The 2014 Cubs Projections are available now in the Bill James Handbook, or online. I thought I'd post them here and discuss a few things. First, the BJ projections tend to use a higher league average so please consider that when viewing the projections. In fact, please consider the league average of each projection system when you're looking at projections.
UPDATE: For some dumbass reason, I divided by AB rather than PA. Didn't mean to, but it happened so here are the updated and correct (based on available stats) numbers for the Bill James projections for batters. Thanks to John Arguello for pointing it out to sitrick on twitter.
| Name | Age | PA* | 2B | 3B | HR | BB%* | K%* | Avg | OBP | Slg | wOBA* |
| Anthony Rizzo | 24 | 680 | 42 | 2 | 30 | 10.0% | 18.1% | .266 | .344 | .489 | 0.357 |
| Javier Baez | 21 | 584 | 25 | 0 | 22 | 7.4% | 28.4% | .270 | .324 | .438 | 0.332 |
| Ryan Sweeney | 29 | 313 | 17 | 2 | 6 | 8.3% | 16.0% | .275 | .338 | .411 | 0.330 |
| Mike Olt | 25 | 551 | 25 | 1 | 24 | 12.0% | 28.7% | .225 | .318 | .429 | 0.327 |
| Luis Valbuena | 28 | 336 | 17 | 1 | 9 | 11.3% | 17.0% | .248 | .337 | .403 | 0.327 |
| Brian Bogusevic | 30 | 235 | 11 | 1 | 5 | 9.8% | 20.0% | .264 | .342 | .396 | 0.326 |
| Welington Castillo | 27 | 452 | 24 | 0 | 13 | 8.2% | 22.1% | .263 | .330 | .414 | 0.324 |
| Junior Lake | 24 | 540 | 32 | 2 | 13 | 5.9% | 23.0% | .276 | .321 | .423 | 0.324 |
| Nate Schierholtz | 30 | 500 | 30 | 4 | 16 | 6.0% | 18.4% | .260 | .308 | .443 | 0.322 |
| Donnie Murphy | 31 | 136 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 6.6% | 24.3% | .244 | .309 | .449 | 0.319 |
| Dioner Navarro | 30 | 294 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 8.5% | 13.9% | .260 | .328 | .394 | 0.318 |
| Starlin Castro | 24 | 683 | 37 | 7 | 11 | 5.1% | 15.8% | .279 | .321 | .409 | 0.317 |
| Cody Ransom | 38 | 192 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 9.9% | 28.1% | .225 | .306 | .422 | 0.316 |
| Julio Borbon | 28 | 165 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6.7% | 13.9% | .266 | .319 | .338 | 0.294 |
| Darwin Barney | 28 | 555 | 26 | 2 | 6 | 6.1% | 10.6% | .251 | .302 | .344 | 0.286 |
I calculated plate appearances, wOBA, BB% and K%. Some other things of note.
1. Starlin Castro has fallen a long way. Donnie Murphy has a higher projection than him. Murphy has primarily played SS in his career. There's another shortstop higher than Castro.
2. Javier Baez! Even considering the league average, which I did not calculate, Baez is projected to be good at the age of 21. If Baez can play a passable SS, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing what he can do at the MLB level to begin the season. Figure out what to do with Castro later.
3. Mike Olt! An even better projection than Javier Baez. I'm not sure why.
4. If the Cubs had both Baez and Olt on the team next year, how close would they be to leading the league in strikeouts?
5. A lineup that regularly included three players who are projected to have walk rate 10% or higher would make me happy. I'd also be very surprised to see it happen.
6. Bill James likes Anthony Rizzo.
7. It's unlikely either Olt or Baez begin the year in Chicago. Also unlikely that either would as many home runs as BJ projects. Other than those two, and Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs have shit for power.
| Name | Age | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA | FIP* |
| Pedro Strop | 29 | 65 | 56 | 3 | 32 | 68 | 3.46 | 3.37 |
| Justin Grimm | 25 | 118 | 125 | 10 | 39 | 94 | 4.04 | 3.78 |
| Blake Parker | 29 | 55 | 44 | 6 | 23 | 60 | 3.11 | 3.80 |
| Jeff Samardzija | 29 | 211 | 198 | 24 | 76 | 194 | 3.80 | 4.02 |
| Edwin Jackson | 30 | 190 | 199 | 20 | 62 | 148 | 4.07 | 4.05 |
| Scott Baker | 32 | 30 | 30 | 4 | 7 | 24 | 3.60 | 4.13 |
| Michael Bowden | 27 | 38 | 34 | 4 | 15 | 32 | 3.55 | 4.15 |
| Travis Wood | 27 | 197 | 183 | 21 | 66 | 155 | 3.70 | 4.15 |
| Chris Rusin | 27 | 92 | 95 | 9 | 29 | 57 | 4.11 | 4.31 |
| Carlos Villanueva | 30 | 125 | 116 | 17 | 41 | 107 | 3.74 | 4.34 |
| Matt Guerrier | 35 | 39 | 35 | 4 | 16 | 27 | 3.69 | 4.46 |
| Kevin Gregg | 36 | 62 | 57 | 7 | 33 | 57 | 4.21 | 4.52 |
| Jake Arrieta | 28 | 117 | 114 | 14 | 53 | 99 | 4.31 | 4.58 |
| Hector Rondon | 26 | 60 | 62 | 8 | 27 | 53 | 4.80 | 4.67 |
| James Russell | 28 | 48 | 51 | 7 | 15 | 34 | 4.50 | 4.68 |
I calculated FIP using a 3.2 constant.
