2024 JA MLB Projections Release
Version one of the 2024 MLB season-long projections are live for paid subscribers!
It’s on December 11th, but what’s the harm in getting stuff out early! I have tuned up the season-long projections for 2024 and we’re ready for the version one release.
Last year, I called the projections the Aggregated Scoring System. I did that with absolutely no consciousness of what the acronym would spell out, and I am frankly appalled at myself for unintentionally making such a lude joke. This year, I am just referring to them as JA. Yes, JA are my initials - but really it’s up to you to interpret the acronym. Whatever floats your boat.
Only paid subscribers get access to the full projections. If you’re a paid subscriber, the links to the goods will be below the paywall here. If you’re not, subscribe today and everything will be revealed to you!
How They Work
I’m only going to give you the very basics of how they work here. Having a good projection system is pretty valuable, so the ideas and code and structure are not something I’m going to give away even to paid subscribers. I do give up some of the secrets in Lesson 7 of the MLB + Python course, so if you’re really interesting in MLB projections, check that out. But even for those people, I’m not handing out my work on this. But here’s a high level view.
I use publicly available, free MLB Savant data to power my model. I project base skills for each player and then apply their 2024 environments (team strength, home park, etc.) to those numbers to get projections in each relevant category. Most of the other projection systems in existence have been around before the Statcast revolution, so those systems aren’t using that data - at least not fully. My model is using the highest-quality, most granular data publicly available and I think that gives us a step up on some of the other systems.
That said, this is only my second year doing this - so there is a lot of road left to cover. Seemingly every time I have reviewed the code and output, I have found things that needed improved, so it’s been a series of slight tweaks and improvements to get it to where we’re at right now.
How They Will Change
Again we’re putting out version one here in mid-December. We are still quite early on in the free agency period, and we are not close to having a good feel for 2024 rosters and lineups. Because of that, these projections will be changing quite a bit from week to week in the lead-up to the season.
Things that will change a player’s projection:
A tweak to the model (I’m probably not done tinkering with the code yet - especially not on the pitcher side)
A team change (this can change the player’s playing time projection as well as personal output projections due to surrounding lineup and home ballpark)
Rule changes (I don’t think the MLB will be making any significant rule changes like last year, but if they do - I will do my best to work that into the code)
And more
I have a few important things to say before we finish this post up, but I’d like to keep that stuff below the paywall since it’s more strategy-based. So subscribe today to get the full 2024 MLB projections (auction values included!), along with my full team-by-team preview series, my player ranks, and all of the stuff I do in-season (daily projections, custom reports, dashboards, daily notes, etc.)
And now we go behind the wall!