Projected vs. Actual: Bench/DH Edition

Since we’re limiting this to players with 200+ plate appearances, this is only going to be a three man post. The DH, obviously, is Jorge Posada. The bench guys are Andruw Jones and Eduardo Nunez (these numbers are accurate as of Tuesday afternoon).

Posada and Nunez didn’t thrill with the bat, but Jones certainly did. He racked up a 131 wRC+ in 218 PAs and he did exactly what he was expected to do, which was pummel left handed pitching. While he was bad against RHP, (.297 wOBA, 82 wRC+), he was downright dominant against lefties (.406 wOBA, 156 wRC+). Posada started out hot, then fell apart. Nunez showed flashes of brilliance, but long stretches of futility. Remember: these projections are not adjusted for splits.

ANDRUW JONES

ACTUAL: .247/.358/.484; .369 wOBA
RotoChamp: .239/.345/.478; .360 wOBA
Bill James: .226/.331/.452; .339 wOBA
Marcel: .219/.316/.414; .323 wOBA
ZiPS: .221/.320/.438; .332 wOBA

The very bullish RotoChamp more or less nailed it on Jones. Each system saw Jones racking up the power numbers, but not much else. They all did see him walking a lot, though, which he did. Jones is a perfect bench outfielder: He’s not an auto-out, he can hit with power, and he won’t embarrass himself out in the field.

EDUARDO NUNEZ

ACTUAL: .262/.310/.382; .311 wOBA
RotoChamp: .304/.343/.374; .343 wOBA
Bill James: .295/.335/.395; .330 wOBA
Marcel: .276/.324/.425; .343 wOBA
ZiPS: .268/.306/.363; .297 wOBA

So these are some weird projections. Everyone but ZiPS really likEd Nunez coming into this season and he did somewhere in the middle of these projections. For what it’s worth, the PA projections were: 181, 233, 226, and 608. From those totals, we can infer that the first three saw Nunez as being better in short bursts, while ZiPS saw Nunez lagging over a long period of time, which is a little more accurate.

JORGE POSADA

ACTUAL: .239/.318/.404; .314 wOBA
RotoChamp: .278/.379/.489; .381 wOBA
Bill James: .260/.363/.454; .357 wOBA
Marcel: .252/.340/.440; .341 wOBA
ZiPS: .247/.344/.457; .347 wOBA

This one sort of came out of no where, didn’t it? Talk about your steep declines…At the beginning of the year, we all figured that Posada would hit well in his new DH role. He hit well least year, a .357 wOBA, and moving from behind the plate figured to keep him healthy, thus letting him produce at a high rate without his body taking a freaking beating. But, it definitely didn’t happen that way. Most of it came from his absolute inability to handle left handed pitching this year; he “hit” to a .133 wOBA (-30 wRC+) against LHP. While Jorge hit well in May (.426 wOBA), August (.346 wOBA), and September (.337 wOBA), those months were not enough to cancel out April (.264), May (.291), and July (.239).

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