1. BJ doesn't do the projections for pitchers. Baseball Info Solutions does because BJ does not believe you can project pitchers.
2. BIS always hates James Russell, which is due to how poorly he pitched as a starter. Not sure why it's not different at this point, but oh well.
3. I think all of these pitcher projections look silly for any pitcher projected to pitch under 125 innings.
4. That's it.
Comments
In the spirit of the post: bullet points!
1. It’d be interesting to see BIS’s projections if they’d throw out things like the data on Russel as a starter, or Samardzija as a reliever. I’d be really interested to see how they’d project him after a couple of years with a FIP in the 3.5-3.8 range
2. Holy wow, that Rizzo projection. That seems….generous. Same with the Olt one. Aren’t BJ’s projections known to be really high? I think it’s a bit unwise to calculate wOBA off these projections without noting what James projected for the rest of the league. Not that that’s not what wOBA would be anyway, but it’s misleading if BJ projects a league avg wOBA of .340
3. That said, if Castro could produce a .335 wOBA this season, I think we’d all have to be pretty happy with that.
TommyQuote Reply
Tommy wrote:
1. Keep in mind the league average. Castro’s wOBA is probably not far from league average, but I get the impression based on the spreadsheet that it’s around .345. FWIW, I think his projections tend to be about .340-.345 wOBA.
2. It would be a hell of an improvement, but still disappointing to see Castro being below average at the plate. Then again, that’s probably who he is and if he can do that, he can still have value. I’d take it.
dmick89Quote Reply
These wOBA calculations are a little high. Dmick’s working on getting them updated to the correct ones. Thanks to Cubs Den’s John Arguello for pointing out the error. As a blog we’re sorry, feel free to shut us right up.
sitrickQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Yeah, it is disappointing to see Castro this far below league average. Personally, I think he has the tools to be an above average hitter, but not by a lot, and that would be just fine at shortstop. It’s frustrating to see him struggle as much as he did last season.
TommyQuote Reply
@ sitrick:
yeah fwiw, I calculated Rizzo’s to be .371, but I dont know how recent the linear weights I used are
TommyQuote Reply
Why don’t you think Olt will be the opening day 3b? He’s got Luis Valbuena (who isn’t half bad off of your bench as long as you’re OK with him hitting .230 and walking a lot… clogging up them bases..)
and Eddie Murphy’s long lost brother, Donnie. If Olt doesn’t win the job, you gotta wonder about his future as a 26/27 year old prospect.
Also , doesn’t Bill James’s book essentially use an adjusted growth model to predict results? I feel like it does. (Olt’s closer to the “peak performance age” than Baez so Baez’s production is a little lower than Olt.
I feel like BJ takes this into consideration.
2883Quote Reply
sitrick wrote:
Someone clearly didn’t read every word.
2883Quote Reply
@ Tommy:
I’ve got him at .357 now.
I’m using the basic wOBA formula and the stats BJ provides (PA calculated as AB+BB).
wOBA =(.72*BB+.9*1B+1.24*2B+1.56*3B+1.95*HR)/PA
BJ doesn’t do ROE or HBP for batters.
dmick89Quote Reply
The numbers have been updated
dmick89Quote Reply
@ 2883:
I don’t think Olt will get the job based on his season last year. Sounds like the eye issues aren’t entirely fixed and I’m sure the Cubs would like to see they are before that happens. What’s his option status? I’ve figured he’d be traded this offseason anyway so I don’t think it matters.
dmick89Quote Reply
2883 wrote:
Yeah, he takes age into consideration, which is another reason why Baez’s projections are as impressive as they are.
If he does well to start out the season at AAA, it’s going to be hard to keep him down.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
WaLiQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/major-league-baseball/cubs-free-agent-contest-update.html
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
I think we will see Bryant sooner then we will see Baez
TRECHORYQuote Reply