Projection Sytems

First off I think the people who construct baseball projection systems have a basic understanding of projecting things.  I just think they could be made more accurate, by using one thing that I think everybody has.  Common sense.  The numbers that I have seen from ZIPS off of Fangraphs aren't very well thought out.  It looks like a computer spat out the numbers, which is exactly the case.  When making projections people need to look at more then stats.  Stats can help, and they have helped.  But we can do better then these projection systems.  Let's dig deeper.

I'm not sure I could make a better projection system, but I know a lot of people can make better ones then what we currently have.  Something that is directly related to the creators of these projections is that the people who read them take them as gospel.  You should never believe projections, they are useful but do not buy too much into them.  Last year while researching for fantasy baseball, I came across a projection  for Danny Salazar.  Danny had come up late in 2013 season, put up excellent numbers with an FIP and strikeout rate to back it up.  He was young and every projection I read on him had him touted as the next great pitcher.  I pick him up in fantasy and he does awful, gets sent down to the minors before May even ends and I drop him.  Here is one projection for him from the offseason last year for 2014.

  

W-L	ERA	IP	Strikeouts	WHIP
14-6	3.13	175	188	1.10

 Compared, to his real season...

W-L	ERA	IP	Strikeouts	WHIP
6-8	4.25	110	120	1.38

Projection systems can miss on players, they do all the time.  I see some projections out for next season already that I don't agree with.  The reason being, they input numbers but don't input common sense.  And for some reason people take these with as much attention as end of the season numbers. 

Sorry for the shorter post but I just thought I would share that.  Thanks for reading.