-Mark Twain
Let's pretend shall we? In the fictional city of Hill Valley California there is a widget plant - Acme Widget Company. Joe works for Acme. Joe really loves his job. You're probably wondering what the heck does this have to do with baseball stats - sit tight cowboys and cowgirls. Now, unbeknownst to Joe, behind the scenes the bean-counters are keeping statistics. In 2013 Joe produced 3,000 widgets. In 2014 Joe made 2,500 and in 2015 the slacker pumped out a measly 2,000. Joe takes a little ride down to pinkslipsville. He gets a job at ABC Widget over in the next town of Haddonfield (it's scary over there) with a 20% cut in take home-loot.
OK it's time to go back to the future (see the irony of Hill Valley now?). Rewind back to 2013. Now Joe has access to Acme's financial nerds stats! He notices his drop in production in 2014. He takes some widget making lessons. Purchases some fine titles such as - "Widget Making for Dummies", "Widget Making - Tips and Techniques" and "The Zen of Widget Making". In 2015 Joe produces 4,000 widgets and is given a healthy raise (not to mention high praise from his crotchety boss, Mr. Grant)
On to what this has to do with my stats not working anymore. This little fictional story is a microcosm of what has been happening in baseball (and fantasy baseball) the last few years. When I was having my successful years in fantasy baseball I was using stats like Strikeout-Rate, Walk-Rate, Contact-Rate, Line-Drive%, Fly-Ball% and Ground-Ball%. These stats can be used for both pitchers and hitters. Using a three year trend of the stats mentioned we can see if a hitter is going to progress or lapse. Since 2010 or so baseball players themselves have been taking an interest in these stats and many others. They have been using them to help with their improvement (more power to them but stinks for fantasy players). Say for instance a player is seeing his three year trend in line-drive% slip. In the past we can observe this and with almost certainty predict his batting avg and power to decline. But now he may pay a visit to his hitting coach or seek outside help. The next season his average and power may stay the same and/or improve. See how that is screwing things up for us fantasy players?
It's not so much that the stats don't work anymore. The info is being bought into and used intelligently by the actual participants.
Hope you found this interesting.
Thanks for reading
-Tom
