Sophomore Slumps

[odysseus81]

I am curious if much research has been done on Sophomore slumps and how often these occur. Obviously much of it is conjecture, but maybe there is more to it statistically. I am particularly concerned because in my keeper league I have both Evan Longoria and Alexi Ramirez on my roster pre-draft, but I am also interested because I am wondering how common it actually is...

Using Longoria and Ramirez as examples....seems like the both played a good portion of the season so there is a good sample size to take from.

Beyond that, what is everyone thinking as far as who to stay away from this year because of the dreaded sophomore slump.

[Todd Zola]

It is mostly anecdotal conjecture, people always remember the cases where sophomores struggled, they don't consider the cases they don't or if the number that did struggle were within the statistical realm of those that will struggle due to sheer randomness.

Truth be told, one season is not a large enough sample, which is why most projections bases are 3-years. Too much happenstance can be found in one year of data. The most likely occurrences of this luck factor are with BABIP and HR/FB. The smaller the sample, the more luck is a possible determinant.

As such, the majority of the perceived sophomore slumps are more cases of a player having a debut year not supported by his minor league track record, thus it would be unfair to expect a repeat.

We use our own minor league translation when projecting a player, which is why we are probably not as high on Evan Longoria as some other places.