Revisiting the 2019 Left Fielders' Rankings Forecast

Today, we will be evaluating the forecasts of eight different analysts that had put out their top ten rankings of left fielders for the 2019 Major League Baseball season.  Last year, the near unanimous pick to be the top left fielder entering the 2018 season was St. Louis Cardinals’ left fielder, Marcell Ozuna.  But after he had a relatively disappointing season compared to the lofty expectations that were placed upon him, Boston Red Sox’s J.D. Martinez ended up being most analysts’ pick to be the top left fielder in 2019.

This time around ,we will be looking at lists from myself (Alan Lu), the Shredder, Mike Petriello, Vince Gennaro, Ben Lindbergh, Brian Kenny, Eric Byrnes, and fans from social media (whom I’m counting as one vote for simplicity purposes).

So, how did we all do?  Let’s find out for ourselves, shall we?  Without further ado, based on the Fangraphs WAR metric, here are how accurate we turned out to be based on that in projecting 2019 left fielders.

2019 Left Fielders’ Rankings:

2019 LF	Alan Lu	Shredder	Petriello	Gennaro	Lindbergh	Kenny	Byrnes	Fans	fWAR	Rank
Ronald Acuña Jr.	2	3	3	3	3	2	4	1	5.6	1
Juan Soto	4	6	2	2	2	3	5	5	4.8	2
Michael Brantley	10	15	9	5	15	10	15	10	4.2	3
Michael Conforto	8	8	7	10	7	15	8	7	3.7	4
Tommy Pham	5	4	6	6	8	4	7	15	3.3	5
J.D. Martinez	3	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	3.2	6
Joc Pederson	15	15	15	15	9	15	15	15	3	7
Marcell Ozuna	7	7	10	15	6	15	10	8	2.6	8
Andrew Benintendi	6	15	5	4	5	8	6	3	2.0	9
Ryan Braun	15	15	15	15	15	15	15	9	1.9	10
David Peralta	15	10	15	9	15	9	15	15	1.7	11
Giancarlo Stanton	1	2	4	8	4	6	1	4	0.4	12
Justin Upton	9	5	8	15	10	7	3	15	-0.2	13
Khris Davis	15	9	15	7	15	5	9	6	-1.0	14
Diff. Estimator	54	72	54	56	54	70	76	64
2019 Rank	1	7	1	4	1	6	8	5

....

The findings:

Once again, I was the most accurate analyst (though I tied for first along with Mike Petriello and Ben Lindbergh) by the Fangraphs WAR metric among all of the analysts listed above, as my outfielders' projections have turned out well once again.  Congratulations to me!

I did a very good job of projecting outfielders once again,
as my top 10 2019 left fielders list puts me in first place.
(Picture courtesy of GIPHY via Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.)

Well, I guess most of my picks were within range, I had projected Acuna and Tommy Pham to have a very good season, and I also had projected J.D. Martinez lower than most people had him.  Martinez had a down season so that kind of boded well for me here.  I did have some misses, like I did not put Joc Pederson in my top 10 list, and I had over-reached on Justin Upton and Andrew Benintendi, though that did not hurt me as much as others had also rated them high as well.

The Shredder had an okay list, but their list was more in the middle of the pack.  They missed out on Michael Brantley, and they had Washington Nationals' left fielder Juan Soto too low on their top 10 list.  The did a good job of rating Tommy Pham high, as their pick of him in the top 5 was well within range of top 10 finishers among players that were rated by analysts.  They also missed on Pederson and Benintendi, but that didn't seem to hurt them nearly as much as having rated Justin Upton too high on their list.

Mike Petriello's picks tended to be well within range, and he did a good job of rating Juan Soto, Michael Brantley, and Michael Conforto higher than most of the others on his list.  He benefitted from rating Marcell Ozuna lower than others, though he did not have Joc Pederson on his list, and he did end up rating Benintendi too high this year in 2019.

Ben Lindbergh did a good job of rating Juan Soto and Michael Conforto high, and most of his picks were within range, but he omitted Michael Brantley from his top 10 list.  Overall, I would say, I did well here, so I would give myself an A-.  The Shredder's list is not too shabby, but they rated lower than the other analysts here, so they would get a C.

In analyzing two years worth of data on who your go-to, point person should be for the 2020 left fielders' forecast (in ranking left fielders based on using the Fangraphs WAR metric), it should be the Ringer's writer, Ben Lindbergh.  Most of his picks tend to be well within range, and he also sometimes finds sleepers that others don't rate nearly as well that end up faring well later that season.

As whether or not if you should care about my left fielders' rankings list for 2020, the answer is....yes.  Yes, absolutely you should.  I placed second in forecasting accuracy compared to the other analysts in 2018, and I was tied for first in this category in 2019.  Like Ben Lindbergh, most of my picks tend to be well within range, and sometimes I find sleepers that end up faring well later during the year.

Thank you for reading, and thanks to Brewers Nation for providing the top 10 lists of analysts.  (I'm a St. Louis Cardinals' fan, but in this case, they did a good job of recapping what happened for all of the top 10 lists.)  

Thank you for reading, and be sure to give me a follow on Twitter at @AlanLuSTL.