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Originally Published: March 26, 2009

BP Daily: Through the fun-house mirror

What if Prince Fielder were thin? If Dustin Pedroia were tall?

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By Nate Silver
Baseball Prospectus
Archive

Stress tests are not just for cardiac patients and big, failing banks. We also can apply them to baseball players. What if Tiny Tim Lincecum were really Tall Tim Lincecum? What if Albert Pujols were older than purported? What if we were to take a right-handed pitcher and magically turn him into a lefty?

PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus' forecasting system, can answer some of these questions. PECOTA looks at not only a player's prior statistics when projecting his performance but also some of his physical attributes: his height, weight, handedness, age and so forth. These factors affect the selection of a player's comparables and in turn can affect his forecast, somewhat breaking down the barrier between attributes traditionally associated with statistical analysis and those associated with scouting.

For our first trick, let's do what Mother Nature and Father Fielder couldn't do and make Prince Fielder skinny, slimming him down from 270 pounds to a svelte 165 pounds:

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