[hiaspire]

If there are teams in baseball who only project the most likely things and make decisions based upon that, they are playing it way too safe and going to miss out on players that other teams take chances on because a skilled professional sees something in the talent that others don't see yet in just running the numbers.

One way is reactionary to the known past only, but finding talent that makes good on future predictions also requires a healthy dose of proactive measures beyond just the most likely utilizing the past exclusively.

The overall math probably treats the safest/likeliest answers well overall when you consider a massive sample, but every off-season there are particular highly-discussed value "predictions" which fall far short of their mark because what averages out sometimes is the most unlikely thing imaginable. Such as Thome and other examples. The calculated prediction might make logical sense in term of weighing different possible outcomes and past extremes, but there is almost no way in the world that a middle-of-the-road prediction/estimation becomes true.

In reality usually teams have to pick one side of the fense instead of going by the average calculation. Some predict more trouble coming, and other teams predicted he'll bounce back to himself once healthy again as he was becoming. Usually you have to be on either side in that less safe ground in order to make acquisitions happen. Teams have have higher-than-average opinions of players versus the "likely" normal levels are the teams that get those players. Same is true on the other side in terms of players a team will let go because he has more interest elsewhere than they have in keeping him.

The likely number sets a good bar generally, but at some point you have to go either above or below because someone else will and you'll be left with the leftovers that nobody has any strong opinions about other than their mediocre likely expectations.

As far as our team, I am way up over the bar on Taveras and Hawpe probably still, along with most highly criticized veteran role guys who I believe will be very beneficial in multiple ways. I am under the bar in terms of our pitchers and Matt Holliday. If they really are messing with the environment that alters these shifting pitching numbers, then I can't see how using those stats alone to make good judgements makes any sense. Just like Gary Mathews Jr and his medicine messes up a numbers-only estimation. Sometimes you have to put the numbers aside and allow for human skepticism with your own eyes in terms of a player's unknown future. In such instances, that certainly wouldn't be the most likely numerically, but certainly serves you better than completely trusting a highly questionable likely prediction calculation.