Let’s go!

Just as I’m getting ready to throw in the towel, I finally track down the bugs in the pitching projections that have been driving me up a wall for more than a month. And damned if it isn’t always the stupidest, piddlingest crap that is the hardest to find – I’d managed to switch the indices between the input league and the output league.

The way the program is supposed to work, the real stats are compared to the real league, and then adjusted to the new league. Somehow, don’t know when or how, the part that was supposed to move the stats from translation space back to the expected 2013 reality was going off on a weird angle.

And yes, that was holding me up from writing. I couldn’t face up to an audience without having a proper product (even if the product, with all its faults, was going out already.)

So start by checking out the Projected Standings tab. That’s the culmination of this winter’s work, as it stands now…early in the spring, with a lot of decisions yet to be settled. I would have liked to have had this done two months (and two of my own drafts) ago, but life doesn’t always move at our preferred pace.

Just to be clear about what goes in to the projections: all of the performance rates are based on the computer output. No manual intervention allowed. The computer also sets the upper limit for playing time. For a clear starter, I’ll stay within that limit, with a few exceptions (Stephen Strasburg, for instance, I bounced a good 30 IP above the computer, which is still a conservative 180 innings).  Deciding on who’s the starter – and how long they’ll hold it, and who the likely replacements are – that’s all me.

And when I put all of those things together, I get an absolute free for all in the AL East, with four out of five dentiststeams falling within an 84-87 win range. Looking at the Playoff Chances tab, which runs with these projections a million times, they are all in the 37-50% range for making the playoffs. The Orioles are well back, around 10% – as much as I don’t want it to be so, their performance last year was built on so much good luck that a repeat seems impossible.

Going back to the ‘Projected Standings’, if you click on the TOR tab you’ll get my full projection for the team. The team stats are sortable; just click the header line. Each player should be a link; click there and you should get a full page for the player, with stats  for his full career, right through whatever he’s done in spring training so far this year. (I think – I’ve been able to run the ST stats manually, but they haven’t gone through an automated computer run yet). Everything is still subject to change, and I welcome your suggestions on what to add. And write on – topic selection has always been a weakness for me.

And so, to bed.