When someone says projection systems, I think of words like CHONE, Marcels, and ZiPS. A lot of baseball sites pridefully boast that they feature the new year's player projections from these systems. When I see this, I feel nothing inside.

The reason I dislike these systems is not because they are wrong. In fact, according to what I've heard, they are exceptionally accurate. The reason I dislike them is because the systems themselves are extremely predictable. As a hitter gets older, decrease his power and speed; as a pitcher gets older decrease his K rate. I don't need a projection system to tell me Carlos Lee's numbers will be around .290 AVG, 30 homers, 100 RBI/Runs, and 10 SB. When it comes to bold predictions, projection systems like CHONE and Marcels have none of them. For a fantasy owner, that makes them basically irrelevant.

Any moron can draft dependable players and finish respectably in a fantasy league. But if you have the desire to win, you must pick players with upside, the Ryan Brauns and Fausto Carmonas of last year. Those are obviously extreme examples, and those two were highly improbably; so improbable that in fact it would have been unwise to spend even a last round pick on them. Those players are the rewards for persistent owners that constantly check updates and are ready to pounce on the F/A market.

I'm talking about players this year like Frank Thomas, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Clayton Kershaw, and Jay Bruce. There's a fair chance they do nothing or play mediocre, however there's that decent chance they play amazingly. It's those value picks that win you fantasy leagues. A quote from Matthew Berry puts it best, "You can't win the league in the first round but you certainly can lose it."

Notice how my player examples included both older veterans and rising stars. That’s not to say there are no high value picks coming from players in their prime, but those players are overall highly valued and thus get taken early in drafts. It’s difficult to find high-ceiling players in their prime that will fall to the late rounds of a draft, usually they are found through stats like BABIP and FIP, which determine unluckiness. However proven players, usually ones who have recently suffered injuries, often prove to be the best sleeper candidates. I'm not saying target players who were injured, that's stupid, but certain formerly talented players fall so far in drafts that they become worth a late round gamble. The young stars are becoming more and more overvalued, especially since the monster year of Ryan Braun in 2007. The result is Evan Longoria getting picked in the single-digit rounds of most drafts this year. Hyped prospects are no longer as valuable since they get picked higher in drafts, humorously higher because most people who pick them never check their minor league numbers.

The aforementioned quote by Mr. Berry leads me to my second point of this article; avoid players who have a high risk rate. That meant to not pick Albert Pujols in your draft this year! It's simply just not worth it. Your first/second round picks should have virtually no risk attached to them and even though Pujols has been dominant and even though his injury was unrelated to his concerning elbow, his upside was not so much greater than others picked around him, yet his downside was much worse. Avoiding was the best option.

Projection systems usually fail to recognize these types of players. Lists of break-out/collapsing candidates are much more valuable than viewing projection systems as a whole. Most of them just average a player's stats over the last few years, placing more weight on recent years. Again Although accurate, that isn't exactly useful so long as you are not a moron.

You will notice earlier in the article when I mentioned “useless” projection systems, I purposefully left out Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA. PECOTA, unlike the other systems, costs money and has an improve/decline percentage system. Besides just simply projecting what it believes a player’s stats will be in future seasons, it lists the chance the player breaks out, improves, and collapses. This would have proved invaluable in last year’s draft with Jason Bay. As I’m sure you are aware, Jason Bay had a terrible season in 2007 and it came seemingly out of nowhere, not to PECOTA however. PECOTA did not predict that Bay would have a horrible season, but it did give him an unusually high collapse rate. That information is valuable and that’s why it costs money to see PECOTA’s predictions unlike CHONE and Marcels.

Targeting break out candidates and avoiding collapse candidates will do a great deal more to help you win your league over following the conservative projections of any projection system religiously.