Steve Phillips Challenge: Final Edition

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Oct 4, 2009 8:14 PM PDT Comment 10 comments

With the regular season gone (with the exception of the Twins and Tigers on Tuesday), I figured it would be fun couple of moments to see how we all ended up for the Steve Phillips Challenge.

In case you missed it, the Challenge was to pick the ending records of all 30 MLB teams prior to Opening Day and seeing if we could beat the famously bad predictions of one Mr. Phillips. As far as I know, his choices aren't posted anywhere, so it became something of an internal competition with a few of us.

Link here for how we were each doing at the All-Star Break, and here for the original post.

For the final, rather than screw with win percentage, I simply used predicted wins, with the formula being the absolute value of predicted wins minus actual wins. For example, I picked the Braves to go 82-80. They actually finished 86-76, so the absolute value of 82 - 86 is 4, which was my score for Atlanta. Add 'em all up and get a total, lowest total wins.

Sironz 228
cwel87 231
Two Rs And Two Ls 236
Poochie 245
Benne 245
Jack Moore 247
Trenchtown 253
hcoguy 257
vivaelpujols 262

A null prediction of .500 would have netted a score of 285.

Sironz accurately picked the Royals, A's, and Cubs on the way to victory. Strangely, three of us accurately predicted the Reds' 78-84 record.

Our average score was fewer than 5 on the Blue Jays, Twins, White Sox, Mariners, Phillies, Braves, Brewers, and Reds, and way the hell off on the Mets and Indians (more than 20 on each). Good job, everybody.

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And if anyone is interested

Here is the Vegas watch 2009 finalization which originally led to the challenge in the first place. Unfortunately, Steve Phillips was not a contestant in his own challenge, Keith Law was though. Surprisingly Pecota was the worst predictor by far this year.

Don't believe the lies Bill!!!! look at the sparkly ERA!!! Sparkly, Sparkly!!! - McCovey Chronicles

by Trenchtown on Oct 4, 2009 9:09 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I see Dave Cameron got a shoutout in that article.

I’m always happy to see a Dave mention.

Batted .393/.614/.464 for 2009 Diablos, #5 in OBP for PSSBL Rocky Division.

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Oct 4, 2009 9:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

PECOTA doesn't understand defense so it isn't going to be as accurate predicting W-L records

by Poochie on Oct 4, 2009 9:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

My guess is

That the Yahoo! guys don’t understand baseball in general so that is hardly an excuse

Don't believe the lies Bill!!!! look at the sparkly ERA!!! Sparkly, Sparkly!!! - McCovey Chronicles

by Trenchtown on Oct 8, 2009 10:34 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It generally does well

mainly because defense is considered when regressing ERA. However, in the case of the Mariners, who received a large defensive turnover, it will underestimate them.

by vivaelpujols on Oct 8, 2009 11:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

And if you scroll down into the comments of the above

There is a link to the analysts’ predictions Standard Deviation, Average Miss, etc. And like Two R’s said, Indians and Mets were the largest actual miss for their sample too

Don't believe the lies Bill!!!! look at the sparkly ERA!!! Sparkly, Sparkly!!! - McCovey Chronicles

by Trenchtown on Oct 4, 2009 9:14 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs