2005 Jays: Optimistic and Pessimistic Projections

Wednesday, March 16 2005 @ 05:26 PM EST

Contributed by: Dave Till

I've always thought that predicting an individual player's performance was next to impossible: there are just too many factors to consider, one of which is just plain luck. But, just for fun, I thought I'd make two predictions for each Blue Jay hitter and starting pitcher likely to make the team in 2005. The first prediction will be wildly optimistic, the second wildly pessimistic.

Let's start with the hitting, and let's get the gloomy stuff out of the way first. Here is the pessimistic forecast for the Blue Jays' offense in 2005. I tried to get the games to add up, but I didn't try too hard, as this is not a serious forecasting exercise.

Player G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG SB CS BB SO Hinske 154 558 57 122 19 2 11 47 .219 8 12 49 116 Hudson 111 406 49 99 20 4 7 33 .244 6 10 31 89 Adams 128 434 40 89 13 3 6 37 .204 3 5 30 51 Koskie 110 396 52 93 22 2 13 58 .234 5 7 44 99 Catalanotto 63 210 35 54 15 1 1 24 .257 1 1 16 37 Wells 131 529 72 138 32 2 19 64 .260 11 15 47 89 Rios 106 374 42 98 21 5 2 25 .261 12 7 27 96 Hillenbrand 139 468 52 123 20 2 12 49 .263 3 4 13 61 Johnson 149 540 59 139 19 2 7 48 .258 4 4 24 101 Gross 72 179 17 37 5 0 3 16 .209 2 2 24 34 Zaun 110 305 27 67 14 1 4 37 .220 2 0 26 50 Quiroz 67 224 19 47 7 0 4 22 .211 0 1 13 64 McDonald 92 261 25 51 8 1 1 13 .196 1 2 10 49

I came up with these numbers by assuming that absolutely everybody takes a step back from last season. Koskie, Hudson, and Cat suffer major injuries, and the replacements are not able to step in to do the job. Zaun's numbers were obtained by adding his two seasons with Houston together.

Now, let's move to the sunny side of the street:

Player G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG SB CS BB SO Hinske 151 566 99 158 38 2 24 84 .279 13 1 77 138 Hudson 158 601 108 175 36 9 16 80 .292 21 7 60 103 Adams 157 572 86 175 22 7 12 71 .306 17 6 48 62 Koskie 153 562 100 155 37 2 26 103 .276 19 7 68 118 Catalanotto 133 463 77 153 31 5 11 54 .330 15 5 39 55 Wells 162 684 126 225 51 7 37 123 .329 31 9 60 82 Rios 143 504 73 150 32 9 13 77 .298 27 6 47 94 Hillenbrand 148 562 86 174 36 3 15 80 .310 2 0 24 49 Johnson 71 217 44 64 12 2 6 31 .294 8 2 16 40 Zaun 110 352 51 99 29 0 9 49 .280 0 2 54 64 Quiroz 67 237 30 63 14 0 8 34 .267 0 0 21 48 McDonald 71 101 11 25 9 1 1 10 .250 3 1 9 26

Ahh, that's much nicer. I came up with these numbers using the following methods:

For Hinske, Cat, and Koskie, I just used their best seasons in the major leagues as is, except for reducing Corey's stolen base total, as I don't think he'll ever steal 27 bases again.
Hillenbrand's figures are just last season's totals with the run and RBI totals increased (since he's now in a better lineup than Arizona's).
For Adams, I used his .306 average from last year, and estimated how well he'd do if he continued to hit at that level.
McDonald and Johnson are shown as hitting at about the level they reached in their best seasons so far.
Everybody else takes a small step forward from their best season to date. Everybody but Zaun is young enough to improve, and Zaun is assumed to be rounding into peak form.

Note that, in the best case scenario, Gross doesn't play at all. This isn't knocking Gross – who, in this scenario, is hitting over .300 with power and speed for Syracuse. He just can't crack this lineup. Also notice that McDonald usually sees action as a defensive replacement, and Johnson is strictly the fourth outfielder.

