PECOTA guys
I was looking at something i thought was interesting and then someone summed it up for me:
What I've said many times is that Murton is as good a hitter as Markakis.
Career to date:
Murton .820 OPS
Markakis .826 OPS
PECOTA projection, 2008-2014:
Murton .820 OPS
Markakis .811 OPS
Yep, sorry. PECOTA thinks Markakis is only an .811 OPS guy. And here everyone assumed 2007 would make this comparison ridiculous. Guess not.
This post was in the middle of the latest week long argument between the Cubs fans and Orioles fans about "proper" assessment of the value of the respective players in the proposed BRob trade to the Cubs. I rarely do this, but I didn't want this point to get lost so I decided to create a thread.
This post should be stickied by everyone that believes in PECOTA as an excellent player level predictor of stats. Clearly PECOTA is applied using formulas on a macro level and has some limitations. I can't believe that ANYONE with any logic would believe that Nick Markakis and Matt Murton are equivalent hitters today. I'm shocked that anyone thought a year ago that Markakis and Murton PROJECTED to be equivalent hitters through 2014. The fact that PECOTA still believes TODAY that Murton will be a slightly better hitter through 2014 should instill a high level of doubt when uniformly accepting and applying PECOTA predictions across the board w/o further analysis.
Murton clearly isn't as good a hitter as Nick Markakis. That can be proven so thoroughly and on so many levels that I'm shocked Dave would even put stock in this comparison. Murton would likely produce an OPS as good as Markakis going forward ONLY IF Markakis played every single day and Murton was used against all lefties and a very select group of righties. Murton crushes lefties and performs only adequately against righties. The problem is that there are many more righties in the game than lefties so Murton's value as a hitter is equivalent to Markakis' value only if the analysis doesn't take this fact into account. That is quite a large flaw.
Just in case someone wants to argue that Murton projects to be as good a hitter as Markakis over the next six years, I would ask them to use the attached information to make your case. I particularly point you to the following issues:
1. Age vs Level - Markakis outperformed Murton at AA despite being two years younger (993 OPS at 21 vs 901 OPS at 23). Markakis also outperformed Murton at high A ball while being a year younger. Finally, Markakis put up results at 23 in the majors while playing every single day that Murton has yet to come close to despite three separate years at the major league level. Markakis clearly separated himself from Murton from an overall offensive value standpoint last year. This can't really be argued.
2. Year over year improvement in the majors. Markakis' OPS rose almost 50 points in his second season despite being sheltered against NOBODY. Murton registered his best results in his first exposure in the majors and has fallen marginally since DESPITE his at bats being cherry picked to some extent.
3. The previously mentioned disparity in results against like handed vs off handed pitchers. Both guys show a drop in this area (though Murton's drop is much more pronounced), but Markakis must face like handed pitchers much less to provide counting stat value to his club. In other words, we could sit Markakis against lefties and gain much more total production than Murton would yield if he sat against all righties. If Murton plays every single day, it is very difficult to project him much above a 790ish OPS based on his righty/lefty split (and I actually think that is too high, but I'll be liberal to the inevitable arguments from the Cubs' side of the aisle). Markakis has proven he can play every day and put up an 850 OPS.
Originally Posted by matskralc
