Mathematician Predicts Yankees To Dominate

anthemaniac writes "Computerized projections in sports are nothing new, but Bruce Bukiet of the New Jersey Institute of Technology has developed a model that seems to work pretty well. He projects how many games a Major League Baseball team will win by factoring in how each hitter ought to do against each pitcher in every game. His crystal ball says the Yankees will win 110 games this year, a pretty safe bet, many might agree. But he also projects all the divisional winners. He claims to be right more than wrong in five of the past six years."

If he's so confident...

[The Living Fractal]

Has he put up beaucoup bucks in Vegas on his numbers? If not, why not. If so, how much did he win, and where can I get his numbers this year?

TLF

He's been way off-the-mark for years...

[Golgafrinchan]

First, a link to the professor's baseball page. [njit.edu]

In 2006, he predicted 102 Yankee wins. They won 97. Not too bad.

In 2005, he predicted 113 Yankee wins. They won 95. Way off.

In 2004, he predicted 117 Yankee wins. They won 101. Way off.

In 2003, he predicted 110 Yankee wins. They won 101. Not great.

In other words, take this forecast with a big boulder of salt.

Predicting the past is...

[Anonymous Coward]

easier than predicting the future.

He modeled his program on the past 5-6 years data thats why: "He claims to be right more than wrong in five of the past six years."

How does he factor rookies? Does he model injuries and use the data to rank teams susceptibility to lost talent?

Unless this program is 6 years old his model is only back-tested; not proven.

He left out several important variables

[PFritz21]

Injuries. Did he take these into account? A lot of good teams have had lousy seasons due to players being hurt for long periods of time. MAYBE if every member of every team was able to play a full schedule of 162 games...

Performances. If every player played consistently every day, but some guys go on hot streaks and get moved up in the batting order. Some guys go cold and get bumped down, or even worse, sent to the minors. MAYBE if the 25-man rosters stayed constant for the entire season.

Luck. Three teams each score 750 runs over the course of a season. Each one also allows 750 runs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_expectati on [wikipedia.org]Bill James' Pythagorean expectation says that each team should play .500 ball; 81 wins and 81 losses. But one team could win a lot of close games and lose a couple dozen blowouts, finish with 90+ wins. Another could lose a bunch of close games and win a couple dozen blowouts, ending up with only 70 wins.

Re:110 wins?

[sebi]

I agree that RS vs RA is a good way to predict the success of a team. It's not always so helpful looking back. The Indians scored 870 runs last season and only allowed 782. How did they do? Not so well: a 78-84 record, good enough to finish fourth in their division. How can one explain that disparity? Blowouts. Those 22-0 games that happen every once in a while. I like Runs Scored vs Runs Allowed models. Just not the ones that get updated during the season.