Experts versus Fans

[GotowarMissAgnes]

Ok, so I have a wicked cold that's making it impossible to sleep, so I decided to look back at the January Experts Mock on Sportsline and compare it to the rankings from ESPN's Live Drafts so far. I've only done rounds 1-5 of the experts mock so far.

Submitted for your amusement...

Fan Favorites
(guys that fans rank much higher than the experts)
Difference between fans and experts, player, experts picked him, fans picked him

+18, Carlos Delgado, #54, #36
+22, Aubrey Huff, #59, #37
+25, Roy Oswalt, #55, #30
+30, Pedro, #58, #28
And, the top fan favorite, the most overrated player in fantasy baseball
+36, Derek Jeter (who could not have guessed that!), #60, #24.

Expert Exclusives
(guys the experts rank much higher than the fans)
-27, Travis Hafner, #42, #69
-45, Danny Kolb, #38, #83 OK, now that one is just wacky. Who picks Kolb with the 38th oick overall!
-47, BGiles, #53, #90
-53, VWells, #44, #97
And, the one the experts agree fans are missing out on, the most underrated player in fantasy baseball....

-63, Josh Beckett, #43, #106


While your interpretation of this depends on whether you think the "experts" have a clue or not, I do like to see where people might be over or underrating a player. Maybe, if I'm still not sleeping, I'll compare the Cafe composite rankings to ESPN to spot the opportunities for exploiting the average fan's ignorance of the wealth of knowledge found here.

[Absolutely Adequate]

Interesting. Although I think the experts have a few things to learn about Pedro and Kolb, I do think the Fans will be mad about not having Wells and picking Delgado/Jeter instead.

Interesting.

Hope you feel better, you crazy white female.

[JRM4833]

The thing that I've realized about "expert" drafts is that just like regular drafts, there are often managers who are not present and who were too lazy (like I should talk) to make a pre-rank list. I can't remember exactly how I came to this conclusion, but I know that part of it was watching "experts" take a 1B with their top 2 picks and then a 3B with their next 2 picks. You see teams that end up with 4 guys at a position and things like that. I also think I read an article about an experts draft which mentioned the fact that managers were not available. It kind of takes the "expert" out of an "expert" draft. I could be way off but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Hope you feel better.

[CubsFan7724]

The experts are right on Derek Jeter and that he is going too high. The fans are also wrong on Wells, who should improve on last years season. Interesting post

[AcidRock23]

There are different kinds of 'experts' though, the dudes on Yahoo or wherever strike me as being more like 'journalists' while the Baseball Prospectus wonks are a different sort of 'expert' entirely.

I spent a couple of hours today poring over the chapter about 'win equivalency' including equations in the back of this year's Baseball Prospectus and am thoroughly impressed, if only by the fact that they'd bother to figure that sort of stuff out. Whether or not it is accurate, I'm not quite mathy enough to figure out. It seems as good a basis as any and it would be intriguing to see a 12 team league of 6 Yahoo/ ESPN experts (incl, obviously, Mr. Gammons...hee hee) match up against 6 sabremetricians equipped with such tools.

For all I know, it could be very much 'fake' math but it does make me weight some of their commentaries a bit more though. I don't take too many drafts seriously as recommendations. It's good to see approximately where people are being picked, to get a rough idea of the market but I pretty much wing it once the draft starts, just occasionally referencing somebody's numbers in a magazine to check stats, not where some guy who's credentials I've not really confirmed had picked somebody.

Thanks for the post though, very interesting points raised by the numbers themselves. In some ways, the fan picks seem sort of 'informed' by the journalism (which COMES from the 'experts', after all...) since January, eg that Delgado has been projected to have a big year and Hafner lost 5 lbs so he's on 'roids and stuff like that. Not that big of a deal but, when 500,000 people all read an article, it does kind of resonate in the 'marketplace'.

[Kingctb27]

Interesting Post Yeah, Jeter is def. going too high.