I've got wolves on the brain today, between the release of Okami on Wii and the start by a wolf of the Randy variety last night against the Rockies. I'm not sure Amaterasu can throw a fastball, so we'll stick with the baseball version for now.

It's only April, but Randy Wolf has himself a neat stat line. Last night, he flirted with a no-no before giving up a hit and leaving the game, but the important thing, more than statistical results, is seeing if he can pitch without any health problems popping up.

The Padres have been careful with Wolf--supposedly he was coming out when he did due to his pitch count, even if had still been flirting with a no-hitter--and between their intelligent front office and manager Bud Black, himself a former pitcher and pitching coach, chances are good an injury will come from Wolf's body not being able to handle the rigors of pitching, rather than from being overworked. He's averaging just 96 pitches per start thus far, and could probably go deeper into games if he didn't strikeout and walk as many hitters.

Opponents have hit just .161/.257/.242 against Wolf this year, and he's allowed a .202 Batting Average on Balls in Play. Neither of those figures will last much longer, but chances are good that Wolf's BABIP may not even jump over .300, due to his history (.296 career BABIP, right around the league average) and pitching half of his games in PETCO, the anti-Coors. His current line drive rate of 26.2% is a product of small sample size--this too should fall back down around a more average 21% or so. Wolf typically gives up a few more grounders and flyballs than he has so far this year, and the extra liners will most likely filter their way over to those categories as the year progresses.

Wolf has also stranded just over 90% of his baserunners, another freak April occurrence. His FIP, which adjusts for just that sort of thing, is at 3.25, so even when we see Wolf allow more baserunners to score, there shouldn't be an issue with his production. Historically, Wolf has given up well over a homer per nine innings, but he also spent all but 102.2 innings of his career pitching in Philadelphia prior to this season. PETCO will keep away those extra homers, and probably lop a few more off due to its dimensions.

We are seeing Wolf throw his fastball about 4% more often this year, while he cuts down on the number of sliders he throws. Wolf uses the fastball often with two strikes to end an at-bat, and also to come back from behind in the count. I would like to see him use his secondary pitches more often--namely, his breaking pitches, as his changeup seems to be hit hard--but his strategy is working for now.

It also helps Wolf that his arm is in better condition now than it was prior to his major injury--his strikeout rates in 2006 belie his true ability for punchouts. The K/9 figures he has posted this season so far and last season are a significant improvement on the more league-average looking figures of his recent past, and resemble his first few years in the majors. If that's the Randy Wolf the Padres have signed, then their rotation is in better shape than many people thought during the preseason.

Wolf is a player I plan to keep an eye on as the year progresses, as he was quite the starter when healthy at the beginning of the decade. Between Wolf and second-year Padre Justin Germano, the back end of the Padres rotation doesn't seem to be in the shambles many analysts believed it would be in. It's possible Mark Prior will manage to stay healthy for a time as well, boosting the pitching staff further. While their defense is still expected to have some hiccups, especially in the outfield, this is a team that may still be able to run with the big boys in the division with a little help from pieces like Wolf.

 

 

I'm going to try something new for my posts here at BTB, and we're going to call it "Turning Two". The name is fitting, since it's essentially a close look at something specific for two teams. The plan is to cycle through the league and do my best to keep up-to-date with each team's news at the same time. If you have any suggestions for the format, content, etc, just leave a comment or e-mail me.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Despite his struggles in the spring, Micah Owings was able to shut down the defending National League champion Colorado Rockies in his first start of the 2008 season. Owings, who pitched ineffectively during spring training to the tune of 13 walks and a 9.77 ERA in 15.2 innings, had his and the D'backs 2007 season ended by these same Rockies in the NLCS last October.

Owings pitched well during parts of 2007, but overall was more effective at the plate than he was on the mound. Owings had 14 starts with Game Scores ranging from 50 to 86, but he had just as many starts with Game Scores below 50, including one brutal stretch consisting of 17, 29, 44, 46, and 31. In a nutshell, Owings is a pitcher with some promise who has shown he can pitch well, but he needs to work on his consistency in order to be more than a back-end starter.

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The format of the site is shiny and new, but it's the same URL I'm used to. For those of you who are still around from when I used to write here frequently, it's nice to be back. For those of you who have joined up while I was on my no-blogging sabbatical, it's nice to meet you, and I hope we enjoy each other's company just like those who are familiar with me.

Quick background: I started Beyond the Box Score up with Dan Scotto (currently of Mets Geek) back in May of 2005, and wrote here almost daily for quite some time until I realized I wanted to make sure I finished college with a 3.0. Blogging was the victim, since I didn't feel right running the site if I was going to be ignoring my writing duties. Recently I've discussed coming back in a writing capacity--as a good friend of mine always tells me, writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised--so I hope in the long run you will be as pleased with my return as I am.

With that, let's analyze some baseball, shall we? The Giants lack news headlines that befit their team name, but that's to be expected for a roster with too many unproductive veterans and an influx of young players that may not last long enough to hold the same distinction. Of course stories about plans for the team's parking lot are going to appear when the season opens, because it may be the most positive news the team sees in awhile.

I don't want to spend this post beating up on a team that took plenty of abuse before the 2008 season even opened though. What I'm interested in is the team's shortstop, Brian Bocock. Bocock is 23 years old, and only starting because Omar Vizquel is out with an injury. He hit a paltry .183/.247/.183 in 71 spring training at-bats, and his PECOTA forecast, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus, is just about as dismal: .225/.280/.321 for a weighted mean, and just .250/.309/.373 for a 90th percentile forecast.

Bocock is, as of this posting, not a major league caliber hitter. He is well below replacement level offensively, but his being in the majors is not his fault, so I don't mean to single him out. Bocock is highly regarded as the top defensive player in the Giants minor league system, and Dan Fox's Simple Fielding Runs (SFR) verified these claims statistically. He can field, but over a full season he's overmatched at the plate. It reminds me of when the Kansas City Royals brought Andres Blanco up from the minors for a short time; Blanco didn't do himself any favors by succeeding at the plate when he shouldn't have, because the Royals just kept throwing him up against major league pitching after that.

I bring this up because Bocock picked up his first hit and first RBI (via bases loaded walk) in last night's game. You love to see guys like this do well, even for a short time--and with Vizquel expected back before too long, that's all Bocock has in the majors right now--so it was nice to see, at least for me. I'm somewhat torn about his performance though; I want him to do well enough that he earns an invitation back in the future--he is just 23 years old, after all, and a fine fielder by both scouting and statistical accounts--but not so well that the Giants make the same kind of mistake the Royals made with plenty of middle infielders earlier this decade.

Bocock is in a rough place, but he's earning a major league paycheck for a bit, and he made the show. With Vizquel expected to retire in the near future--he has to eventually, right?--Bocock may end up back on the roster full time sooner than we think. With little to root for down by McCovey's Cove this year, Bocock is a player who I plan on watching a little more closely, just to see how he does. It sure beats talking about how unlucky Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum are going to be for 162 games, doesn't it?

I wrote this entire piece last week, only to have Mozilla unexpectedly crash and, even more surprisingly, not restore my session properly. Here's take two:

I am going to try to pick interesting cases: players who were injured, or had (seemingly) fluke productive or unproductive seasons. For outside forecasting, I'm including PECOTA, Marcels, ZiPS, Bill James, and CHONE forecasting systems, as well as a quick and dirty method of my own to attempt to project 2007 performance. Anyone reading this who has read me before would probably guess that my method uses batted-ball data, and you would be correct.

With an assist from Eric Simon of Mets Geek and Amazin' Avenue, I've got myself a nifty spreadsheet that corrects players' batting lines for the difference between their Batting Average on Balls in Play and their expected Batting Average on Balls in Play. The need for a spreadsheet comes in with the adjustment made to this; when you add in the difference to the batting lines, every extra or missing hit is counted as a single. Eric tweaked it so that the extra SLG points are distributed according to their hit-type rates, meaning a few extra points for extra-base hits. For many players there will not be any difference, but it will help to correct slugging percentage for a few players on either end of the extremes.

Hank Blalock -- Texas Rangers

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.270	.338	.447
Marcel	.274	.338	.446
ZiPS	.273	.336	.461
Bill James	.274	.339	.454
CHONE	.279	.343	.461
BTBS	.290	.354	.431

Blalock had the worst season of his career in 2006, making his poor 2005 look production by comparison. His line of .266/.325/.401--which creeps towards replacement level EqA at third--was a large part of the reason the Rangers were not able to compete down the stretch after the bats of their complimentary players cooled.

