Predicting Attendance

torchy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:22:58 -0000

We all love NAHWAL but I'm not so sure there is a away to predict points. Now, you can maximize points on players to pick (your best strategy is picking the hot bat/arm or picking someone consistently throughout the year) and by choosing sufficiently vague above and beyond picks (Escobar will make more putouts than errors). But the amazing thing is that your strategic picks mean about as much as a random guess. Yes, attendance is random. You can argue the distribution is centered a certain unknown mean and that choosing this mean based on past information (that's how the teams themselves do it by the way) is your best strategy. I propose a radically different idea. Choose the outliers. Choose "Rain Out" or "Sell Out". While you won't even be close on many days, these ceilings/floors must be accurate eventually and that's better than getting the close pick randomly (162 games/75 posts per game = about 2 points a year).

So here's your winning strategy:

1) Rain Out/Sellout

2) Today's Starter/This Week's Hot Bat

3) Vague reference to Gondeee's Mother, I mean vague pick

Good LUCK!

SB Nation User Blog: torchy

Predicting Attendance