| Computers are smarter than people
So, I remember reading a bunch of stuff early in theyear about how baseball prospectus forecasting program, PECOTA, predicted the White Sox to win 73 games this year. A bunch of people flipped out saying "WHAT??? They won the WS two years ago! No way they finish the year 8 games under .500!!!" Well, sure enough, the W. Sox are having an awful year. Which got me thinking...How did the prgram do for all the other teams, this is what I found:
Amazingly, the computer picked 10 teams (1/3rd of the league) to within 1 game of their current win percentage. It nailed the Orioles on the head, and the Phillies, White Sox, Blue Jays, A's, Reds, Padres, Cubs, Indians, and Cardinals were one game off (through 125-128 games)
The computer was within two games of the Brewers, Braves, Yankees, and Tigers
Within 3 games of the Diamondbacks and Rockies
Within 4 games of the Dodgers
Within 5 games of the Red Sox
So, for 18 of the 30 teams, it was within 5 games. That's pretty impressive.
The computer missed by 10 games or more for only 3 teams: The Twins (10 games worse), Devil Rays (16 games worse), and Mariners (20 games better)
Some of the amazing things it predicted correctly:
The Diamondbacks leading the NL West
The White Sox fall to below .500
The Cardinals being a roughly .500 team
The Cubs and Brewers being the cream of a mediocre crop in the NL Central
The A's not being able to squeeze another second half surge this year (take that everyone who thinks Billy Beane invented computers to make himself look good!)
I gotta say, despite being totally wrong on a few teams like the Mariners, and Twins, this was pretty impressive, on the whole.
I'm trying to find a human-generated set of predictions to compare it to, but I keep finding things that just give predicted division winners, not total win-loss records. I'll keep looking though... |