Finding the breakout
November 24, 2008 4 Comments
From the stuff we’re reading file: Michael Lerra over at THT has an article on finding the next breakout pitcher. He likes Shaun Marcum, Dustin McGowan, and John Danks. And umm… Paul Maholm. Actually this is the type of work that I really look forward to in the off-season. Predictor systems usually predict just about everyone to basically pick up where they left off last year with maybe an adjustment for age or similar players. And for what it’s worth, usually everyone picks up about where they left off last year with a little adjustment for age. The trick is to find the guy who will break out. I’d trade all the forecasting systems in the world for one that could locate the breakout guys.
This is the world I’m bringing a child into: Mrs. Cutter is pregnant, and I have to wonder about a world where just about anything that the human race is capable of doing is available in game/reality show format. The Pittsburgh Pirates just signed two pitchers who won a reality show in India. That may or may not be a prize to sign with the Pirates, but…
Congratulations!
Too bad Marcum is out for the year.
So two SP who had an ERA lower than 3.4 in the AL are going to breakout, interesting.
I could see someone like Cueto breaking out like Danks and E. Santana did this year.
Congratulations Pizza!
I’ve got my batter database set up, but have yet to start on the pitchers. Beware of mistaking the “good season” for a breakout. Right now I have over 14,000 batter projections over the past 10 years. I’ve compared the year0 projections to year+1 results to see who varied the most from their projections. Now I want to look at year+2 to see how often they regress back to year+1 projections, and how many stay ahead (or below) their newer projections, having then over 2 seasons established a new level. I think breakdowns happen more often than breakouts, but it’s something on my list to examine.