I understand why people like them and talk about them, ect.

Even with much more tangible things like company stocks, the disclaimers about “past performance” not being indicative of “future returns” are required.

There’s no good explanation for why Denard Span played so well last year, even with his lasik surgery. Even pundits like Gleeman left him no chance of having any impact at the major league level. Yet, for my money, he was the key to the team doing as well as it did.

Likely, as with last year, it will be the unexpected, not the expected, contributions and deficiencies that will be decisive. Example: at the beginning of the year, the Twins bullpen was considered its most reliable strength. By the end of the year, almost everyone felt it was the bullpen that had cost them a trip to the playoffs.

It’s fun to make predictions when it’s cold and there’s nothing else to do, but in the end, once the season starts, does anyone even remember or refer back to them?

Compared to actual baseball and actual performance, they are cold comfort….

I think common sense would seem to favor James on both accounts.

Marcels lowers Kubel’s 2009 projection based in part on statistics from 2006, without taking into account that Kubel was recovering from injury. Looking at his outstanding stats before and after the injury, I think it is logical to assume that if he stays healthy next year, his numbers should match his healthy years, not the years his production was reduced by injuries. But Marcels does the opposite, ignoring his strong track record in the minors and basing next year on his injury period instead. Unless he is injured again, James’s numbers look more like what one could expect from a healthy Kube, based on his track record in the minors and last year.

In Span’s case, Marcel throws out two of the three past years because they were in the minors. I would think a player’s production in the minors while healthy is a more useful predictor than a player’s reduced output while injured; Marcel assumes the reverse. I do think it’s fair to weight Span’s 2008 season most heavily, but that still represents a major jump compared to his previous years, so any regression to the mean would indicate some back-sliding will occur.

I have no doubt Span genuinely did improve, and his leap forward over his poor minor league hitting numbers is not just a fluke. But it was such a huge and sudden leap that I think it’s unrealistic to assume he’ll get even better next year, when his history indicates he’ll regress. It’s not like James is being a big nay-sayer. Batting .284 with a .357 OBP is quite impressive for a second-year defensive wiz. He’s not very optimistic about Span’s power, but who is, really? Now look at those numbers for Marcel. Can Span really be expected to bat .293? With a .380 OBP??? And slug .443? A year ago, no one in their wildest dreams would have even hoped for anything like that from him so soon. Does one year really change things that much? Only seven guys in the whole league had an OBP of .380 last year!

I think Kubel is a solid hitter who should be entering his stride following some injury setbacks, and Span is a solid center-field prospect with good speed and improved plate discipline but little sign of the power you’d like to see in a corner outfielder. Personally I’d like to see Span play center next year, with Kubel, Cuddyer and Young playing the hitter’s positions of DH, RF, and LF, while Gomez spends a year in the minors learning to harness his amazing talent. I think Gomez would progress faster down there, where he could concentrate on really learning to hit instead of just hacking or bunting. The Twins would also gain a year of service time later, when he’ll be really good, while also improving the team this year, when he’s not yet as polished as Span (I don’t know Gomez’s projections but I’ll wager he’s not predicted to finish 8th in the league in OBP!). If it makes the team better, both in the short term and the long term, while saving money to boot, why would they not do this?

The one huge upside to playing both now is their defense — but why not wait till Gomez can hit too before you start his clock ticking?

People say they have to play Gomez so there’s something to show for the Santana trade, but all they’re doing is recreating the what made us lose Santana—using up his service time early, then losing him in his prime. If Gomez is as great of a prospect as he looks, they’re choosing a year of .250 hitting over a year in his prime, when he’ll cost $15 million. I’d play Span now, and save Gomez for later when he’s a monster.

He has tons of talent (was a first round pick) and learned a learnable skill: patience. I agree he’ll probablly regress a little in 2009, but I am a believer long-term.

Keep in mind that Tango doesn’t endorse the Marcels at all — he doesn’t even think it’s a very good projection system, which is why he named them after a monkey.

What they are is the absolute minimum level of proficiency you have to have to call your own projection system useful — if your system, however convoluted and complex it is, can’t do better than Marcel the Monkey at predicting how players will perform in upcoming seasons, your system adds no value to the discussion.

It’s an interesting exercise, akin to King Kaufman of Salon’s conceit of having an NFL or NCAA ‘Panel o’ Experts’ where one of them is his son who picks any game less than a certain spread value by flipping a coin; the point being that anybody can achieve a certain level of ‘success’ in prognosticating by making obvious picks and getting good luck on the non-obvious picks. In the case of the Marcels, it also shows you just how much benefit you get from doing a huge amount of additional work over something really simple, which in most cases is ‘not a whole heck of a lot’.

The ‘improvement’ in Span’s SLG in the Marcels projection has nothing to do with Span — it’s that the major league average SLG was higher than Span’s total in 2008. That’s all. Oh, and possibly a factor based on Span’s age, which I guess has something to do with Span.