2008 Offensive Projections

by Jesse on Jan 27, 2008 11:52 PM EST in News Comment 31 comments

These are likely to change if Johan gets traded, but in the mean time here are my early offensive projections for our Minnesota Twins.
Name Games AB Hits 2B 3B HR BB SO AGE OBP SLG SB Joe Mauer 139 518 172 34 3 14 74 56 .332 .416 .490 9 Jose Morales 12 25 6 1 0 0 2 5 .240 .296 .280 0 Mike Redmond 45 153 44 8 0 1 8 16 .288 .323 .359 0 Catcher Totals 162 696 222 43 3 15 84 77 .318 .392 .454 9

Name Games AB Hits 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG SB Brian Buscher 31 87 22 4 0 3 10 18 .253 .330 .402 1 Alexi Casilla 64 205 53 8 2 0 18 30 .259 .318 .317 13 Adam Everett 150 495 121 25 2 7 29 68 .244 .286 .345 10 Brendan Harris 102 332 90 19 1 7 23 63 .271 .318 .398 4 Mike Lamb 134 448 124 22 2 13 42 57 .277 .339 .429 1 Matt Macri 7 15 3 0 0 0 2 5 .200 .294 .200 0 Justin Morneau 156 585 162 35 2 36 68 90 .277 .352 .511 1 Nick Punto 72 152 37 6 1 0 16 29 .243 .315 .296 8 Matt Tolbert 7 15 4 1 0 0 3 4 .267 .389 .333 2 Infielder Totals 162 2334 616 120 10 66 211 364 .264 .325 .398 40

Name Games AB Hits 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG SB Michael Cuddyer 153 581 162 35 5 26 73 127 .279 .359 .491 5 Garrett Jones 23 57 14 3 0 2 5 16 .246 .306 .386 0 Jason Kubel 138 483 135 37 2 19 52 86 .280 .350 .478 6 Darnell McDonald 8 20 4 0 0 0 1 6 .200 .250 .200 1 Craig Monroe 92 248 65 14 0 11 14 55 .262 .302 .452 0 Jason Pridie 124 421 113 21 3 6 33 84 .268 .322 .375 15 Denard Span 24 51 12 3 0 0 4 11 .235 .291 .294 4 Delmon Young 153 582 171 42 1 20 35 118 .294 .332 .473 13 Outfielder Totals 162 2443 676 155 11 84 217 503 .277 .336 .451 44

Games AB Hits 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG SB Total Offense 162 5473 1514 318 24 165 512 944 .277 .339 .434 93

0 recs | Comment 31 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

I guess

I guess that seems fine, although I'd say I think Harris will do a bunch better than you had, but Cuddyer's power is probably overrated.

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 28, 2008 12:00 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I agree

I think Harris will do better than what was predicted.

I hope Kubel can put up those types of numbers, it'd be a great season for him if he were to do that.

Are you going to do predictions for the pitchers?

by Joshs Thoughts on Jan 28, 2008 12:11 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I will do

But I'll probably wait a couple weeks to see if anything happens in the Santana thing.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 12:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

That's probably a good idea

by Joshs Thoughts on Jan 28, 2008 2:55 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Re: Harris

I hope Harris does better, but I would be surprised if he was able to duplicate what he did last year. If he splits the difference between last year and my numbers, that'd be ok.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 12:23 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Punto

I think that 152 ABs for Punto may be a little low unless your prediction also includes Gardy getting fired midseason. Not that he deserves more playing time, I'm just saying...

by JP on Jan 28, 2008 12:24 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

You're probably right

I'm a little optimistic that they give Casilla a chance to get his feet wet, while they use Punto more as a defensive replacement who spot starts. I think you're right though, I'm sure Punto will get more time than I've listed.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 12:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I'm also midly optimistic...