If you add up the totals, the pessimist Jays score a total of 546 runs, which is 152 runs worse than the worst team in 2004 (Seattle). The optimist Jays, on the other hand, score 891 runs, which is roughly comparable to the 2004 Yankees, and about thirty runs worse than the 2004 Red Sox. (The 2004 Jays scored 719 runs.) With this many runs scored, the team would be projected to win 86 games even with a pitching staff as porous as that of the 2004 Jays.

I should emphasize that, while these optimistic projections are extremely rosy, they're not ludicrous. Each of the players shown is capable of producing these numbers; some already have. It's just very unlikely that all of them will produce at this level.

Now, let's move on to the pitching. First, the worst case scenario. It's pretty ugly. People with sensitive constitutions are requested to avert their eyes.

Pitcher G GS IP H R ER BB SO ERA Halladay 21 21 133.0 140 66 62 39 95 4.20 Lilly 33 33 191.0 221 119 111 96 151 5.82 Bush 33 33 189.0 222 110 104 54 107 4.89 Towers 32 32 163.0 215 118 108 40 77 5.92 Chacin 20 14 93.0 137 72 66 44 37 6.42 Batista 51 2 81.0 106 54 49 51 44 5.45 Suspects 27 134.0 172 91 85 71 77 5.71 Relievers 474.0 527 277 261 203 343 4.96

I got these numbers as follows:

Doc's numbers are a repeat of 2004.
Bush takes a small step back, and Lilly and Towers take big steps back.
Chacin blows up horribly.
Batista blows up horribly, is moved to long relief, and makes a couple of desperation starts at the end of the season.
"Suspects" lists the starts given to AAA starters. They perform at replacement level or slightly below.
"Relievers" lists all of the relievers except Batista. They perform roughly as well as the bullpens of the last couple of years – i.e., badly.

You will note that all of the innings pitched projections are round numbers. That's because I am lazy and didn't want to type 177.3333333333 into my calculator. You have your character flaws, I have mine. However, the innings do add up to a total of 162 * 9, and the starts add up to 162. So there.

Okay, now to the good side of the force:

Pitcher G GS IP H R ER BB SO ERA Halladay 36 36 266.0 253 107 96 32 204 3.25 Lilly 33 33 209.0 182 88 82 78 178 3.54 Bush 33 33 211.0 195 87 80 46 134 3.44 Towers 33 33 179.0 197 93 86 37 82 4.34 Chacin 27 27 166.0 157 87 81 60 112 4.40 Batista 70 0 83.0 68 19 16 34 87 1.71 Relievers 344.0 344 140 131 149 247 3.42

Again, these numbers are optimistic, but not ludicrous:

Doc's numbers are just his 2003 numbers repeated.
Lilly, Bush and Towers take small steps forward, and stay healthy all year.
Chacin is serviceable.
Batista becomes dominant as a closer, as Gregg Zaun was correct when he was quoted as saying that Batista's cutter is as good as Mariano Rivera's.
"Relievers" includes all relievers except Batista. (I don't particularly want to produce estimates for all six or more of the Jays' bullpen pitchers. As I said earlier, this isn't serious research.)
In this scenario, the five starters collectively answer the bell all 162 times, so there's no need for emergency starters.

Totalling these stats, the pessimist Jays allow a whopping 907 runs, and the optimist Jays allow only 621 runs.

To summarize: the worst-case Jays score 546 runs and allow 907, and the best-case Jays score 891 runs and allow 621. If you run Pythagorean projections of these numbers, the Bad Jays wind up with a record of 45-117, which is Tigeriffic. The Good Jays, on the other hand, go 107-55, kicking butt and taking names all the way to the World Series. So that's my prediction: the Jays will win between 45 and 107 games. You can hold me to that.

So what can we conclude from all of this? Not much, but I'll try:

The Jays are going to have to have a lot of things break right for them to win. Quite a lot, in fact. But it's not impossible. None of my projections above were silly. It's just extremely unlikely that many of them will happen all at once.
Accurate forecasting is difficult, as there are so many variables. Anything could happen this season, and probably will.

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