The projection systems no longer expect Blalock to be a star, although they do forecast that he will outperform both his 2005 and 2006 seasons--you can blame the weighting of his 2004 season, .276/.355/.500, for that. You also want to take note that the correction for batted-ball data gives him a line that looks a bit better than his actual one. Blalock's BABIP of .296 was .034 points under his expected BABIP, but that doesn't mean all of those lost points should have been hits. Blalock has been turning into more of a groundball hitter lately--another reason why his power has declined--and there's a good chance that not all of those points of BABIP were bad luck, and some just would have been ground outs.

Either way, Blalock is better than his 2006 campaign shows, but nowhere near the impact player his stat lines showed him to be during the 2003-2004 seasons. If Blalock performed like 2005 from here on out, I wouldn't be surprised.

Morgan Ensberg -- Houston Astros

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.263	.374	.484
Marcel	.265	.371	.479
ZiPS	.261	.373	.471
Bill James	.260	.380	.479
CHONE	.258	.374	.484
BTBS	.243	.410	.473

On the other hand, we have Morgan Ensberg, who I fully expect to rebound to his 2005 level of production. His 2006 line was a product of poor luck and a shoulder injury that helped to limit his swing. If fully healthy in 2007, it isn't hard to envision Ensberg continuing his run as one of the best third basemen in the league.

Morgan hit .235/.396/.463 last year, and none of the projection systems envision much improvement on that for this coming season. The batted-ball correction gives him a slight boost in each category, which isn't that significant overall. The injury is the cause of Ensberg's demise; he hit .235 and still managed an ISO of .228, meaning his power is still there. Let's not forget his walk rates are incredible, and not just the product of a slowing bat. Ensberg's walk rates were high as the season began, and he did not hit the ball the opposite way more often, a sure sign of a slowing bat in a veteran.

I have no problem envisioning an Ensberg that reaches his 75th percentile PECOTA forecast in 2007, hitting .278/.390/.520.

Eric Chavez -- Oakland Athletics

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.263	.358	.464
Marcel	.264	.354	.459
ZiPS	.260	.352	.453
Bill James	.264	.355	.476
CHONE	.261	.357	.453
BTBS	.275	.385	.469

Eric Chavez is another third basemen who disappointed in the 2007 season, mostly due to injury. Chavez also had a bout with bad luck though, dragging his batting line down to .241/.351/.435 when it should have been closer to .275/.385/.469, as shown in his batted-ball correction. His forecasts from all of those systems above are a bit low for me--I think that with Chavez recovered from his bilateral forearm tendonitis that he should be able to replicate his productive lines of previous years.

In fact, let's take a look at something I wrote in my most recent Player Profile column over at Baseball Prospectus:

This also looks very similar to his high-end PECOTA forecasts; although his 75th percentile projection is just .275/.372/.493, his 90th is .293/.392/.537. If one is to believe that his walk rates from 2004 and 2006 are true indicators of his skill level, then a healthy Chavez should be able to wreak havoc on American League pitchers. Whether or not Chavez will be able to remain healthy for the entire year is a different story, and his high flyball rates worry me somewhat, as far as his maintaining a BABIP in line with his expected BABIP goes.

This is the third part of a multi-piece series on positional forecasts. If you missed the first two, they can be found here and here.

I am going to try to pick interesting cases: players who were injured, or had (seemingly) fluke productive or unproductive seasons. For outside forecasting, I'm including PECOTA, Marcels, ZiPS, Bill James, and CHONE forecasting systems, as well as a quick and dirty method of my own to attempt to project 2007 performance. Anyone reading this who has read me before would probably guess that my method uses batted-ball data, and you would be correct.

With an assist from Eric Simon of Mets Geek and Amazin' Avenue, I've got myself a nifty spreadsheet that corrects players' batting lines for the difference between their Batting Average on Balls in Play and their expected Batting Average on Balls in Play. The need for a spreadsheet comes in with the adjustment made to this; when you add in the difference to the batting lines, every extra or missing hit is counted as a single. Eric tweaked it so that the extra SLG points are distributed according to their hit-type rates, meaning a few extra points for extra-base hits. For many players there will not be any difference, but it will help to correct slugging percentage for a few players on either end of the extremes.

