Sent a notice about recovering my account pswd out, but haven't heard anything yet. I also had a post here yesterday that somehow isn't there anymore. For shame.
Good piece, Doc. With a few minor exceptions, I follow mostly the same path to projection - start with PECOTA/James/CHONE/what have you, to anchor my expectations to something sensible, and then use my own judgments and research to make refinements.
However, I must challenge the notion that weighted-mean averages are not good enough. For 90%+ of fantasy baseball players, using the BP Player Forecast Manager would result in a successful or even highly successful season. I used the PFM almost exclusively to draft my CBS team last year and finished #1 in points with a championship game appearance. Granted, it was a 10-team all MLB league. But then again, isn't that what most fantasy players are doing?
More generally, I'd compare following the Marcels the Monkey system or a similar computer forecast to buying equity index funds to save for retirement. Sure, you could definitely make a killing with shrewd stock picking. But the bottom line is that most people fail to beat a passively managed savings vehicle, especially when you consider the higher transaction costs involved and our innate desire to "sell high" on winners and "ride out" the losers (in terms of taxes, we should be doing exactly the opposite!).
Last year was the first year I projected players extensively, so it's still a work-in-progress for me. That's why I asked for your thoughts! I participated in a few 30 team monster leagues last year. They were fun at first, but the sheer amount of time necessary to devote towards making them good and completely byzantine transaction rules (they were dynasty leagues) led me to dump each. I will probably look around for ONE keeper-type league for 2010 but that's it.
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