Nate Silver Speaks
Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts chats with Baseball Prospectus’ Nate Silver, creator of the PECOTA projection system, about his baby. What’s the magic formula? For obvious reasons, that remains a secret, but here is a little clue:
The most important variables for hitters are batting average, walk rate, isolated power, strikeout rate, speed score, and position. The most important for pitchers are strikeout rate, walk rate, isolated power allowed, and usage pattern. But the weights are really fairly flat - there’s not any one factor that dwarfs the others in importance.
Silver also notes limitations of the system:
I’d love to look at college stats, but thus far, neither Clay nor I have put in the work to build credible translations. I also worry a bit about the aluminum bat thing. I know that Kevin Goldstein is convinced that there are a lot of good aluminum bat hitters that just won’t make the transition to wood. It also perhaps changes pitching philosophy, requiring you to work around hitters a bit more. Someone like Justin Verlander, for example, had some pretty high walk rates in college, but that control got much better once he was pitching to wood bats and with a professional defense behind him.
Fascinating interview. Very chewy. If you’re interested in what makes a baseball forecasting system tick, this is a must read.
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