Dan Uggla - Florida Marlins

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.269	.328	.445
Marcel	.284	.345	.476
ZiPS	.268	.332	.438
Bill James	.285	.347	.490
CHONE	.256	.318	.422
BTBS	.259	.314	.451

Dan Uggla hit .282/.339/.480 in 2006, coming out of nowhere to enter a bid for the Jackie Robinson Award after replacing Pokey Reese in spring training. Uggla had hit .297/.378/.502 in Double-A Tennessee in 2005, which looks impressive until you realize he was 25 years old already. His age 26 season went fairly well at the major league level, and his better months were spread throughout the season a bit.

Uggla was fairly lucky though, as you can see from the BTBS line in the table. He was .027 over his expected BABIP, given his line drive percentage; sadly, we don't have his minor league batted-ball data at the moment, so it's tough to gauge whether or not his 16.8% line drive rate is normal or low for him (generally, around 20% is average). Marcel and James are fairly optimistic about Uggla repeating his 2006 season, while the rest of the forecasts--and the BTBS correction for 2006--are a bit more pessimistic. I feel comfortable with the lower ones, although Uggla has shocked us once already.

Josh Barfield - Cleveland Indians

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.267	.317	.423
Marcel	.285	.333	.439
ZiPS	.271	.326	.397
Bill James	.289	.335	.425
CHONE	.286	.342	.441
BTBS	.281	.320	.424

Josh Barfield hit .280/.313/.423 in his rookie season in San Diego before being dealt to the Cleveland Indians in a deal centered around Kevin Kouzmanoff. I'm somewhat surprised at the pessimistic forecasts thrown out by most of these systems, since Barfield's major league equivalent line from 2006 was .290/.329/.442, and he wasn't incredibly lucky or anything. Considering his power isn't that high yet, he should try adding some plate patience to his repertoire.

One question surrounding Barfield is his defense: some systems (like FRAA) are big fans, while David Pinto's Probabilistic Model of Range thinks he's fairly average. The Indians should hope that FRAA has the correct assessment here, because if Barfield's bat does stay at the level these forecasting systems indicate then they may not be pleased with his production. I'm of the mind that he'll beat these projections, and I know a few people who really like him that I trust. His upper level PECOTA percentiles are much more optimistic than his weighted mean.

Marcus Giles - San Diego Padres

Projection	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	.264	.342	.408
Marcel	.283	.357	.430
ZiPS	.276	.356	.406
Bill James	.281	.361	.436
CHONE	.262	.342	.400
BTBS	.284	.366	.415

If I'm going to take the time to analyze Josh Barfield, I should make room for Marcus Giles as well. Giles hit only .262/.341/.387 for the Braves in 2006, making him expendable in their eyes; as an arbitration eligible player who would pull in a few million extra thanks to big seasons in the past, the cost conscious Braves cut him loose. The Padres picked him up on the cheap, and hope he can at the least replicate his 2004-2005 seasons, where he hit .311/.378/.443 and .291/.365/.461. The slugging percentages might be a bit optimistic, considering his sub-.400 rate from last year, but the OBP is the real key to the Padres offensive attack. They play in a park that dooms power hitters, so they need guys who get on base to keep their offense moving. With the brothers Giles (and their OBPs) hitting in front of Adrian Gonzalez and Mike Cameron, the Pads should be able to achieve that goal.

PMR likes Giles about as much as Barfield, so there's probably no real difference between them defensively, at least according to this system. Giles used to be more of a plus fielder, but his range has decreased with age. Before the 2006 season, Kevin Goldstein wrote in Baseball America Prospect Handbook 2006 that Barfield had "made strides defensively and is no longer expected to have to move to left field," which should explain his defensive abilities somewhat. In the long run the Indians will like having Barfield more than the Padres like having Giles around (if they are to re-sign him anyways), but they are two teams in different places. The Indians are reloading with kids to match up with the players on the roster hitting their peak, while the Padres are the team with one of the worst minor league systems around; they're playing to win now with a somewhat older core of players in a winnable division.

This is the second part of a multi-piece series on positional projections. If you missed the first post on catchers, you can find it at this link here.

I am going to try to pick interesting cases: players who were injured, or had (seemingly) fluke productive or unproductive seasons. For outside forecasting, I'm including PECOTA, Marcels, ZiPS, Bill James, and CHONE forecasting systems, as well as a quick and dirty method of my own to attempt to project 2007 performance. Anyone reading this who has read me before would probably guess that my method uses batted-ball data, and you would be correct.

