Projections vs. Real Life

As part of looking back at the season that was, I wanted to compare what our players did to what they were projected to do before the season started. I am going to use the projections as printed in Baseball Prospectus 2008. We'll do this over a few posts over the next week or so.

Rod Barajas
                        PA    R   2b 3b HR RBI BB SO SB   BA   OB    SA
Projected      217  23  11  0    8    29  18   36   1 .245 .316 .433
Actual            377  44  23   0  11   49  17   61   0 .249  .294 .410
So Rod played way more than BP figured he would. I agree with them that he's better suited to being a backup but such is life. His strikeout to walk rate was much worse than they figured. His batting average was just about spot on, but with his refusal to take walks his on base was much lower than they thought and he didn't hit home runs at the rate they thought he would so his slugging average was down. All in all they didn't think he'd have much of a season and he managed to be even worse than they though and yet he hit in the middle of our lineup.

Gregg Zaun
                       PA   R 2b 3b HR RBI BB SO SB     BA   OB    SA
Projected    281 31  14  0   7    33   33  42 1     .251 .343 .402
Actual          288  29 12  0   6    30   38  38  2    .237 .340 .359
The crystal ball worked for Zaun, they were almost perfect on everything except batting average, it would have been nice if he hit a little higher and slugging average, which likely is mostly due to the batting average as he only hit one less homer and two less doubles than they projected.

Lyle Overbay
                       PA    R   2b 3b HR RBI  BB  SO SB      BA   OB   SA
Projected     505  60  27 1    14   62   50   85   3    .265 .341 .423
Actual           544  74  32  2    15   69   74 116  1    .270 .358 .419
Now this one surprises me, Lyle beat or at least matched his projections in basically every category. I guess it was us that expected better of him. He did strikeout more then they figured, but he got on base much more often. I think the Jays would have been better off to bat him at the top of the order but it is hard to get over that preconceived notion that first basemen bat in the middle of the lineup.

Aaron Hill
                         PA    R   2b 3b HR RBI BB  SO SB    BA   OB    SA
Projected       593  66  33  3  11   63   40   79   5   .271 .325 .405
Actual             205  19  14   0   2    20   16   31   4   .263 .324 .361
Yeah totally unfair, BP had no idea that he'd get his brain rattled and he never got the chance to recover from a slow start. But is worth noting that he was having a bad season before he and Eck ran into each other. No slugging at all. It is hard to imagine that he would have gotten up to 11 home runs if he had played all year.

Marco Scutaro
                         PA    R  2b 3b HR RBI BB SO SB     BA    OB    SA
Projected      364  42  16  2    7   36    36  51   3     .257 .334 .383
Actual            592   76  23  1   7    60   57  65    7     .267 .341 .356
I'm with them....he played way too much. He hit a little better than what was expected, he got on base a little better, he slugged a fair bit worse. Not a career year, but more or less what you could have expected of him. I hope he is closer to the 364 plate appearances next season.

David Eckstein
                        PA     R  2b 3b HR   RBI BB SO SB       BA   OB  SA
Projected     451   49  20   2    3    36   26   32   6     .274 .326 .352
Actual           303   27  18   0    1    23    24   27   2     .277 .354 .358

It is hard to understand....Eck really did better than he was projected to, got on base much better and yet was considered a disappointment. Seems to me he was signed without any understanding of what he was able to do. And JP wonders why we don't think he has a plan.

We'll stop there and continue later in the week.