Paine/Arthur: Is 2015 the year baseball’s projections failed?
From Neil Paine and SABR member Rob Arthur at FiveThirtyEight on August 11, 2015:
It took a couple of bold pickups the week of the trade deadline, but the Kansas City Royals had finally done it.
Solidified themselves as clear front-runners for the American League pennant? Emerged as outright World Series favorites?
Not quite.
Kansas City’s big accomplishment was simply amassing enough talent to break .500 down the season’s final stretch — at least in the eyes of the statistical projections. Although the Royals had never dropped below .566 all season (and had posted the best winning percentage in the AL), leading sabermetric think tank Fangraphs hadn’t pegged them to win more than half of their remaining games until July 26. For most of the year, Kansas City has had the record of a contender but the forecast of a lightweight.
Read the full article here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-2015-the-year-baseballs-projections-failed/
Originally published: August 11, 2015. Last Updated: August 11, 2015.