With an assist from Eric Simon of Mets Geek and Amazin' Avenue, I've got myself a nifty spreadsheet that corrects players' batting lines for the difference between their Batting Average on Balls in Play and their expected Batting Average on Balls in Play. The need for a spreadsheet comes in with the adjustment made to this; when you add in the difference to the batting lines, every extra or missing hit is counted as a single. Eric tweaked it so that the extra SLG points are distributed according to their hit-type rates, meaning a few extra points for extra-base hits. For many players there will not be any difference, but it will help to correct slugging percentage for a few players on either end of the extremes.

This time around, we have three first basemen to look at, Mark Teixeira, Mike Jacobs, and Prince Fielder.

Mark Teixeira - Texas Rangers

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	684	.290	.374	.537
Marcel	636	.294	.377	.546
ZiPS	702	.287	.373	.541
Bill James	705	.287	.376	.553
CHONE	680	.283	.375	.540
BTBS	681	.289	.383	.524

Teixeira's projections are all basically the same, but they are all below what he was producing in 2004-2005. This has a lot to do with the fact that no projection system is able to account for what exactly happened with Teix in 2006. I asked Adam Morris of Adam Morris if there were any outside issues with Teix that I wouldn't know of, since I'm not a Rangers fan, and he gave me some interesting information. Teix is a historically slow starter, and like many major leaguers, uses spring training to refine his swing and get back into...well, the swing of things. In Teixeira's case, he has two swings to refine due to his switch hitting. Rather than get back into his normal routine in spring training, Teixeira joined Team USA for the World Baseball Classic, where he basically sat on the bench in favor of Derrek Lee.

From about July onward, Teixeira was a force akin to his 2004-2005 numbers, hitting .292/.387/.594 after a disappointing first half line of .272/.355/.438 to end up at .282/.371/.514, below his career averages but still impressive. Looking at his monthly splits for 2004-2005, one can see that Teixeira has this "heating up" period happen yearly; since he started from a less ready point in 2006, the end product just was not as high as usual:

• Teix Month by Month 2004-2005
• APR: .265/.349/.500
• MAY: .274/.352/.521
• JUN: .289/.364/.578
• JUL: .263/.351/.574
• AUG: .326/.398/.569
• SEP: .297/.406/.603

You can expect Teixeira to meet the most optimistic of those projections, but the chances are just as good that he will outperform them all as well; this is his age-27 season after all.

Mike Jacobs - Florida Marlins

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	526	.271	.340	.493
Marcel	471	.274	.338	.494
ZiPS	493	.254	.314	.469
Bill James	556	.287	.345	.525
CHONE	529	.272	.331	.481
BTBS	515	.277	.346	.494

Jacobs is a confusing hitter to analyze, because he started out the year poorly, heated up over the summer, and cooled down as the year tailed off. Not just that, but he's an awful hitter at home in Florida (.247/.299/.498) and performs poorly against left-handed pitchers (.194/.242/.312 from 2005-2006). He's solid against right-handers and hits well outside of Miami though--.281/.345/.514 and .276/.348/.451, respectively.

Jacobs' BABIP was .299, but his expected BABIP was .022 points higher than that; that's where his much improved .277/.346/.494 BTBS line comes from, as opposed to his actual of .262/.325/.473. PECOTA and Marcel both expect Jacobs to perform at that level in 2007, and Bill James' projection gives him even more credit, most likely weighing his short but successful 2005 (.310/.375/.710) a bit too heavily. Jacobs is just a bit above average offensively as a first basemen, but southpaws will give him trouble if he doesn't have a capable platoon partner.

Prince Fielder - Milwaukee Brewers

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	575	.292	.373	.531
Marcel	530	.285	.357	.493
ZiPS	610	.280	.358	.513
Bill James	586	.280	.360	.517
CHONE	602	.277	.364	.500
BTBS	581	.271	.352	.484

PECOTA is the most optimistic, which is somewhat unusual. Every other forecast expects a slight improvement, or basically treading water rather than really improving. As you can see by the BTBS correction for 2006, his BABIP and eBABIP were basically spot on--Fielder's actual line was .271/.347/.483. This will only be his age-23 season, so it's not a surprise that Fielder isn't expected to destroy the National League's pitching just yet, but the consistency of the projections is something to like. Even in PECOTAs range of outcomes, Fielder is consistent. His 25th percentile forecast is .272/.348/.482, which is basically a 2006 redux, while his 75th percentile is .305/.388/.562. The only thing that worries me about Fielder's PECOTA, which again, is the most optimistic of the projections, is that his card's Beta, which measures the level of risk involved in a forecast, is fairly high risk at 1.29 (the lower, the better).

