anaheims as the best team in the league. Its Wild Card competitors were the woeful Mariners and A's, along with Tampa. In other words, oh-for-six.
PECOTA projected the top teams in the Central -- Kansas City and Minnesota, who finished a combined 32 games over .500 -- as the AL's two worst teams, with a combined 141-183 record. It did the same for Texas and Houston in the West.
That's as stinkin' wrong as you can get.
In the East, PECOTA projected the Blue Jays a couple of games over .500 and the Yankees a couple of games under. About the only thing the projection system nailed was that all the machinations in Chicago still left the White Sox as poseurs.
In other words, all the fancy algorithms don't know squat. A blind squirrel could have picked one of the division winners. This is the very point I made in this post eight months ago.
It's not that the seamheads are stupid, or have nothing to add to the conversation, or to our understanding of the game, quite the opposite. It's that baseball is a crazy game that no one can predict, project, prognosticate, portend, prophesize, augur, foretell, forecast or in any way anticipate. That's what we love about it.
So let's all, all of us including the great scientific analysts of the horsehide, just take a chill pill and dial down the...um...what's the word...?
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