Every year thousands upon thousands of baseball fans await the unveiling of Bill James’ projections. Thanks to the great and free information at FanGraphs, we are able to view these projections at no cost. In part one, we’ll take a look at the 2012 projections for the team’s top offensive players.
Jacoby Ellsbury
2011: 9.4 WAR, .321/.376/.552, 32 HR, 39 SB
2012 (proj): .304/.362/.476, 19, 38 SB
Ellsbury’s rise from good player with a lot of potential turned into “the dude is a superstar” in a hurry. That being said, James is questioning whether Ellsbury can repeat his power performance, which is the right way to look at it. No one projected Ellsbury to be a 30-plus home run bat and his swing is still very line-drive oriented (not that line-drives can’t go for home runs, as many of Ellsbury’s indeed did). He raised his HR/FB rate significantly in 2011, but it didn’t seem like a total fluke, as he also drove the ball more often while lowering his ground ball rate. Still, a regression seems very likely, but just how much of one is truly anyone’s guess.
Dustin Pedroia
2011: 8 WAR, .307/.387/.474, 21 HR, 26 SB
2012 (proj): 624 PA, .299/.378/.469, 17 HR, 17 SB
Clearly, James is taking into account the fact that Pedroia missed significant time in 2010. However, I don’t see the need to take that injury plagued year into consideration. Pedroia had a few minor injuries in 2011, but nothing that would forecast a significant amount of time missed in 2012. Pedey has every chance to put up similar numbers and approach the 20/20 mark once more.
Adrian Gonzalez
2011: 6.6 WAR, .338/.410/.548, 27 HR, 1 SB
2012 (proj): .301/.387/.517, 30 HR, 1 SB
James has A-Gonz pegged for a small regression in AVG/OBP/SLG, but I wonder if A-Gonz could actually have a better season than he did in 2011. Remember that he started the season still healing a bit from offseason shoulder surgery and that he only had one home run in the month of April. Fenway is a fantastic park for A-Gonz and his opposite field power, but he actually hit for more power on the road in 2011 (.516 SLG at home, .579 on the road. 169 ISO at home, .250 on the road).
David Ortiz
2011: 4.2 WAR, .309/.398/.553, 29 HR, 1 SB
2012 (proj): .277/.378/.517, 30 HR, 1 SB
As I examined last week, Ortiz’s comps show that his power is likely to remain over the next couple of seasons. However, as James points out in his projection, we should expect a regression in AVG/OBP in 2012. As Ortiz ages, he will lose bat speed, it’s just the nature of the beast. Ortiz did do a good job of adjusting last season — focusing more on contact rather than trying to lift the ball out of the yard — but he’ll have to maintain that approach, which he hadn’t shown in recent years, in order to be as valuable as he was last season.
Kevin Youkilis
2011: 3.7 WAR, 517 PA, .258/.373/.459, 17 HR, 3 SB
2012 (proj): 576 PA, .281/.389/.489, 21 HR, 3 SB
We can basically throw out Youk’s second half numbers from 2011. His injuries sapped almost all of his ability to drive the ball, as I stated back in October…
“…when Youk stepped into the batter’s box, he was the same hitter he ever was. The one big difference, however, was his inability to generate enough power as he battled through second half injuries. You can see evidence of this from the change in Youk’s ground-ball to fly-ball rate. Youk hadn’t held a fly-ball rate under 44 percent since becoming a regular in 2006. That rate fell to about 38 percent this season.”
I feel that James gets this as well, as he projects Youk to bounce back and post an excellent .878 OPS. There is still some risk that playing everyday at third will continue to wear on Youk, however, and I think this projection seems to take that into account as well.