Fielder will, most likely, become a force at the plate, but these forecasts don't seem to think that time is now. Luckily for Brewer fans, he's under team control for the next few years as he approaches his peak, a peak that PECOTA seems optimistic about as well.

Instead of the community projections run last year at this site, I've decided to pick a few players from each position and take a look at them on a weekly basis. First on the docket is catchers, as I'll move my way around the diamond position by position until I end with starting pitchers.

I am going to try to pick interesting cases: players who were injured, or had (seemingly) fluke productive or unproductive seasons. For outside forecasting, I'm including PECOTA, Marcels, ZiPS, Bill James, and CHONE forecasting systems, as well as a quick and dirty method of my own to attempt to project 2007 performance. Anyone reading this who has read me before would probably guess that my method uses batted-ball data, and you would be correct.

Jason Varitek - Boston Red Sox

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	405	.274	.357	.453
Marcel	462	.267	.351	.454
ZiPS	466	.266	.357	.456
Bill James	524	.259	.343	.434
CHONE	444	.256	.344	.430
BTBS	460	.281	.368	.443

Jason Varitek was one of the better offensive options at catcher in the majors, while also holding a reputation as one of the better defensive catchers and game callers around. In 2006 he struggled with injury trouble and was well below his recent averages when he was healthy.

The good news for Varitek comes from his directional batted-ball data; Varitek did not start to hit the ball to the opposite field more often, which often happens with players whose bats are slowing down. He also did not have a spike in his walk rate--another sign of a slowing bat--which happens as hitters stop going after pitches their bat used to be able to catch up to, instead taking a few more pitches here and there until pitchers begin to challenge them again.

PECOTA, Marcel and ZiPS all have very similar forecasts for Varitek, and all are bounce-back campaigns after a disappointing 2006. The CHONE and Jamesian projection systems also expect Varitek to return to form for the most part. The Beyond the Box Score forecast is the most optimistic of all, as it tries to correct what went wrong with his 2006. Varitek's line drive rate fell multiple percentage points down to 16.8% (his average from 2002-2006 is 21.7%); after adjusting for that, Varitek was basically expected to repeat his 2005. Granted, as a 33-year old catcher, that most likely will not happen, but if Varitek does come back to form all the way, you'll know why.

Gerald Laird - Texas Rangers

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	271	.265	.322	.437
Marcel	334	.276	.328	.428
ZiPS	278	.270	.320	.441
Bill James	284	.273	.326	.439
CHONE	278	.267	.327	.438
BTBS	289	.250	.309	.427

After what seemed like forever, Gerald Laird finally took the reigns of starting catcher for the Texas Rangers, thanks to Rod Barajas' free agency. His 2006 performance helped excite Rangers' fans, as they hoped for a quality offensive performance from their catcher with Laird behind the plate. Laird will most likely be close to the projections listed above; his batting average was at a bit of a fluke high last year thanks to a .357 batting average on balls in play. That's a helpful batting line from one of the worst offensive positions on the diamond, and Laird you can easily glean a solid defensive reputation from his defensive numbers.

The Rangers may have lost the single-year production of Gary Matthews Jr. and Mark DeRosa, but with Mark Teixeira primed for a comeback, Ian Kinsler for a full season, a healthy Brad Wilkerson as well as Laird in place of the aforemention Barajas they should not lose as much as one would initially think.

Josh Bard - San Diego Padres

Projection	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
PECOTA	316	.270	.346	.410
Marcels	352	.293	.363	.463
ZiPS	258	.281	.356	.424
Bill James	276	.283	.348	.434
CHONE	211	.272	.344	.435
BTBS	283	.277	.345	.476

Josh Bard broke out offensively in 2006, hitting .338/.406/.537, even with his home games at PETCO Park. Bard was part of Kevin Towers' outright swindling of the Red Sox via trade, as the Padres also received relief pitcher and then prospect Cla Meredith in exchange for Doug Mirabelli. Overall, the deal could be looked at as Mirabelli and Mark Loretta for Bard and Meredith, but that still puts the Red Sox in the loss column, especially considering their bullpen problems.

