Each of the last few years Tangotiger has put together a survey for people to enter in their projected playing time for each player. It’s a valuable tool and one that doesn’t take much time to fill out. Pick your favorite team (mostly the Cubs around here I assume) and start predicting how much you think each player will play. You don’t have to fill them all out.
The value in this is that a projection system is limited when it comes to playing time. It looks at the playing time the player got each of the previous 3 to 4 seasons and regresses that in a way to account for age. What’s not accounted for is injury. There’s no way for a projection system to consider that information. It does not consider the rest of the team’s roster. In other words, it doesn’t know if a certain team is planning to use the player in a starting role. We know more about what the plans are as well as the injuries a player may have than any projection system ever will.
That’s why it’s valuable for us to take a few minutes and estimate the playing time. I’ve done that for the Cubs each of the last few years on Another Cubs Blog and will continue to do so here next season. I use it to get a projected playing time figure other than the projections and then I calculate the player’s value using that playing time estimate.
I know several people from ACB have helped Tangotiger out over the last few years and I’m hoping even more will do so now that we have a larger readership. It doesn’t take much time, but you can be a big help by submitting your predictions based on what you think and know about the player and the team’s intention with him.
You can access the 2011 Survey here or go straight to the Cubs survey. There’s only 19 entries so far for the Cubs, but there are 31 for the White Sox. 19 teams have had more ballots filled out, but we know the Cubs fan base is as large as any other team not named the Yankees and Red Sox.