Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Revising Projections In-Season

As most of the regular readers and commenters here know, I make extensive use of projections on this blog, but I also try to make it clear that projections are inherently limited. Projections are basically an estimate of the talent of a player at the time they are run, but player talent is not a constant. Injuries, conditioning, adjustments and aging are all factors that can change a player's talent, for better or for worse.

So with that in mind, let's look at the projections for the Yankee starters coming into 2008 and compare them to how they've performed to this point. We can also use this to try and figure out what we can expect from the player in question going forward. I'm using Dan Szymborski's in-Season ZiPS projection tool for this, but I've updated the 2008 projections to be an average of five different systems (CHONE, Marcel, PECOTA, ZiPS, and CAIRO).

So here's a look at each of the nine primary starters. BR/650 are non-position adjusted batting runs using linear weights compared to zero, not average. Since we are comparing each player to their expectations I figured it was best to just look the raw batting runs on a rate basis.

Damon,Johnny	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	521	59	146	27	3	14	65	57	75	3	18	4	.280	.355	.423	87
YTD	263	44	86	20	3	6	31	29	35	0	12	5	.327	.394	.494	107
Rest of Year	337	44	100	20	2	9	42	37	47	1	13	4	.297	.370	.448	94
Year End Total	600	88	186	40	5	15	73	66	82	1	25	9	.310	.380	.468	99

Johnny Popup is killing his projections so far. While that's good, it also means he's probably going to regress some. His revised projection for the rest of the year gets boosted by his performance to this point, so a line of .297/.370/.448 is forecast for the rest of the year, and expectations are that Damon will be about 12 runs more valuable at the end of the season than he was originally projected.

Jeter,Derek	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	593	66	182	32	3	13	74	60	100	10	16	5	.307	.381	.438	94
YTD	261	36	71	9	3	4	32	16	30	6	4	1	.272	.329	.375	71
Rest of Year	335	40	99	16	2	7	41	30	51	6	8	2	.297	.366	.420	88
Year End Total	596	76	170	25	5	11	73	46	81	12	12	3	.286	.350	.401	80

Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera are rightfully getting a lot of the grief for the poor offense the Yankees have shown so far, but Derek Jeter is also hitting poorly compared to expectations. Over a full season, Jeter would be 23 batting runs worse than projected if he continues at his current pace. The good news is we should expect a slight bounceback, but overall Jeter looks to be 14 runs worse than expected entering 2008.

Abreu,Bobby	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	530	79	147	33	2	16	88	90	114	4	22	6	.277	.386	.439	97
YTD	269	37	76	16	3	8	43	26	55	0	6	3	.283	.346	.454	89
Rest of Year	345	50	96	21	2	10	56	50	73	1	12	4	.279	.372	.439	93
Year End Total	614	87	172	37	5	18	99	76	128	1	18	7	.280	.361	.445	91

Bobby Abreu's slugging better than expected but his walk rate has dropped quite a bit. In theory his walk rate should go up a bit and his SLG should go down a bit over the rest of the year, but he should be a little bit more valuable than he's been to this point, although overall down from expectations (by around 6 runs).

Rodriguez,Alex	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	564	114	169	28	1	41	127	89	126	13	18	4	.300	.407	.574	123
YTD	189	37	62	16	0	13	38	24	38	4	6	1	.328	.415	.619	134
Rest of Year	339	68	104	20	0	24	75	51	74	8	12	2	.306	.409	.578	125
Year End Total	528	105	166	36	0	37	113	75	112	12	18	3	.314	.411	.593	128

Alex Rodriguez can play ball. He was projected to be very good, and on a rate basis he's exceeding that. The missed time with his quad strain will end up hurting his counting stats, but on a rate basis he came into 2008 expected to be worth about 123 BR/650 PA and is in a good position to be better than that.

