Opening Day Dice Roll?

[OMGPuppies]

Really does seem though like if I have a guy with a slow start to the season that he isn't likely to turn it around, and I am better off getting rid of him and trying someone else out.

[Bill Veeck]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Any surprise here is due solely to lack of understanding, IMO.


There is a huge amount of random variation in baseball.

This can be observed annually by looking at baseball reference's standing page where you will annually see that the "luckiest" team in baseball is more than 20 games better off than the "unluckiest" team in baseball - their "luck" is the Pythagorean vs. actual.

And I've seen various, sophisicated baseball simulation engines annually produce a wide, wide variance in results - backwards and forwards for player performance as well as team.

You don't have to apply slumps or hot streaks to any simulation to get huge slumps and hot streaks. They are a part of the natural order