Today is a good day. Today the 2009 Baseball Prospectus arrived in the mail and if the 2008 version resembled a phone book this 2009 edition resembles…well, a really big phone book. Over 600 pages of math and numbers and projections and holy crap this is really making me happy. I’ve only got 30-minutes until Friday Night Lights starts so let’s just go through this quickly and see what we’re being blessed with.
First impression: no surprise that they’re giving Nate Silver some HUGE props on the front cover. Might as well strike while the iron is hot. Right in the opening few paragraphs they’re hyping their PECOTA projections from last year for Evan Longoria and Tim Hudson. Just for posterity’s sake let’s check what they’re PECOTAing for them in 2009:
Longoria: 27 HR, 88 RBI, .342 OBP, .482 SLG. Comps: Ron Hansen, Eric Chavez, Jeff Burroughs, Ryan Zimmerman
Hudson: 23 starts, 9-7 record, 1.35 WHIP, 4.04 ERA. Comps: People we have never heard of.
Alright. Nothing too outlierish there…basically the exact same numbers that Evan Almighty put up last year only in more at bats so they’re projecting a lower VORP. Or at least PECOTA is projecting a lower VORP. Don’t you ever think of PECOTA as like that evil computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or like the evil computer in Eagle Eye? Which were the same movie, in case you didn’t know.
On to some quick Dodger projections…
Satan Jones: “Nothing from his splits offers promise: he didn’t hit well against lefties, righties, at home, on the road, in a box, with a fox, in a house or with a mouse.” 11 HR, .240 BA, .333 OBP, 11.3 VORP. I’ll take the under on all.
Matt Kemp: 19 HR, 76 RBI, 26 SB, .293 BA, .352 OBP. “Kemp has the assets of a young Andre Dawson…he’s got tremendous upside.” Under on the home runs, under on the BA, over on everything else.
Russ Mart: 12 HR, 14 SB, 64 RBI, .293 BA, .382 OBP. “Martin is still an asset, but amid the bumper crop of good, young NL catchers–Brian McCann, Geovany Soto, and Chris Iannetta–future All-Star honors are not guaranteed.” Over on the steals, everything else looks about right but I bet Russ Mart throws out more baserunners this year.
Wow there is a lot to get through here. I’m probably going to have to move into a new apartment to make room for this thing too…I need steroids just to carry this thing from the mailbox up the stairs. Five minutes until FNL, enough time to grab a few Oreos, pour a glass of milk and see if the Dillon Panthers can implement the two-headed monster at QB with Saracen in the I and JD McCoy running the Spread. This is gonna be GRANDE.
