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Web Tour and Data Archives    NPB Baseball Player Forecasts /
Japanese (Pro Yakyu) Projections / the japanese insider


We proudly present our Pro Yakyu 2009 Japanese baseball forecasts. They can be downloaded as a spreadsheet or viewed online in our baseball player database (links in the box below).They are based on raw data provided in the Pro Yakyu Database by Michael Westbay.

The Guru's cheat sheets are now available for everyone. Find sleepers and player rankings by position. Special original stats were designed especially for fantasy league drafting. Enjoy!! (Please tell your friends).  

FREE NPB Player Forecasts - Japanese Leagues

About the Guru's MLB Player Projections - The spreadsheets below have 5 tabs: Definitions (descriptions of stats), Batting forecasts, Pitching forecasts, and Cheat Sheets for batters and pitchers. The names of the forecasted stats have an "m" in from of them. So, the HR forecast is mHR, etc.

Download Spreadsheet:  GURU_mForecast2009_NPB.xls
Evaluate past forecasts.

Searchable Database: Batting Forecast Database / Pitching Forecast Database.

MLB Player Forecasts

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Notes: Forecasts are based on data from the last three years, where recent years count more. Team and league assignments are based on where they ended last year. Some actual data from last year was included as a reference, with a few of our own stats added for good measure. And, for pitchers, 2 and 3 year forecasts for key stats were included as well.

For ranking players, the mGURU stat is the key. Alternatively for batters, use mGURUwt, which weighs by positional scarcity.  mGURU is designed to weight the players rate of production and expected playing time to arrive at a best rating. Since forecasting playing time is difficult (although we are proud of the strength of this forecast), mGURU is weighted more heavily on rate than tradition linear weights. This strategy is useful for the goal of ranking player forecasts for simulation leagues.

mGURU is calibrated to value batters and pitchers roughly equally, possibly giving a slight edge to pitchers. It does not consider fielding. For batters, SB's are not as valuable in real life (or in mGURU) as they are in rotisserie, so draft accordingly. Players whose mGURU values are within 10% of each other are a statistical dead heat, based on margin of error.

mROTO is designed to provide values for 5x5 rotisserie scoring as follows: Batting is Avg, HR, SB, RBI, R. Pitching is ERA, W, SV, WHIP, Strike outs. mROTOwt weights values by positional scarcity. Values are meant to be relative to each other and provide directional guidance. Values resemble mixed leagues with a $260 budget for 12 teams. mROTO is NOT as good an indicator of true player value as mGURU, but it may help you win a league based on this kind of scoring.

NL players are listed at the top, AL at the bottom. If you are playing in a mixed league, for batters: sort by Play (descending), POS (descending), mGuru (descending); for pitchers sort by Play (descending), POS (descending), mGURU (descending). In the case of pitchers, notice that positions were newly defined to distinguish between them (see below).

Players can also be sorted by rankings. Rank is overall for batters. lrank is the league rank among either batters or pitchers. prank is the positional rank within league for either batters or pitchers. An overall rank across all players was not made, but it can be infered using mGURU.

If you prefer not to consider playing time in the rankings and want to reply soly on rate of production, we have that too. For batters use wOBA, which is based on research by Tom Tango. For Pitchers use mDERA, which is the ERA forecast. mDERA relies on components of "dips" as an integral part of the forecast. Alternatively, use ERAi, which is the indexed era forecast.

No minor league data was considered, so be advised that forecasts for rookies tend to be weighted more heavily towards league averages for players of their positions and expected playing time than established players. Another stat Tom Tango developed called Reliability will help you gauge this.

Looking for sleepers?

Value is S=Sleeper, R=Regular, and O=Overpriced compared to what others might expect based on last season. If you want to know how big a sleeper or how overpriced, use gurud, which is the difference between forecasted performance and last year for those keys stats. The higher the number the bigger value, the lower the number the more overpriced.

Pitchers: DIF is mDERA-ERA (forecasted era minus last years era). Negative dif is a value pick, positive is premium. DIF_IP3 is the change in projected IP 3 years from now minus last year.

ORIGINAL BATTING STATS

The xGURU and xWOBA for batters shows expected batting value for someone at that position and playing time. So if you want to consider valuing SS over OF, then see how much higher that persons mGURU is above xGURU. mGURUwt was created to do this weighting for you.

mStarter is predicted playing time, where Y is Starter; N is Not full time Starter or Inj risk or Performance Risk; and B is a Bench player with fringe mlb-level quality forecasted.

ORIGINAL PITCHING STATS

Creation of pitching positions: SP=Starters / LP=Long Relief (Swing) / JP=Junk Starters / EP=Elite Relief Pitchers / DP=Decent RP / BP=Bad RP/ AP=Avoid RP.

mSTUFF (Do NOT confuse this with PECOTA's stuff). Having big STUFF means excellent power and control. Its our way of measuring upside, especially for young pitchers. Find hidden future stars! The formula is: mDOM*6- 1.333*(mDERA+ mDERA)- 3*mCTL -5*mHR9; if mSTUFF<1 then mSTUFF=1; mSTUFF=mSTUFF*mSTUFF/10;

Wrip - Since hrs allowed are more under a pitchers control than hits allowed, a stat called wrip was created to look like whip. Whip is (walks+hits)/ip and Wrip is (walks+hr*10)/ip. I also like the names because a pitcher giving up lots of hits gets "whipped", while one giving up lots of HRs gets "wripped." Agree?

traj indicates the trajectory the pitcher is heading over the next 3 years.

Several more are borrowed from others, such as: mCMD (bb/ip/9), mDOM (k/ip/9), mCTL (k/bb), and HR9 (hr/ip/9). 

Searchable Database:

BATTERS Search - Comparisons PITCHERS Search - Comparisons

 Forecasts from past years and actuals with Sabermetric stats

Forecasts:  GURU_mForecast2009_NPB.xls   Actuals: npb2009.xls

Forecasts:  GURU_mForecast2008_NPB.xls   Actuals: npb2008.xls

Forecasts:  GURU_mForecast2007_NPB.xls   Actuals: npb2007.xls

Japanese Data Archive - More stats and download spreadsheets.

More...
the japanese insider

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