First off a hello to all you PAH9ers; second, thanks to Erik for letting me tag along over here.
For those that haven’t heard of me I used to write here. I’ll basically be doing the same thing over here that I did over there, which means a steady diet of numbers, graphs, and pitch f/x. Some of it will be broad spectrum, but most of it will be Cards focused (or at least brought back to the Cards). Now back to your regularly scheduled analysis.
CHONE projections for hitters are out, so now we can provide another piece of the 2010 projected value puzzle. First just a quick table of the “relevant” Cardinals and their projected wOBA (for full stat lines go poke around the linked site)
| Name | 2010 Projected wOBA |
|---|---|
| Albert Pujols | 0.433 |
| Ryan Ludwick | 0.356 |
| Colby Rasmus | 0.334 |
| Skip Schumaker | 0.330 |
| Yadier Molina | 0.329 |
| Brendan Ryan | 0.310 |
| Julio Lugo | 0.311 |
| Allen Craig | 0.346 |
| David Freese | 0.337 |
It’s good (but maybe overly optimistic?) to see both Freese and Craig come out as better than league average performers offensively. That really bodes well for Freese as all signs point to him being a capable (i.e. league average-ish defender). It’s much less stellar to see Boog so low.
Keep reading after the jump for some FA projections along with a little more Cards analysis
First the FA table
| Name | 2010 Projected wOBA |
|---|---|
| Matt Holliday | 0.386 |
| Jason Bay | 0.374 |
| Vladimir Guerrero | 0.360 |
| Johnny Damon | 0.351 |
| Troy Glaus | 0.348 |
| Jermaine Dye | 0.345 |
| Chone Figgins | 0.340 |
| Xavier Nady | 0.337 |
| Marcus Thames | 0.337 |
| Adrian Beltre | 0.336 |
| Hank Blalock | 0.332 |
| Mark DeRosa | 0.332 |
| Joe Crede | 0.329 |
| Mike Cameron | 0.328 |
| Austin Kearns | 0.323 |
| Rick Ankiel | 0.318 |
| WilyMo Pena | 0.314 |
| Pedro Feliz | 0.303 |
A couple of quick things to note
- Holliday is clearly the class of the group
- That line for DeRosa screams stay away and let someone else pay him
- Ankiel, ugh
- Almost all of the guys that are projected to post >league average numbers have warts of some kind (no D, injury risk, etc)
Now let’s look at who’s trending in what direction. First the Cards
- Just by the nature of the way projections are done the kind of season Albert had last year (or most any year) is going to regress
- Hopefully Ludwick’s numbers can bounce back as the projection has him slated to do
- Colby’s uptick is promising, but I’d still be inclined to take the over
Now for the FAs
- Another reason to avoid Bay (besides his horrendous D) is he’s projected to not get close to last years numbers
- Beltre’s slated to bounce back, so he becomes even more intriguing as an option
- Cameron’s projection is a little scary
Remember these are just projections, and thus are point solutions. Each has an associated error band (even standard deviation if you will) that should probably be incorporated when you think about these. For example, the folks with low previous PAs will have a little higher band (i.e. Craig and Freese) and could easily bottom out.
Coming up on my to do list is to get out my own home-brewed set of D projections, and then maybe combining them with these and some base running projections to see about WAR.
Those are two rather optimistic projections for a couple of rookies, but this is why I think the Cardinals don’t need to go out of their way to sign the Xavier Nady’s and Mark DeRosa’s of the world.
Concur. Mather could likely be worth slightly greater than rep level too…
I hope the Cards are kicking the tires on Vladimir Guerrero. Reports I’m seeing have him signing a one-year deal for 3-5 million, which is great for a part-time cleanup hitter and a good bat on the bench. I don’t follow the AL well enough to know whether his knees really are as bad as reputed or whether it’s more the case that the Angels signed too many outfielders that don’t have the bats to DH.
He looks like a good candidate to bounce back in a big way. If that’s really where the market’s pricing him, then it’s a great gamble.
I’d think he’d be worth kicking the tires on. I guess it depends on how often his knees would allow him to play the field, and how well can play it when he’s there. Jeff’s projections had him ~-8 runs, but I don’t know what amount of playing time that was representing. A .360 wOBA is about 16 runs above average , so by the time it’s all said and done (offensive runs (+16) + defensive (-8) + positional (-7.5)) we’re at about average which is worth more than 3-5M. It’s also probably better than the Nady’s and Derosa’s of the world that Erik mentions above.