http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PECOTA In 2007 the Houston Astros, under the guidance of then General Manager Tim Purpura, introduced their own knock-off of PECOTA by unleashing PANKOVITS. PANKOVITS is named after former Astros utility player Jim Pankovits. Neither the player projections nor the underlying methodology of these forecasting systems have been made public. I never knew about this... did a bit more research and found this gem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Pankovits In 2007, the Astros introduced a player analysis formula in his honor. The brain child of then General Manager Tim Purpura, PANKOVITS is an acronym for Player Analysis with Neutral Knowledge of Offensively Vital Information Tracking Statistics. It is credited in some circles with predicting the success of Hunter Pence and the failure of Woody Williams during the 2007 season. So, presuming this is all true, and you're Tim Purpura... you run your analysis and say "ooh, Woody Williams is going to suck this year." Now, why do you then proceed to sign him to your rotation?
And for that matter why do you still wait a month - only until after Chris Burke proved he didn't belong in center - to bring up Pence.
Well, most people don't know this, but the analysis also stated that Purpura was fat and that he would be fired soon, so Tim didn't take it as seriously as he should have.
It's JUST like PECOTA, except backwards. Green means hold on, yellow means good to go... and red means where the f**k did you get that player evaluation system???
