We got 32 different predictors when Grant kicked off the Matt Cain projection thread on March 17th. Here's Matt's actual 2008 stats, vs. our community projection:
ERA IP K BB W L HRA
Matt Cain 2008: 3.76 217.2 186 91 8 14 19
McCoven: 3.50 200.0 182 69.5 11.2 11.8 16.8
Individual categories:
ERA: Collectively, we thought Matt would do slightly better than he actually did. Guesses ranged from a low of 2.81(JRPhillips) to a high of 5.56(zenbitz). Scottsdale and sharksrog tie for the prize with a prediction of 3.75, just edging out Poe and Lyle with guesses of 3.78 each.
IP: We underestimated Matt's innings by 17 2/3. Zenbitz, clearly not feeling the love, predicted a low of 40 innings - he predicted Matt's season would end June 1st; highest guesses, and therefore the tying winners (by one-third of an inning), were jponry and scotterduder with 220. Barely losing out was cain1stballothof with 215.
K: This was our best group effort, missing by only four strikeouts. Yay, us! Guessed ranged from 36(zenbitz, naturally) to 218(jponry). Lowest non-zenbitz guess was Poe's 162. I did my job did, in fact, do his job and accurately predicted 186! Just behind were nostocksjustbonds, redseal, and Scottsdale with 185, and cain1stballothof with 187. Takimoto and howtheyscored came close with 184, and I was within hailing distance at 189.
BB: We were a bit optimistic on this one. The highest guess, 88 by Takimoto, came the closest. Next highest was 83 by i did my job. Lowest was 30 by zenbitz (he of the shortened Cain season). Lowest non-zenbitz guess was 45 by JRPhillips.
WINS: We predicted an 11-12 season for Cain (11.2 and 11.8, more specifically), so we were slightly optimistic. Highest guess was 16 by cain1stballothof, appropriately enough; zenbitz foresaw only 1 win in Matt's 8-week season. JRPhillips, despite predicting an excellent 190 strikeouts and 45 walks, thought Matt's record would only be 3-18! Groug was the winner with a pefect prediction of 8. SLOisLonely... predicted 9. Evan, jponry, and Natto guessed 10, and Takimoto guessed 6.
LOSSES: We only envisioned 11.8 losses, rather than 14. Highest loss guesses were 21 each by i did my job and Takimoto. Lowest guess was zenbitz's 3 (see disclaimer); lowest guess otherwise was 7 by thedomster, WilliamVanLandingham, and Cainer. A perfect 14 was predicted by the pride of BC, jponry. Close, but no cigar, were SLOisLonely and sharksrog with 15; nostocksjustbonds, tedfordfan, nvsfg, and scotterduder had 13.
HRA: We underestimated this as well. Smallest non-zenbitz prediction was 7 by Takimoto, thedomster, & WilliamVanLandingham. Highest was 22 by Evan and tedfordfan, followed by 21 from sharksrog, nostocksjustbonds, & Kitspool. Four baseball experts emerged from this group, with pefect guesses of 19: groug, WilliamVanLandingham, scotterduder, and SLOisLonely. Close behind were Scottsdale, nvsfg, and Little Napolean with 18, and out machine & Natto with 20.
Overall, it's hard to identify who won. I thought that whoever came closest in the category we did worst in should be a leading candidate, and that's Takimoto's prediction of 88 walks (91 actual). And he(she?) did well with IP 184(186) and Wins 6(8). But Losses 21(14) and HRA 7(19) weren't too close. Here are my top candidates - who wants to plead their case? If I had to pick, I'd say groug was the winner; he got the HRA and Wins exactly, missed the Losses by 1, underguessed the Walks like most of us, and was reasonably close in ERA and IP.
ERA IP K BB W L HRA
Matt Cain 2008: 3.76 217.2 186 91 8 14 19
groug: 3.51 206 194 77 8 15 19
sharksrog: 3.75 210 165 75 12 15 21
nostocks: 3.81 203 185 83 11 13 21
Scottsdale: 3.75 203 185 75 14 10 18
tedfordfan: 3.88 211 176 72 13 13 22
Poe: 3.78 188 162 65 7 12 17
out machine: 3.68 212 198 70 12 12 20
This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.
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