For many years running now, I’ve run a yearly evaluation of the projection systems for fantasy baseball purposes, including last week’s evaluation of the 2019 results. Two potential issues I’ve run across with these studies are 1) year-to-year variance and 2) small sample size. To attempt to address both, I’m back again, this time with an evaluation of performance across the last three seasons (‘17-’19)! This study combines the datasets from each of my last three yearly studies, studying how well each system projected the top ~300 fantasy players (the ones that met the playing time minimum) in the 5x5 categories by both R squared and RMSE.

In the intervening week, I’ve also obtained copies of the 2017-2019 Pod projections and Razzball projections from Mike Podhorzer and Rudy Gamble respectively, so I’ve added them to the running as well (Thanks Mike and Rudy!). For the unfamiliar, the Pod projections are created by hand by Mike, resulting from his various models for peripheral stats like BABIP and HR/FB. The Razzball projections are essentially repackaged Steamer projections, with more hand-curated playing time and SV projections. Without spoiling anything up front, these two turned in credible performances on the hitting side, but are very good on the pitching side!

Given the results of this study, and given a week to ruminate on the results, I’m revising my recommended 2020 Big Board mix of projection systems. In the interest of keeping things as open-source as possible, the new version does not include any of the ‘subscription’ (paid) projection systems (previously I had included PECOTA). Scroll to the bottom for the new recommendations, which are basically now a mix of Steamer, ATC, and Razzball (my projections tool will be updated shortly to allow you to pull in Razzball).

You can find details of the player pool, definitions of stats, and the breakdown of weights for my Big Board mix down in the ‘Fine Print’ below! Note that I’m including both the “BB Mix ‘19” (uses weights defined before 2019) and the new “BB Mix ‘20” (uses new weights defined during this study). For the sake of fairness, only the ‘19 Mix is compared against the other systems - and spoiler alert, it still comes out on top!

Hitters