PECOTA projections are back!

Nate Silver just put up his PECOTA weighted mean spreadsheets the other day, giving us our first opportunity to see the predicted offensive outputs of all major league players. What does this mean? Obviously, it is time to instill some fear of the piranha! We will get to that soon enough. First, let me just say that I'm going to focus solely on the offensive projections of PECOTA, as I have little faith in the defensive projections. Why? Well, Carlos Gomez, whom every scout claims is a defensive stud and could be the best defensive center fielder in the majors if we let him play this year, is projected to be below average. Case closed.

For the uninitiated, VORP stands for "Value Over Replacement Player." It is calculated by the fine folks at Baseball Prospectus and essentially can be interpreted as the number of runs a given player would be expected to add to a lineup of league average players over what a "replacement level" player would add. Replacement level is a level of skill that is easily available to all teams: utility players, career journeymen, or AAA call-ups would be replacement level players. A more in-depth description and the math behind the statistic can be found here.

First, the good: Mauer and Delmon Young. That's about it. Mauer's expected VORP is third in among major league catchers behind Posada and Victor Martinez, mainly due to Mauer's lower level of slugging. Delmon is expected to have the 10th highest VORP among right fielders, although we'll probably have him in left, where he would have the 11th highest VORP. Either way, not bad for a guy who's only 22 with a large upside. Third for the Twins in VORP is Morneau, expected to have the 15th highest VORP among major league first basemen. PECOTA expects him to still have a bit of upside, but considering the contract he just signed, I'd hope he does a little better than the 15th highest VORP of all first basemen.

Now, the bad: the rest of the lineup. Suppose we come out with the infield as Lamb, Everett, Harris. Harris's expected VORP of 14.1 is 25th among 2B, but hey, it beats Lamb's expected VORP of 4.4. Even better? Everett, while only projected to only be healthy for half the season, is expected to put up the stellar VORP of -4.4. Score, replacement level! Everett's expected line? .233/.275/.320. Only slightly better: the Piranha with a line of .238/.309/.321! Apparently, expect around 20 extra base hits from the Piranha and an OBP similar to Mauer's batting average. But damn, the Piranha is scrappy.

This mention of wood allergies and defensive scrappiness brings to mind the scenario that is both awesome and terrifying at the same time: David Eckstein was a free agent until signing with the Jays on a one year, $4.5 mill contract on December 13th. Can you imagine the scrappiness level of an infield with Punto at third, Everett at short, and Eckstein at second? Plus, you can put them at the 7-8-9 spots in the order and you know when you're safe to go get some more salsa and beer. As I said, it's amazing and horrifying all at once. Instead, we'll have to deal with the less amazing and slightly less horrifying scrappiness level of Punto and Everett at the same time. It (thankfully) won't happen every night, but you're a fool if you think Gardy won't use Punto as a utility player to replace Lamb or Harris every once in a while, getting the two scrappiest Twins on the field at the same time. They attack like small dogs, with a fire and tenacity that cannot be matched!
















It's not the size of the dog in the scrap, but the level of scrappiness in the dog.