I just received my copy of The Bill James Handbook today. It’s the first baseball annual I receive each off season and I recommend it to anybody who wants a hard copy version of all the 2005 statistics before Thanksgiving. It includes all the usual statistics and some less common ones such as win shares, runs created, component ERA, range factor and lefty/righty splits for each player. One of the best features is the unique leader board section - pitchers with the highest average fastball, batters with the highest swing and miss percentage, etc. By the way, I have absolutely no affiliation with the company (ACTA Sports) which sells the book or with Bill James. I just think it’s a great book.
One of the fun features of the book is the chapter of projections for 2006. The projections for the Detroit Tigers are listed below. Remember that these are projections rather than predictions. Each projection is the stat line you can expect for each player if he performs according to his past averages. Adjustments are made based on age and ball park factors.
| POS | PLAYER | BA | OBP | SLG |
| C | Ivan Rodriguez | .297 | .337 | .476 |
| 1B | Chris Shelton | .304 | .374 | .518 |
| 2B | Placido Polanco | .315 | .364 | .467 |
| 3B | Brandon Inge | .251 | .317 | .401 |
| SS | Carlos Guillen | .297 | .363 | .435 |
| LF | Craig Monroe | .283 | .335 | .469 |
| CF | Curtis Granderson | .287 | .347 | .504 |
| RF | Magglio Ordonez | .302 | .368 | .504 |
| DH | Dmitri Young | .278 | .339 | .478 |
| DH | Carlos Pena | .255 | .350 | .478 |
| IF | Omar Infante | .249 | .295 | .383 |
The projections look pretty favorable but also reasonable for the most part. All the starters except Brandon Inge are expected to attain OPS greater than .800. That would be a pretty solid line-up IF they stay healthy. Of course, we know that’s a big IF with this team. The other thing is that the OBPs, which are under represented in OPS, are not as good as the slugging percentages. While 7 of the hitters are projected to slug greater than .460, only 4 are expected to get on base at a better than .350 clip.
5 comments:
Interesting projection for Curtis. I am very high on him, but I am surprised they project his SLG to be that high. Either way those numbers would be more than acceptable for a CF.
Projections already? I would have assumed that they would hold off a while longer until a good amount of FAs have signed for the upcoming season.
I agree that looks like a high end projection for Granderson. He does have more power than some people think though and he did show some of it in September.
Casimir, The Bill James Handbook comes out earlier than any other baseball book each year. They do publish projection updates after the free agents have signed.
James is much higher on the Tigers than ZIPS is. I hope he's right. (ZIPS projects Verlander to be very good, though).
I think ZIPS is a more sophisticated method especially for the players without a lot of MLB experience. I'm not sure whether it's a lot more accurate for veterans. You really have take all these projections with a grain of salt but they are fun to look at.
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