There is so much excitement leading up to the draft each
year that it’s easy to forget the long down time afterwards before the season
actually begins again. There’s one post draft ritual which we can look forward
to satisfying our thirst for anything softball. . . projections! While most
captains receive favorable write-ups(The overall Win/Loss predictions always
total more than the .500 record it should be), there are some players whose
excitement turns a little sour after reading about a predicted poor season
ahead. As a member of a projected 8-14 team, I know that feeling well. I’ve had
numerous experiences with the disappointment as two of my recent teams were projected
to go 7-15 and 9-13. This feeling of déjà vu got me thinking a few questions.
Which captains continuously get the best and worst projections? And most
importantly, Which captains have done the best job of exceeding and falling
short of projections? Ask no longer; here are the results.
First, here is a ranking from best to worst of each current
captain’s collective projected records from 2011-2014. I left off 2015 because
I just want to compare projected records with actual records:
(Note: Some projects equaled more than 22 games for some
reason. In these cases, I took it off the win total. For example, if a team was
projected to go 12-11, I counted it as 11-11.)
1. Jacoby .652 (43-23)
2. Wallman .568 (50-38)
3. Randell .545 (48-40)
4. Carlin .534 (47-41)
4. Feldman .534 (47-41)
4. Harris .534 (47-41)
7. Beilis .511 (45-43)
8. Lapine .500 (44-44)
8. Goldfarb .500 (44-44)
8. Younger .500 (44-44)
11. Marrone .477 (21-23)
12. Granese .466 (41-47)
13. Applebaum .455 (40-48)
14. Pollock .443 (39-49)
15. Bykofsky .341 (15-29)
Here are the actual combined season records for each team 2011-2014:
1. Wallman .611 (54-34)
2. Jacoby . 606 (40-26)
3. Carlin .568 (50-38)
3, Younger .568 (50-38)
3. Applebaum .568 (50-38)
6. Pollock .534 (47-41)
7. Goldfarb .511 (45-43)
7. Feldman 511 (45-43)
9. Lapine 500 (44-44)
10. Beilis . 489 (43-45)
11. Harris .477 (42-46)
12. Randell .432 (38-50)
12. Granese .432 (38-50)
14. Bykofsky .409 (18-26)
15. Marrone .295 (13-31)
Here now is the ranking that I care most about for this study. Here's a ranking of captains in order of how much they have exceeded projections by percentage points since 2011.
1. Applebaum .113
2. Pollock .091
3. Bykofsky .068
3. Younger .068
5. Wallman .046
6. Carlin .034
7. Goldfarb .011
8. Lapine same as projections
9. Beilis -.022
10. Feldman -.023
11. Granese -.034
12. Jacoby -.046
13. Harris -.057
14. Randell -.113
15. Marrone -.182
A few notes about the results:
1. A few team's placement on this list are surprising given their overall success and lack thereof. Bykofsky is listed as a team that has overachieved expectations yet only has a .409 winning percentage. On the other end of the spectrum, Jacoby is listed as a team that has not lived up to expectations, yet they have the second best winning pecentage since 2011. It shows you just how consistency high expectations are for Jacoby's teams.
2. I'm surprised my team isn't #1 on this list. Every year I call Matt and tell him I think our team is being underestimated. Usually I'm right since we ARE still #2 on the "exceeding expectations" list. Applebaum's #1 ranking is largely thanks to a 19-3 campaign which would have surpassed even an enormous projection, let alone the 11-11 prediction they actually received.
3. What our team and Applebaum have in common is that we're generally built around offense, I think teams built around hitting are wrongly dismissed a lot quicker than teams built around defense. That's a study for another day.
4. On a final note, with this year's projections, Team Pollock now has the lowest collective predicted record from 2011-present. We look forward to continuing our history of exceeding expectations.
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