Fun with extrapolation

Two posts in two days? Why not. So I'm at work, flipping through statistics, when the thought struck me that a useful tool in fantasy is pace. You see, it's all fine and good that Evan Longoria has 55 RBI now. And that Adrian Gonzalez has 22 home runs. But is Longoria really going to keep up that pace and tie Joe DiMaggio for 11th all-time in single season RBI? Is Gonzalez really going to end up with 67 bombs? These are the questions you have to ask yourself, because if you can turn guys who start well into guys who finish well, you have a championship-caliber team. Think about it: Last year, Josh Hamilton set the world on fire. But everyone knows he cooled off after the All-Star break. On June 5 last year, he had 68 RBI in 61 games. If you'd have traded him then, you'd have given up a player that was productive the rest of the way, but certainly not anywhere near the same value (62 RBI in his last 95 games). Those numbers aren't just skewed by Hamilton, of course; Ian Kinsler's late-season injury cut down on the number of times Hamilton came to bat in an RBI situation. But that's just it: Injuries and a host of other things are going to happen. This is why 11 people in history have ended up with as many RBI as Longoria is on pace for: It's a long season. Should you think about what kind of value you could get for Longoria? Maybe. Then again, he's also on pace for 40 homers and hitting .322, which are numbers he can control more. But still--if you could swap him in a 1-for-2 situation where you get maybe a big time hitter and a power pitcher, you might want to sit up and take notice. In the case of Gonzalez, too, you can expect that he won't end up with the most non-asterisked home runs of all time. Or maybe you can't. But what you should expect are numbers similar to last year: From June 5 on, he hit .269 with 19 homers. So he probably eclipses 40 this year, maybe 45, probably not 50, and definitely not 60. The point of this exercise is that a lot of people do fuzzy math when it comes to projections: Halfway through the season, if you know hitter X is normally a .300 hitter, and he's hitting .290, there are many of you that would expect him to hit .310 for the rest of the season to "balance out." Sort of like if you flip a coin "heads" ten times in a row, you'd expect it to come up tails on the eleventh. This is not the right way to think, and it's gonna cost you in fantasy. If hitter "X" is normally a .300 hitter, and he's hitting .290 at the midway point, you can expect him to hit normally the rest of the way, or .300. So he'll end up at .295. You can't expect that things just magically "even out." So take David Wright, for instance. The pride of Norfolk, Va., has just three home runs to his credit on the young season. Those of you expecting a power binge should temper your expectations, because it doesn't really work that way. Granted, I'm sure he has a few streaks in him, but he's not going to magically hit 30 home runs the rest of the way. He's not only going to hit six, either. But when you've hit only 3 in your first 51 games, the uninformed think he's "due" for another 30 the rest of the way. And the projections will say six. You're both wrong. Last year, Wright hit 24 home runs from game 52 on (including two in game number 52, for those of you watching tonight). So maybe that number is going to be close to 30... but I doubt it. You've got to consider the fact that a power outage like his so far is going to linger. I think he gets his stroke back by the ASB and finishes off in the mid-20s. So don't be afraid to trade big names or guys who have started off on fire. You have to put the numbers aside and figure out what you really expect to get from a guy as the season goes on from this point. The gaudy numbers might look nice, but they're in the books. And they're not going to help you come playoff time.