A Smoaking Gun and Other Stories

At the risk of putting too fine a point on a previous post -- aw hell, there's no risk: we're going to shave the nub to within a millimeter of its life -- Baseball Prospectus released their projections for MLB players today and here's what the Tarot cards suggest for Justin Smoak:

.224/.313/.371 with 14 HR in 470 plate appearances for the Mariners this season. With weak baserunning and slightly below average defense, Smoak grades out essentially to replacement-level at first base, even after factoring in the park he plays in.

In other words, you can pick up any old Tom, Dick or Justin Smoak off the waiver wire and expect about the same production.

Add in the missing 150 plate appearances, which suggest either an injury or a demotion; in either case his contribution during those 30 games is zero.

By comparison, to which the previous post alludes, Matt Wieters's forecast comes in at .259/.330/.422 with 19 HR in 588 plate appearances while dinging him slightly on defense behind the plate. Wieters is worth a pair of wins against replacement in this forecast, which makes him a solid regular but not a star.  

These are projections, not predictions, so even if Smoak breaks out and Wieters breaks down, the system can't be said to be "wrong." (In fact, the system includes the odds of breakout and collapse as well, but the math is obtuse.) It just means that players who have performed the way these two have at their ages in the past have tended to perform like the projection going forward.

According to BP's projection system, the top 10 players offensively in 2013 will be: 

• Albert Pujols
• Joey Votto
• Ryan Braun
• Miguel Cabrera
• Mike Trout
• Troy Tulowitzki
• Adrian Gonzalez
• Andrew McCutcheon
• Robinson Cano

It sees a big bounceback for Pujols, as does Bill James's system, and a massive dropoff for Mike Trout, who has nowhere to go but down after an historic first season. Of course, projection systems don't work well with guys like Trout because he doesn't really have an comparables to project him against.

It's also interesting to see the system projecting a return to stardom for Hanley Ramirez, whom it ranks as the 21st best offensive player. That is based on the Dodgers leaving him at short and giving Dee Gordon the seasoning he needs in Albuquerque.

The system also sees a return to relevance for newly shorn Tim Lincecum with a 3.10 ERA in 174 innings and a return to normalcy for Gio Gonzalez with a 3.67 ERA and the same value to his team as Milwaukee's Mike Fiers.

As for the unprojectable R.A. Dickey? Canada won't want to hear this. The system sees a 38-year-old moving to a tough division in the tougher league and projects 224 innings of a 4.41 ERA with a below .500 record. But then, R.A.'s beaten the odds before.

This is the kind of conjecture we have at our disposal as pitchers and catchers loosen up in Florida and Arizona.