Let’s play a game here. The Bill James projections for 2011 are out on FanGraphs. They’re a bit rosy for my liking (and everyone’s I assume) but I still wanna take a look at some aspects of them to see if I’d “take it or leave it” for 2011.
The first thing I’ll do is assume that Andy Pettitte is pitching for the Yankees in 2011. The category I’ll go for here is innings pitched. James has Andy pegged for 140 innings pitched, probably because he’s coming off of a season in which he pitched his fewest innings ever (min. 20 games started). Given Andy’s age and health from last year, I would take 140 innings from him. I’d like more, but I’d take what I could get from a guy as old as Andy.
James foresees 42 walks from Robinson Cano. He had 57 total in 2010. However, his previous career high was 39. I’d like to see if Robbie could push it to 60 walks in 2011, but I won’t take my chances. I’d take 42 and be on my way.
A .344 wOBA for Derek Jeter? Oh HELL yes I would take it. Not only would it be a 24 point increase from 2009, it would likely make Derek the most valuable offensive SS in the American League.
144 games from Alex Rodriguez. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than he played in during both the ’09 and ’10 seasons. Like Pettitte, given his age, yes, I’d take that. Expecting more could be greedy.
111 games for Jorge Posada? No, I’ll leave that one. By being able to DH, I think Jorge will be able to crack at least break the 120 games mark for the first time since 2007 (he played in 120 games in 2010, but I’m saying MORE than 120 games for 2011).
A 3.76 FIP in 177 innings for Phil Hughes. Yes. Without even thinking twice. I think Phil CAN break those marks, but I’m not sure if he WILL break them in 2011. He may be able to break the innings mark easily, but that’s a good FIP goal for him.
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5 Responses to Take it or Leave it?
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TIQ IQ
I’ll also take that .393 wOBA projection (.363 in 2009) for A-Rod.
err I mean .363 in 2010
Even assuming Montero wins the catching job out of spring training (a huge assumption), Jorge will see significant time behind the plate so I’d take 111 games from Jorge and run with it. There’s a lot more potential variance downward than upward from that number. I’d be really surprised if Cano didn’t walk more than 42 times if only because teams will probably be more inclined to pitch around him in 2011 based on his monster year. I agree with you on the rest of them.
“Significant” is a varied term if Montero catches 100 games like they say they want (A huge probably not I understand) then that leaves 62 games to split between Posada starting and Cervelli spelling both men so say you give 15-20 starts to Cervelli that leaves 42-47 starts for Posada and at that rate it’s not a stretch to assume he could get 80 starts at DH.
I don’t disagree with your analysis. I’m just saying that if a realistic maximum number of games Posada could play in was 120-125, I’d be willing to lock in the 111. Given his age and recent injury history, it seems worth it to give up 10-15 games from the best case scenario to avoid the scenario where he’s out for significant chunks of the season and Cervelli is getting a lot of starts.