A Peta Perspective on the Hot Stove So Far
Cold snowy days here in our nation’s capital, combined with the owners’ and players’ seeming determination to kill the golden goose, provides an opportunity for me to look at the hot stove (pre-lockout) through the lens of the Peta methodology. For those unfamiliar with the Peta methodology, I refer you to this deeper dive here on the Community Blog published last January. Based on Joe Peta’s groundbreaking 2013 book Trading Bases, the methodology derives each team’s upcoming season win-loss record based on the utilization of its previous season performance (runs scored/runs allowed), adjusted for cluster luck (my proxy is FG BaseRuns), and the team’s upcoming-season projected WAR.
Just before Opening Day, the product of this calculation is compared to the money line. Peta suggests that in a 162-game season, win totals produced by the model that deviate from the money line by more than four games (1.5 games in a 60- game season) represented “unrepeatable results” and therefore were worth a possible wager. Read the rest of this entry »