PEC-ing Order

Now that I have gone through a cursory overview of several teams for the 2006 season, I can break it down just a little further, examining individual performances for the upcoming year. Baseball Prospectus recently released its 2006 PECOTA projections, providing a useful analytic tool as one of the most accurate forecasting tools known to baseball fans. What is PECOTA, you ask? First, what it’s not. More to the point, PECOTA is the brainchild of BP’s Nate Silver. It uses a combination of historically comparable players, performance data (recent and career) and playing time progressions. Taken together, the profile has been historically remarkably accurate, and was made even better this year by the inclusion of groundball-flyball data, which is especially helpful for evaluating pitchers. For a more complete description, BP offers the full implement of explanations here.

So far, BP has only released a titanic spreadsheet listing every player’s weighted mean projection, so weeding through the mess can be quite a task. The mountains of data are very intriguing, though, so I’ll dedicate a fair amount of time to it. Today, I will start with the Twins position players before continuing with the pitching staff later in the week. Eventually, I plan to also look at some of the players across the majors whose PECOTA projects to have big gains or losses. After all, I should probably dedicate at least one in five columns to the Twins if I’m going to pretend to be a Minnesota blogger. For sporting sake, let’s assume that the 2006 lineup will stack up something like this:

LF- Shannon Stewart: 2005 line, .274/.322/.388, 9.0 VORP; 2006 projection, .276/.339/.412, 4.8 VORP. It seemed reasonable that 2005 was an aberration for a player who doesn’t really rely on his speed and who exhibits very good plate discipline. But reality does not look so optimistic with PECOTA treating 2005 as a sign of his decline instead of a string of bad luck. The hardest part to swallow is that his one brilliant half-season will mean Gardenhire keeps him at the top of the lineup no matter how poorly he performs. Even Christian Guzman got that privilege and he was never even good.

2B- Luis Castillo: 2005, .301/.378/.374, 27.7 VORP; 2006, .299/.374/.364, 24.1 VORP. We are all pinning our hopes for an improved offense on Castillo’s relatively narrow shoulders, so it is a relief that the other 30+ burner at the top of the lineup is not in the midst of a rapid decline. He won’t hit for power, but he’s never hit for power, so let’s be realistic. Also, don’t worry about the 3.6 runs of VORP he is projected to give up, as PECOTA is judicious with playing time projections, and Castillo’s a safe bet with a small 12% Collapse Rate.

C- Joe Mauer: 2005, .294/.372/.411, 40.9 VORP; 2006, .299/.361/.453, 33.1 VORP. Mauer’s power progress (gaining about 40 points of SLG) is the most important marker in his development. Young players with good walk rates can take a few years to start hitting for power. Also, his 48% Improve Rate is exceptional for a player coming off of a strong year (improve rate is defined as the likelihood that he will replicate last year’s EQR/PA).

CF- Torii Hunter: 2005, .269/.337/.452, 24.4 VORP; 2006, .272/.330/.460, 19.2 VORP. Hunter also projects to a -2 fielding rate in CF, another sign that age is catching up with the face of the team. I would say that Hunter is no longer a star, but that would be assuming that he was a star at some point in the past. There is something to be said for a .460 SLG in CF, but a return to offensive respectability won’t be Hunter’s responsibility.

1B- Justin Morneau: 2005, .239/.304/.437, 8.6 VORP; 2006, .270/.336/.493, 21.4 VORP. Even though PECOTA does not have an inbuilt mechanism to account for diminished performance for players who played hurt, it still has Morneau making strides. He has a huge 27% Breakout Rate (20% improvement), a range usually reserved for rookies who had only a handful of PA the year before. .270/.336/.493 would have been disappointing last year, but it looks pretty good from where I sit. He’s also projected for 28 HRs, tantalizingly close to the 30 that has eluded Twins batters for the last 18 years.

DH- Rondell White: 2005, .313/.346/.489, 30.0 VORP; 2006, .292/.338/.463, 15.7 VORP. Don’t look at the decline as much as what he replaces. Jacque Jones is pegged for 6.0 runs of VORP, so even White’s comparatively modest season looks much healthier in context.

RF- Mike Cuddyer: 2005, .263/.330/.422, 14.2 VORP; 2006, .265/.339/.436, 14.8 VORP. For those who still think that Cuddyer is waiting to fit into a full time job somewhere that will make him comfortable, rest assured that he can be a productive player while squarely below star-level. His 21% Breakout Rate is very good, so don’t be shocked if he spikes in his age 27 (prime) season. Also, the positional alignment is more of an educated guess than a normative suggestion, so take it with a grain of salt.

3B- Tony Batista: 2005, Sushi/Anime/Honor, Japanese Stereotype VORP; 2006, .245/.289/.400, -0.4 VORP. If it is any consolation, BP recently pointed out that Batista’s fielding advantage over last year’s 3B rabble offsets his weak bat. Also, keep in mind that Terry Tiffee started 24 games at third last year and had cumulative OBP and SLG less than .300. Batista can only say that of his OBP year in and year out. He’s also only slated to play 69 games. Who am I kidding- this section is the most depressing thing this side of a burn victim section of a hospital.

SS- Juan Castro: 2005, .257/.271/.386, 2.2 VORP; 2006, .255/.287/.379, 1.0 VORP. Castro isn’t in the lineup for his bat so much as his glove, but that principle can only go so far. The main offseason goal was to improve the offense, and the Twins stand to start four players with SLG of .400 or less and two with sub-.300 OBP. Maybe it is improvement, but not to a level that can make the postseason.

Others receiving significant playing time:
SS- Jason Bartlett: 2005, .241/.313/.335, 4.2 VORP; 2006, .271/.340/.394, 17.3 VORP. And guess what; he projects as a better fielder than Castro, too!

DH/OF- Lew Ford: 2005, .264/.337/.377, 15.5 VORP; .278/.343/.416, 14.6 VORP. Ford’s 2005 confused me so much that his was the first forecast I looked up after downloading the PECOTA spreadsheet. Players who debut late tend to peak early, but continuing last year’s performance would be Paul Loduca’s career arc to the extreme. I’m glad to see that he has a solid chance of a rebound, which could be useful considering the injury concerns of Hunter, Stewart and White.

IF- Nick Punto: 2005, .239/.296/.335, -2.0 VORP; 2006, .255/.319/.361, 6.2 VORP. The best thing about Punto is that he’s alphabetically next to Albert Pujols, so one could accidentally read his projection as an 88.3 VORP. Did you realize the Punto recently got a raise? Whose idea was that? That would be like a football player having a historically bad season, getting badly injured, then finding himself in legal trouble for indiscretions from his time spent on the IR, then demanding job assurance and a bigger contract. No, not quite that absurd.

All told, the tools for a better offense are there, but at least a couple of them are hidden on the bench (Bartlett, Ford) and a couple others have substantial injury issues (Morneau, White, Hunter). I'll have more in the line of summaries after looking at the pitching staff next time.