Still, I was not expecting to see the Marlins struggle so much in our simulations. The lack of offense wasn't news, really, as they were 15th in scoring last year and duplicated that finish in our fifty seasons. Because they are a very young team, and because they signed Charles Johnson during the winter, you'd figure that they would be getting better, perhaps enough to move up the scoring table. But there is a countervailing force at work, too. Our model for projecting performance looks at what each player has done in the past three seasons.
More weight is placed on recent efforts, but the first two seasons count, too.
That means than any player coming off a career year is projected to give back a little ground. And the Marlins had a lot of guys with career years last year, and none of them are projected to do quite as well in 2001. I haven't studied this question in detail, but I decided to take a quick look at it last week. I looked for active players who had taken a big leap forward at a young age, and when I found one, I checked out what they did the next year. Not having enough time to do more, I stopped looking after the first 28 seasons that fit this pattern.