Tigers Batting Projections for 2007

Believe it or not, I am not going to discuss a new base running statistic today. With several Tigers pitchers already working out in Lakeland, it's time to start looking ahead to the upcoming season. Today, I'm going to look at statistical projections for Tigers batters in 2007. Some of the most popular systems are:

• The Bill James Handbook Projections – Developed by Baseball Info Solutions
• PECOTA – Developed by Baseball Prospectus
• ZIPS – Invented by Dan Szymborski and run by Baseball Think Factory
• CHONE - Invented by Chone Smith, an Angels blogger and dedicated sabermetrician.
• Marcels - Invented by Tom Tango.
  

I entered projections for each of the systems into a spreadsheet and calculated an average projection over the 5 systems for each Tigers batter in the starting line-up and others who may get significant playing time. This method should drown out any projection by one system which seems to be overly optimistic or pessimistic for a particular player. I will only be giving you the averages and not the specific projections for each system as the Handbook projections and PECOTAs are proprietary.

The Bill James Handbook which contains the Baseball Info Solutions projections for all teams can be purchased at the above link. An an online subscription to Baseball Prospectus (see above link) gives you access to the PECOTAs. The ZIPS, CHONE and Marcles projections are public and can be found at Baseball Fan Graphs.

The table below is color coded. Every player projected to fall in the top 30 percent of the league’s regulars for a particular measure is coded in blue for that statistic. Every player projected to fall in the bottom 30% for a measure is coded in red. The middle 40% are in black.

Here are the highlights:

• Carlos Guillen is projected to fall in the top 30% for all measures (.307/.377/.488 and a .865 OPS).

• Gary Sheffield is expected to finish in the top 30% in OBP (.372) and OPS (.845). Thames is projected to make the top 30% in slugging (.501) if he plays.

• Both Thames (.831) and Chris Shelton (.832) are projected to post higher OPS than Sean Casey (.777).
  

• Three starters - Brandon Inge (.323), Craig Monroe (.317) and Ivan Rodriguez (.324) - are projected to fall in the botton 30% for OBP. Utility player Omar Infante (.307) also falls in that range.
  

• Inge (.258), Infante (.258) and Thames (.254) are projected to finish in the bottom 30% for batting average.

These aggregate projections seem pretty reasonable to me for the most part. I really don't see them being overly optimistic or pessimistic for any player. Each of the 5 systems has a fairly good history of success but there are unexpected things that happen every season. It's very difficult to project who will get injured (although Baseball Prospectus tries to do that) and who will have a career year (good or bad).

What we can expect is that a couple of these players will perform either over or under their projections but that most of them will fall fairly close. Hopefully, the Tigers will follow last years trend of more overperformers than underperformers.

In future posts, I'll look at starting pitchers and relief pitchers.

Table - Average Projections for Tigers Hitters in 2007

Player	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Casey	493	.292	.354	.423	.777
Granderson	609	.267	.341	.452	.793
Guillen	558	.307	.377	.488	.865
Infante	392	.258	.307	.407	.715
Inge	585	.258	.323	.438	.761
Monroe	556	.268	.317	.467	.784
Ordonez	553	.292	.350	.463	.813
Polanco	528	.302	.346	.404	.750
Rodriguez	531	.289	.324	.437	.761
Sheffield	456	.284	.372	.473	.845
Shelton	483	.280	.355	.477	.832
Thames	411	.254	.330	.501	.831