Matsui,Hideki	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	483	78	139	28	3	20	87	61	67	3	3	2	.287	.370	.477	97
YTD	240	36	77	13	0	7	34	30	28	3	0	0	.321	.403	.462	101
Rest of Year	308	48	92	17	1	11	51	38	40	2	1	1	.298	.379	.468	97
Year End Total	548	84	169	30	1	18	85	68	68	5	1	1	.308	.390	.466	99

Hideki Matsui is a pretty consistent performer when you look at his full seasons performances, although he's pretty streaky in-season. He's traded some power for average this year, but the net result looks to make him about as valuable as he was projected to be. Taking him out of LF most of the time also helps by preventing his negative defensive impact.

Giambi,Jason	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	321	56	79	13	0	20	62	65	81	10	1	0	.245	.389	.474	101
YTD	190	37	51	11	0	17	40	35	33	10	1	1	.268	.409	.595	124
Rest of Year	292	53	75	13	0	22	58	57	64	12	1	0	.255	.397	.525	111
Year End Total	482	90	126	24	0	39	98	92	97	22	2	1	.260	.401	.552	116

I've been writing quite a bit about Giambi and his resurgence so there's not much need to go into more detail here. He should be expected to fall off some, but his YTD performance boosts our expectations for the rest of the year, from the .245/.389/.474 he was projected to hit entering to 2008 to .255/.397/.525. Add that to what he's already done and he's looking to be about 15 runs better on a rate basis than expected.

Posada,Jorge	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	469	70	134	29	1	18	78	67	94	6	2	1	.286	.382	.469	99
YTD	89	12	29	7	1	3	17	12	16	0	0	0	.326	.406	.528	113
Rest of Year	285	42	84	18	1	10	48	41	56	3	1	0	.294	.386	.477	101
Year End Total	374	54	113	25	2	13	65	53	72	3	1	0	.301	.391	.489	104

Posada's another player who is hitting better than expected, but he's missed so much time that it's tough to say if it's a small sample size fluke or the continuation of a possible change in approach that led to him having a career year in 2007. My guess is the truth is in the middle, and we should probably expect the projected falloff, which still makes him one of the top offensive catchers in baseball. His overall value will be hurt by significant missed time but hopefully he can stay healthy for the rest of the year.

Cano,Robinson	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	561	77	173	38	4	17	86	32	74	5	4	3	.308	.350	.482	94
YTD	261	28	60	14	0	4	24	14	24	3	1	3	.230	.277	.330	51
Rest of Year	335	43	95	22	2	8	45	19	40	3	2	2	.283	.327	.436	82
Year End Total	596	71	155	36	2	12	69	33	64	6	3	5	.260	.305	.389	68

Robinson Cano makes me cry. I know he's better than he's played this year, but I had high hopes for a breakout this season. Instead, he's gotten worse and projects to be close to three wins worse offensively. He's improved defensively to the point where he may get a win of value back (projected to be +5 defensively, on pace to be around +13), but that's still a major disappointment for one of the few young Yankee position players. We all know he has the talent to blow away that going forward projection, but at this point it's going to be tough to salvage his 2008 numbers.

Cabrera,Melky	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR/650
Projection	502	59	141	25	5	9	65	47	65	3	12	4	.282	.348	.406	81
YTD	240	24	61	8	0	7	31	21	34	1	3	1	.254	.317	.375	69
Rest of Year	308	34	84	14	2	6	40	29	41	2	6	2	.272	.339	.393	77
Year End Total	548	58	145	22	2	13	71	50	75	3	9	3	.264	.329	.385	74

If Melky Cabrera is your worst hitter, you've got a pretty good team. He's not a good hitter, but he's still pretty young and his defense is solid in center. He's shown flashes of offensive adequacy at times but his droughts tend to be too long for me to expect much more than a league average upside. That's really not that bad.

So let's see, we have Damon, Rodriguez, Giambi and Posada playing better than expected. We have Jeter, Cano, and Melky underperforming. Then we have Abreu and Matsui doing about what we'd expect.

Update: Yankees sign Sidney Ponson. I'd thank yankeemonkey for the link, but this is not the type of news worthy of a thanks.

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