Hello, BP Beta testers. Its been a long time!
We have a series of items we're going to roll out to you over the next few weeks, and I'd like to start with the PECOTA 10-year projections. All player cards with PECOTA projections now have 10-year Projections available for you to peruse. Please remember that these projections are exposed to Beta testers only at this point. Please leave your questions or observations in the comments and we will check them out.
Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend.
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1. Those who didn't play in 2010 get their first year as 2010. Sometimes, those who did play get their first projection year as 2010.
2. The Upside scores are befouled.
2a. (Discovered midway through) Some of the projections for the 10-year don't match the one-year for 2011. Hmm. Looks like many of them, actually. If it were just a park adjustment thing, VORP shouldn't change, but it does.
3. For young hitters, the years from age 26-30 are all very, very similar, no matter the player type (Jesus Montero and Starlin Castro have the same situation.) This makes it appear that the comp system isn't being used in favor of a regular aging curver. And that aging curve is often uncurvy; Michael Brantley's year-by-year projections are very nearly the same for every year, forever.
4. Old hitters decline very slowly, much more slowly than in real life. Derek Jeter being useful at 44 is possible. OCab getting 500 plate appearances at the age of 42 isn't. Lance Berkman being pretty good at the age of 43 isn't likely to happen. The projections indicate that age-40+ people will proliferate to a degree never before seen in MLB.
5. Halladay (for one) has a pronounced decay curve. I've done some work on pitcher projections, and I'm convinced that's too strong. A pitcher of Halladay quality will typically not suffer the type of age decay that hits the ordinary.
6. Felix's projection for 2016 has him with 152K 59BB and a 4.09 ERA. I'm therefore assuming the 10-years have no park factors; this should be explicit.
That's what I got. Hope it helps.
--JRM, and I think this is what we call the alpha stage.