Projection recap: Barry Zito

Grant tested the wisdom of crowds last March 11th when he invited us to predict Barry Zito's performance in 2008. Hard to believe, but he exceeded only one of our expectations - treating us much like he did Brian Sabean last year.  To wit:

                                             IP       ERA       K       BB      HR

        Barry Zito 2008:      180      5.15     120     102    16

McCoven prediction:    202.2    4.42     129      88      24

IP(180): predictions ranged from 174(wcw) to 220(Cainer).  Closest was kingofthacove with 178.2, followed by Lyle with 183 and wcw with 174.

ERA(5.15): The most optimistic guess was 3.68(giantsin2067), the most pessimistic was 6.15(kingofthacove). Congrats to Cookyman with a prescient 5.21 prediction (one of only two guesses above Barry's actual ERA).

K's(120): Cainer was the most bullish on Zito overall, with a high prediction here of 170 K's. kingofthacove was the most bearish overall, and he had the low prediction of 74. Genius points go to the pre-wedding xanthan who accurately predicted 120!  This was the best prediction of the McCoven - Grant guessed 121, groug 118, GobearsGogiants 122.

BB's(102): Mea culpa - I pretty much screwed up our group wisdom on this one, predicting a ridiculous low 68 (to be fair, I was expecting 3-4 weeks on the DL for the Albatross). Cookyman had the highest guess of 110 (and tied for fourth closest).  Howtheyscored takes the prize with a guess of 103. Also close: giantsin2067(99), raisingcain (96), and juanboy (94) and Cookyman (110).

HRA(16): Here's the only category Barry did better in than our projection (24). Lowest guess was Grant's 15; highest guess was Cookyman's 35. Lyle got it right with 16 (remember, I thought he'd miss 4-6 starts). Grant with 15 and Scottsdale with 18 were also very close.

Overall: It depends on how you might weight the categories. Grant only missed the K's by one and the HRA by one, but was way off on ERA (3.87).  Lyle got the HRA correct, missed the IP by three, but way underguessed the BB (68). It's just my eyeball guess here, but I'd say best overall prediction goes to Cookyman, who was wildly high on HRA but very close everywhere else:

IP: Zito 180, Cookyman 190

ERA: Zito 5.15, Cookyman 5.21

K: Zito 120, Cookyman 112

BB: Zito 102, Cookyman 110

HRA: Zito 16, Cookyman 35!

Congratulations Cookyman - you win a free pass to xanthan's Stats Lair and 100 McCovey Bucks, redeemable at fine stores everywhere.