Royals Continue To Make A Joke Out Of PECOTA Projection System

The Royals have just surpassed Baseball Prospectus’ respected PECOTA system’s projected win total for the 2016 season. PECOTA has underestimated Kansas City for seven straight seasons.

The Kansas City Royals are turning PECOTA into a joke. At this point. Las Vegas should start  setting an over/under on when Kansas City will surpass their projected PECOTA win total.

Projection systems are supposed to take subjectivity out of baseball predictions. Using a wide array of data, PECOTA aims at determining a team’s true talent level while trying to pare away the effect of variance (luck). PECOTA has done such a good job at this exacting art that many consider it the gold standard for projection systems.

But, PECOTA is simply missing something about the KC Royals.

Here’s PECOTA’s performance over the last seven seasons with respect to Kansas City:

YEAR                  PECOTA                    ACTUAL                DIFF

2016                       76                               77                      +1

2015                       72                               95                      +23

2014                       79                               89                      +10

2013                       76                               86                      +10

2012                       70                               72                      +2

2011                       66                               71                      +5

2010                       66                               67                      +1

With 12 games remaining in 2016, the Royals have already surpassed their PECOTA projection. With a mere 6-6 finish, they’ll exceed PECOTA by seven games. If they win nine or more games, Kansas City will outdo PECOTA by double digits for the fourth straight year.

Yeah. So much for analytics nerds.

Why Can’t PECOTA Project The Royals?

The truly puzzling thing is WHY is PECOTA so consistently wrong? Numerous analysts have tried to address this issue. The most popular reasons are: 1) KC’s ability to close out games, 2) high contact rate hitters, and 3) strong defensive team.

I’d like to throw out a few more suggestions. Perhaps PECOTA doesn’t handle ascending teams very well. Or, maybe Kansas City Royals players like Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, and Danny Duffy continued to develop their skills after projection systems think they should have peaked. Or, maybe they just can’t handle Ned Yost‘s decision-making. Consider that PECOTA’s string of failure began the year Yost took over as manager.

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Of course, PECOTA defenders would point out that PECOTA was close the first three years of the streak. They’ll also point out that other teams have defied PECOTA for multiple season (see Orioles, Baltimore). Maybe projection systems just have a lot of built in variance.

But, as the beat continues, it becomes more and more likely that the KC Royals are doing something that PECOTA just doesn’t capture.

Next: The Second Wave Of Prospects Is Coming To KC

We could always fall back on the old “they’re just a team that knows how to win”. But, that pretty much defeats the whole purpose of math-based analytics. I sure as heck can’t tell you why. But, PECOTA’s continued failure with the Royals amuses me. I LIKE that there’s still things that “Moneyball” just can’t predict.