Before the start of the season, we had the traditional SnakePit Community Projections, where we ask readers to stare into their crystal-ball, and see what they think our players will produce over the course of the games ahead. Sometimes, we're surprisingly close; other times...let's just say we aren't. Here's the first batch of comparisons between what we thought would happen, and what actually did...
Chris Snyder
Exp: .263/.344/.441 (.785), 15 HR, 58 RBI
Act: .237/.348/.452 (.800), 16 HR, 64 RBI
johngordonma wins the prize for best guess here, with a line of .260/.350/.455, an OPS only five points out, and his 15 HR, 65 RBI expectation was only one away for each. Most predictions over-estimated his BA, but underestimated the walks; overall, the OBP was pretty close to what we thought, with the HR and RBI also not too far from the truth.
Conor Jackson
Exp: .301/.388/.486 (.873), 21 HR, 84 RBI
Act: .300/.376/.446 (.822), 12 HR, 75 RBI
I think we'll give this one to Muu: he voted for a .305 BA, and 83 RBI. He was wildly over on the HR, but was hardly alone there - the most pessimistic guess was 17. We almost nailed that batting-average collectively, but it was the drop in Jackson's slugging that really hurt us. I don't think anyone, anywhere expected him to have fewer home-runs than Snyder.
Orlando Hudson
Exp: .287/.364/.425 (.789), 12 HR, 65 RBI
Act: .305/.367/.450 (.817), 8 HR, 41 RBI [107 games]
Obviously, the loss of Hudson affect the counting stats, but if you pro-rate the actual HR and RBI totals over a full season, you get very close to the expected figure from our consensus. DiamondbacksWIn takes the award here, being spot on with the SLG and only ten points off for OBP, with an honorable mention to AZSeafan for getting the BA.
Stephen Drew
Exp: .270/.343/.427 (.771), 13 HR, 66 RBI
Act: .291/.333/.502 (.835), 21 HR, 67 RBI
Drew comfortably out-hit all of our expectations, with the highest BA a mere .285. The OBP was closer to the mark, but that power was a wholly unexpected delight for Arizona this season. DiamondbacksWIn was the most optimistic and consequently closest, even though their prediction of 280/.380/.440 fell fifteen OPS points short of the reality.
Mark Reynolds
Exp: .267/.338/.488 (.825), 26 HR, 83 RBI
Act: .239/.320/.458 (.778), 28 HR, 97 RBI
Special K generally didn't live up to what we hoped, though did end with more homers and RBI than anticipated. However. the pros did no better: Bill James will likely want to forget his .906 OPS prediction! This one goes to shoewizard: while over like the rest of us, he was within ten points for both OBP and SLG, as well as only a single home-run away.
Chad Tracy
Exp: .276/.346/.457 (.803), 10 HR, 48 RBI, 260 AB
Act: .267/.308/.414 (.722), 8 HR, 39 RBI, 273 AB
Well, we just about got the number of at-bats right, but everything else was disappointing. Tracy struggled to come back from his knee surgery, in another frustrating year. AZSEAfan proved justified in their pessimism, with a prediction of .305 OBP and .422 SLG, for a total OPS only five points out. Hopefully, Chad will be fully healthy and have a more-productive 2009.
Eric Byrnes
Exp: .276/.342/.442 (.784), 21 HR, 82 RBI, 35 SB
Act: .209/.272/.369 (.641), 6 HR, 23 RBI, 4 SB [52 games]
No comment necessary. Ben takes this one, but even his OPS was off by over a hundred points.
Chris Young
Exp: .260/.325/.486 (.811), 31 HR, 74 RBI, 32 SB
Act: .248/.315/.443 (.758), 22 HR, 85 RBI, 14 SB
We over-estimated just about every part of Young's offensive game, save him driving in more runs than expected. At the plate, he was disappointing, not improving on the excellent season he had in 2007. manphibian's 250/.320/.475 prediction was close in two of the three, despite expecting a 30/30 season from our center-fielder. we didn't even get a 20/20 from Young.
Justin Upton
Exp: .265/.337/.420 (.757), 17 HR, 63 RBI, 20 SB
Act: .250/.353/.463 (.816), 15 HR, 42 RBI, 1 SB
Our expectations for Upton were nicely surpassed by the 20-year old phenom, except for his surprising lack of stolen bases. You should also note he missed one-third of our games, so that projects to an even more impressive 22 HR and 63 RBI over a full season. Azreous came closest to the realist, with a .258 average and 14 HR. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the predictions for Upton in 2009.
Jeff Salazar
Exp: .265/.337/.381 (.718), 3 HR, 25 RBI
Act: .211/.331/.344 (.675), 2 HR, 12 RBI
Ugh. We didn't exactly have high expectations for our fourth outfielder, and he still didn't live up to them. shoewizard, however, had one of the most accurate predictions of all, being a mere three points off on OPS and nailing the home-runs - both of them! :-) Our outfield depth was cruelly exposed, and Salazar was undeniably part of the problem. We'll see what happens there over the off-season.
On the overall polls, the majority proved correct in predicting that Conor Jackson would lead the team in batting-average. Though whether he would have done so had Hudson been able to play a full season and qualify, seems somewhat in doubt. The 61% who said Chris Young would have most home-runs...not as accurate. So kudos to the 22% who voted for Mark Reynolds instead. Pitching review to follow, probably Sunday