| Projections and Projection updates **Note: All projections can be found by clicking the link at the bottom of the market listings or by clicking here. Projections at Jockstocks are not the result of a series of dart throws by a blindfolded divi donkey; a rhyme and reason does exist. By and large, we start with a player's year-to-date (in early/pre season we start with last year's) stats. We then extend those ytd stats out to a full season (i.e. 162 games for baseball position players). At times this can result in projections you may not think are proper. For example, Javy Lopez hit 43 homers in 129 games in 2003. Extending that out, he'd be projected for 54 homers in 162 games- a number that had people scratching their heads since 43 was already 9 more than his previous best. People thought we were suggesting he would hit that many...but that was simply the pace he himself set. Projections are put in place as a basis for stock dividends and are really only used on a per game basis. It makes absolutely no difference if someone reaches their projections for the season. Why, then, don't we just list projections on a per game basis? Because seeing numbers like .084583 would simply be confusing both to see onsite and, occasionally, to use in the game. Since there can be drastic differences in performance for whatever reasons from one season to the next, we update player projections not only at the beginning of each season, but periodically DURING the season as well. Why? It helps to level things out all the way around. If someone had a huge year last year, he's not 'stuck' with those same high projections for an entire season- his current year's stats will be used when the first midseason update comes along. As the season wears on, each update tends to create more and more logical projections for the current season. To stay away from occasionally whacky updates from early season spurts or slumps, we've tended to not have the first update of the season until 30-40% of the season is in the books. A second midseason update would then happen somewhere in the 60-70% range. A 3rd midseason update (primarily for team sports) likely happens near the 90% mark...mostly to update projections for playoff bound players. The possibility still exists that we'll do updates even more often, but as of this writing, the preseason plus 2-3 midseason updates is our intended norm. We try to schedule the weeks those updates will happen well in advance and list them on our calendar- and then announce the specific day of the update when that week arrives. We continually try to develop our projection system to work as well as possible while producing logical projections for all stocks. For example, let's say a player has hit over 40 homers each of the last 3 years but starts this season injured. The first projection update is coming up and he has only played in 10 games and has yet to hit a home run. Using strictly ytd stats, his projection for home runs would be 0! Hardly logical, right? Over time, then (and to the dismay of some), we have developed a min/max system for projections- minimum and maximum numbers that all player projections will fall into so that, regardless of the pace they've set or how much they've played, projection updates will be far more logical from a member's standpoint...and won't drive yours truly completely nuts (too late?) when developing dividend formulas. Firstly- NO projections are ever 0 for any category because dividing by zero just doesn't work. So NO category has a minimum of less than 1. Secondly, requiring players to reach minimums while not expecting them to reach exorbitent maximums means all projections stay within a range...and dividends for those projections stay more logical. Thirdly, if a player hasn't played a minimum number of games when an update is due, there's simply not enough statistical data there to do an update from. In other words, all projections in all categories for all stocks should always fall within the minimum and maximum ranges we set. And, if a player has less than the minimum games played, his gets no update...and simply retains his current projections. Below are our current minimums and maximums...occasionally
subject to change.
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