The MLB(CS)

On paper, this seems like it should be a lot more common

If you don’t live in either New York or Philadelphia, you might have forgotten that the “Boys of Summer” play well into the Fall.  Right now, the World Series is 2-1 in favor of the Yankees.  What astounds me about America’s favorite pass-time (yes, I do mean baseball) compared to America’s favorite passion (yes, I do mean college football) is the lack of importance behind pre-season rankings and performance predictions for the year.  It is almost mind-boggling to think that college football, which is one of the more unpredictable and data-poor sports we play here in America could be decided by computer simulation, when baseball, one of the most statistically-driven, sabremetrically studied, and data-rich of all sports has managed to steer clear  that same kind of hub-bub.

A large part of this is that the World Series championship is decided on the field through a very clear, tournament selection effort.  Still, at the same time, there are a preponderance of fairly good forecasting models even at the PLAYER level.  For those of you who play fantasy baseball, getting a good familiarity with the CHONE, Marcel the Monkey, Guru, and PECOTA forecasting models is an easy way to organize your draft.  In case you are interested, you can learn about these models here.

Now, If all of these statistical models can predict player performance from Home Runs to WHIP, couldn’t this data be used to simulate performance over a season?  If so, what would it tell us?  Next season, The Game on Paper will explore the potential of these models to be used on an aggregate level to predict the eventual World Series Champions.

In the mean time, let’s use some of these fantastic projections to play out a head-to head Fantasy Baseball series between the Yankees and Phillies and see who the models give more love to.  Based on an average of several player forecasting models, I took the average 2009 stats-projection of the Yankees and the average 2009 stats-projection of the Phillies and put them together.  In our simulated head-to-head game, the Yankees have the advantage in 7/10 key statistical categories.  Now, this was at the start of the regular season and doesn’t account for injuries, trades, or any of the other drama that happens off the field during the regular season.

On paper, the Yankees have it.

Nonetheless, the Yankees are ahead 2-1 in the series, and with Sabathia on the mound tonight against Blanton, the Yankees may very well look just as good as a real team as they did as a Fantasy team seven months ago.