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How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes

blog.zachschnell.com

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Re: How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes

#41

Post by wjnc »

icelancer wrote: post #21

As someone who has written 10k+ loc on simulators, markov chaining, and done tons of analysis on baseball projections... I don't know where to start. I honestly don't. (You are very, very far off the correct methodology.) But maybe this is a good place, I guess. http://www.oakton.edu/user/4/pboisver/AABaseballMath.html I am not trying to be a jerk. But ask yourself: If it were that trivial, why wouldn't it be a snap…

Why (as a European, but my dad is big a DET-fan) do you guys estimate WPE from high level variables?

Baseball is basicly a lineup versus lineup sport, right? Or in terms of the link: Q per team is variable between matches. An additional modelling level should estimate Q per team per match, before estimating Qx - Qy.

Without Cabrera, DET has a harder time winning. Same for the big bearded guy.

As a sidenote: some guy posts his code (+) and gets upvoted (+). He's not aiming to change the world, or to become a 100-million firm. He wants feedback and to improve his approach. We can give him that without the "aararrrgh, but Terrence Tao is much smarter than you"? Otherwise, just don't upvote :)

Re: How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes

#42

Post by kybernetikos »

gwern wrote: post #7

What, this is just streak-based? Do streaks even exist in baseball?

I'd doubt it. Streaks in general are widely believed to exist even when they don't c.f the Hot-hand fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-hand_fallacy

I would usually presume against streaks being a useful way of predicting the future unless significant evidence were provided.

Re: How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes

#43

Post by zsch »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #35
icelancer wrote: post #21

As someone who has written 10k+ loc on simulators, markov chaining, and done tons of analysis on baseball projections... I don't know where to start. I honestly don't. (You are very, very far off the correct methodology.) But maybe this is a good place, I guess. http://www.oakton.edu/user/4/pboisver/AABaseballMath.html I am not trying to be a jerk. But ask yourself: If it were that trivial, why wouldn't it be a snap…

Thank you- I also built several baseball sims and this article is just insultingly ignorant! Maybe thats a little extreme, but that was my reaction.

I'm sorry it came off that way. I am very aware that the script in its current form does not come remotely close to doing justice given all of the data thats out there and necessary to incorporate. I meant to make it clear in the article that this script is completely elementary – it was a fun thing to code, but nothing remotely resemblant of what it takes to predict sports with accuracy.

Re: How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes

#44

Post by zsch »

icelancer wrote: post #21

As someone who has written 10k+ loc on simulators, markov chaining, and done tons of analysis on baseball projections... I don't know where to start. I honestly don't. (You are very, very far off the correct methodology.) But maybe this is a good place, I guess. http://www.oakton.edu/user/4/pboisver/AABaseballMath.html I am not trying to be a jerk. But ask yourself: If it were that trivial, why wouldn't it be a snap…

Thank you for the article. Believe me, I am very much aware that this is elementary. I hoped to – but apologize that I didn't – make it clear that making predictions requires incorporating many many factors. It was a fun script for me to code, and I was excited to see it work the night I wrote it. But I also understand that this will need more testing and to be based off of far more information to be anywhere close to accurate.
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