...that Punto doesn't get more ABs than this. Even so, I wouldn't project his slugging for this year to be so much below his career line of .321. And Harris -- yeah, I expect the numbers to be somewhere between last year's and what you have here. I'll say fewer homers for Cuddyer, higher AVG for Morneau, but otherwise everything looks about right.

by adam on Jan 28, 2008 12:30 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Good stuff Jesse...

My only disagreements would be:

I think Morneau does better than an .863 OPS. I really think we'll see him over .900 this year. He was at .934 in 2006 and was at.937 for the first 4 months of 2007 before his protection went away. He'll have a lot of protection this year.
I think Lamb's power production is a bit low. I think he'll have more like 18 HR's.
I totally agree re: Harris Casilla. I see Casilla getting more like 50 ab's this year and Harris getting 500+, and being about as productive as last year in those ab's. IE a lot more doubles and about a 60 point raise in his OPS. I also think Everett will hit more like his career line of a .650ish OPS. So another 50-60 points there.
I think your OF production is about spot-on to me. I don't know if G. Jones, Span or McDonald will ever see time this year, but otherwise good to go. I know that's a big spike for Young, but I agree that he's fully capable of it. I actually think Kubel can do even a bit better than your projection, but ya, I wouldn't count on it.

The other thing that strikes me, and I hadn't thought of before, is that we figure to be much less of a SB threat than last year with no Bartlett/Hunter/likely Casilla. I'm not a big believer of steals in general so it will be interesting to see what that does to our numbers.

Overall great work Jesse. Love it. This is a MUCH improved offense this year. Right now, I think this offense will score around 790 runs. If we add Church or Crisp or Lofton, I project us to score over 800 runs this year. That, as I've said before, would be a top 2 Twins offense over the last 25 years!

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 12:29 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

If Punto...

gets even 300 ab's this year, Ron Gardenhire will be dead.

That is my solemn vow to this board this year.

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 12:30 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

A hair

Your heart is in the right place, but a hair too much there, I think.

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 28, 2008 12:34 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

too many ab's?

you mean?

haha

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 12:47 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Crunching the #s

Jesse - what methodology are you using here? ("Gut feel" is a perfectly reasonable answer, if that's the case.)

by Jon Marthaler on Jan 28, 2008 12:52 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Re: Mothodology

I'm looking at statistical history for each player. Playing time is balanced against who, on my entirely subjective evaluation, will make up the primary players. There are 13 guys getting a vast majority of the plate appearances.

I tried to keep strikeout rates and walk rates within certain ranges. I took liberties with guys like Cuddyer and Kubel, two players who I think/hope will improve, mostly with how many home runs they hit. Kubel racked up doubles last summer, at least more than I thought they did, so with more time I gave him a couple more two-baggers.

So, some gut feel but I did try to keep it within a certain range. For sure, I know I'm a little optimistic in a couple spots and maybe pessimistic in a couple less, but I don't think anything is unrealistic.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 12:58 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Kubel's numbers....

...are very good, but I really see him as over .300Ave. Also, expect Morneau to be closer to .300Ave than where you have him. I would put Morneau around .290 something.

by roger on Jan 28, 2008 8:56 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

essential problem

is that you are too optimistic about playing time; someone central to the lineup will probably get hurt. Of course its tough to predict who it will be, but the result is probably too generous.

by Eric in Madison on Jan 28, 2008 10:53 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Good Point

While only 4 players are getting 150+ games, seven are getting 130+, with Pridie coming in at 124. I probably missed out on the middle ground, with only Monroe, Punto, Harris, Casilla and Redmond fitting into that category.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 1:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think

I think you did jut fine. It is impossible to account for unexpected serious injuries.

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Jan 28, 2008 4:14 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Nice work...

Interesting stuff. A couple weeks ago, I did a similar 2008 projection for hitters and pitchers using the Marcel projections (similar in accuracy to PECOTA) available at http://www.tangotiger.net/marcel/.

