On November 4, I posted a fanpost called “The Game of What If” in which I used the Baseball Musing’s Lineup Analysis Tool to project the total runs which would be scored by the Jays in 2012.

I noted that the Yankees scored 867 runs in 2011, and the Red Sox scored 875, and said that the Jays would likely need ~850 runs to compete. I assumed a starting lineup of Escobar, Thames. Bautista, Lind, Encarnacion, Rasmus, Lawrie, Johnson, and JP and calculated the projected runs under various scenarios.

Well, last month Bill James came out with his predictions for 2012. You can see a commentary on his predictions for the Jays here. Some seem a bit pessimistic, some possibly optimistic, but in general BJ is a pretty knowledgeable baseball guru.

So, just for fun, I re-ran my projections using the Bill James projected stats for all Jays players, using the same lineup. Some optimism (Kelly has not re-signed yet) and some pessimism (this lineup assumes no trades / FA signings).

Total projected runs for the Jays in 2012? 850.

And - just for fun - total projected runs if you replace EE with Prince Fielder? 886.

With our new closer, and perhaps a SP or two, 2012 could be an interesting year!