Bard was a bit over his head, thanks to a .377 BABIP. None of the projections systems expect him to retain all of the improvement, although they do expect a better player than Bard was initially thought to be. As someone who watched as many Padres' games as Red Sox games in 2006, I can tell you that Bard looked very disciplined and smart, with the ball jumping off of his bat in a way that made you believe he had become an improved offensive player. Considering he was initially acquired by the Red Sox thanks to his defensive abilities, it's safe to say the Padres will be pleased in 2007 as well.

The BTBS line is a bit more optimistic; you could easily take a few points away from the slugging if you wanted to and I'd be happy with that. Going forward, I'm going to try and improve the quick method I'm using to be a bit more reflective of what you can expect from the players in 2007. Remember, this is not a projection so much as a correction for their 2006 seasons.

I am writing this from my NINTENDO WII. Just a test

As you all know by now, Mark Mulder re-signed with the Cardinals for two years, $13 million. He won't be back to pitch for St. Louis until midseason at the earliest, and he's no guarantee to pitch much better once he is healthy. Mulder has posted FIP figures of 4.60, 4.24 and 6.05 the past three years, along with PERA's of 4.49, 4.47 and 5.64. At best, he's an average pitcher, which means the Cards did not overpay for him. If former Cardinal Jason Marquis is going to make $7 million per year to be a replacement level-ish pitcher, than Mulder is certainly worth this relatively cheap investment.

The worry is that surgery won't correct all of his problems; Mulder logged a ton of innings in Oakland, and his days as a serious workhorse and top-level pitcher may be behind him. The pitching market was certainly thin, but the Cards may have been able to do somewhat better than Mulder and his 4.82 PECOTA forecasted ERA, which is enhanced by St. Louis' fantastic defense as evidenced by his projected 5.33 PERA and 5.27 Equivalent ERA. (get your copy of the PECOTA spreadsheet here; click the above link for an explanation of the projection system)

Tony Armas has better strikeout rates than Mulder, but has had health issues throughout his career as well. His PECOTA forecasted PERA of 5.55 is even worse than Mulder's, although some of that can be attributed to his poor K/BB ratios and homerun rates from 2004-2005. His 2006 season was not all actually all that bad, although batters teed off on him a bat, which is certainly worrisome. Armas is the perfect candidate for an incentive laden deal though, and if you get lucky and have him pitch 3/4 of a season, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Tomo Ohka may have been the best pitcher left on the market though; his forecasted Equivalent ERA was 4.92, although his PERA is also a poor 5.22. Ohka's peripherals have improved somewhat since he moved to Milwaukee, which only makes me nervous because he'll be leaving pitching coach Mike Maddux. Dave Duncan is an excellent pitching coach as well though, and has a lot of success with veteran pitchers who struggle with their peripherals. Not to mention the fact that Ohka would get to play in front of the St. Louis defense.

The Cardinals could still re-sign Ohka over Jeff Weaver, who is seeking a four-year, $40 million contract, something the Cardinals should stay far, far away from. Jeff Weaver's projection is actually the most impressive of the four pitchers included in this piece, but he is by far the most expensive in both years and dollars, and therefore not worth the commitment relative to the other pitchers. PECOTA projected a 4.85 PERA and 4.77 Equivalent ERA for Weaver, and although those are probably realistic, the dollars and years just don't make sense for an erratic 30-year old pitcher whose only consistency is found in his inconsistency.

Given the market, re-signing Mulder was something the Cardinals seemingly had to do, especially since they would have lost him to the Rangers or another team if they had not pounced. Given the lack of useful alternatives, I can excuse this transaction. Re-signing Weaver is something I don't feel comfortable with the Cards doing, playoff performance notwithstanding.

Here's some things to get your Tuesday rolling:

• I participated in a Q&A with former DRays Bay author David Bloom at his new website, Baseball Happenings.
• SB Nation's Over the Monster interviewed the Providence Journal's and ESPN.com contributor Sean McAdam.
• Sammy Sosa > Jason Botts? That seems to be the mindset in Arlington anyways. I'll have an Unfiltered post on this later today.

  Update [2007-1-16 14:5:11 by Marc Normandin]: Unfiltered post on Sosa, as promised.

• PECOTA is available for Baseball Prospectus subscribers. If you're looking for an excuse to get a BP subscription, PECOTA projections should do it for you. The cards will be available shortly, and they're much more fun than the initial spreadsheet.