Not surprisingly, because Marcel uses a relatively simple weighting of the last three years, my projections are pretty much in line with yours. One liberty I took with Marcel was to allocate plate appearances by player and position based on my targets, i.e., what I would do as manager, and extrapolate accordingly. Also, because projections were not available, I went with a conservative gut feel for Pridie (.233/.301/.407 over 500 PA)

My projections for the whole team were .275/.336/.429 (AVG/OBP/SLG), 322/35/151 (2B/3B/HR), 85 SB, total of 789 runs created (using the full RC formula).

Because Marcel regresses pretty heavily to the mean, my projections ended up pretty pessimistic on a player by player basis. For example:
Morneau 615 PA, .285/.352/.499, 27 HR
Mauer 525 PA, .317/.399/.459, 10 HR
Cuddyer 610 PA, .277/.353/.449, 17 HR
Kubel 570 PA, .270/.329/.438, 16 HR
Young 625 PA, .298/.334/.433, 14 HR
Punto 175 PA, .246/.312/.337, 1 HR

This pessimism gives me hope, as any number of players could outperform these projections, possibly by wide margins. All in all, I would peg my projections as slightly above the 50th percentile, perhaps around 60th, as one would not expect all of our core players to reach their projected PA due to injuries, etc.

Finally, FYI - running similar calculations for the pitchers has us allowing 691 runs, 3.99 team ERA.

by Adam Peterson on Jan 28, 2008 1:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Interesting

Looks like we were pretty close in a lot of areas, at least in team totals.

I like Marcel projections for more established players, but for younger guys whose futures aren't as set in stone it can be elss reliable.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 3:04 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Definitely

Yep. Marcel basically projects average league performance for those players with little MLB experience. I'm interested to run the numbers when PECOTA 2008 is released...see how it compares.

by Adam Peterson on Jan 28, 2008 3:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Marcel

Well taking those runs scored/allowed projections would result in a 91-92 Pythagorean win season. If the underlying talent is around 90+ wins, it seems quite reasonable that they could end up around 95 and be in the hunt for the division, especially if someone like Crisp/Lofton/Patterson can take some of Pridie's PT in CF.

by Diggity Dino on Jan 28, 2008 3:34 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Exactly

Yep. 92 wins would be about the mean projection if PA work out the way I allocated. That number would increase if a few players (Morneau, Kubel) outperform their projections, etc. With most of the guys, there's a track record (especially 2006) that would really increase these projections. Plus, our better depth with Monroe, etc. will better allow us to deal with inevitable injuries.

by Adam Peterson on Jan 28, 2008 4:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yep...

Adam did great work on those.

I still think you should show the board in full detail, man.

Great stuff.

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 8:29 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

AL Projections

I'll probably post the team by team projections for the entire AL when I'm done and I have the runs for / runs against calibrated correctly.

by Adam Peterson on Jan 28, 2008 9:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

you are...

the man.

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 10:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Everett

Just looked at the numbers in more detail. Ouch. It does follow his career trends. But I hope for a bounce if he's healthy this year.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jan 28, 2008 10:13 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I hope so too

If he can squeeze out a .250/.300/.320 season I'll be ecstatic.

by Jesse on Jan 28, 2008 10:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well...

his last two healthy seasons weren't THAT bad (not a .620 OPS line at least). I don't know if it's fair to judge him by his line last year, which was REALLY atrocious. He was injured for a majority of the year so the law of averages didn't get to play into his season.

I've been looking at it this way actually.

Everett's career OPS line is .656, and he was really close to that in both of his last healthy seasons, 2005 and 2006. Now I'm not defending that at all; it's awful, and below average. But last year, you know what our SS production was for OPS? .657, which was 10th in the league.

If Everett can produce his career averages and about what he did in his last 2 healthy seasons--2005 and 2006--we actually won't lose anything offensively from our SS production last year. And anything he does defensively we gain on, since he's the very best defensive SS in the game.

All in all, I'd say it's damn likely, and I would bet money on it, that we have better production at EVERY single other position on the field offensively, save CF.

This offense is going to be vastly, vastly improved.

by djskilbr on Jan 28, 2008 11:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs