East: New York, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa Bay.
Other division winners: Tigers, Angels, Mets, Cubs, Dodgers.
Wild Cards: Red Sox and Padres.
World Series: Yankees over Dodgers.
Managers of Year: Joe Torre, Lou Pinella.
MVPs: Ortiz, Jose Reyes (Mets).
RoYs: Delmon Young (Devil Rays), Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies).
Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Carlos Zambrano (Cubs).
Rookie Pitcher: Matsuzaka, Mike Pelfry (Mets).
Lineup Projections:
AVG HR RBIStaff Projections:
Lugo .278 7 58
Youkilis .272 15 62
Ortiz .296 48 140
Ramirez .315 41 129
Drew .279 18 70
Lowell .274 22 86
Crisp .289 14 65
Varitek .264 16 71
Pedroia No Info
Cora .229 2 25
Hinske .277 20 76
Pena .279 17 68
W L ERA IPThose are the only players for whom projections are given (and like all the magazines, Lindy's lists Papelbon as a starter).
Schilling 14 7 3.88 196.1
Beckett 15 12 4.30 210.2
Matsuzaka 17 9 3.29 211.0
Papelbon 12 10 3.76 182.2
Wakefield 11 11 4.46 202.0
Timlin 5 6 4.62 22 SV
Re Dice's 3.29 ERA: I think the only other pitchers with lower projected ERAs are Santana (2.88) and Halladay (2.98). How they get these projections is anyone's guess.
Lindy's notes: Ramirez "plays near the warning track at Fenway; doesn't have to go back". WTF?
To follow: The Sporting News, Street & Smith's and Athlon's.
The team's going to have 850 RBI (not counting Pedroia), five starters with sub-4.5 ERA, 3 starters with sub-4 ERA and NOT win the division?
ReplyDeleteWTF?
Timlin the closer? Huh?
ReplyDeleteThe team's going to have 850 RBI (not counting Pedroia), five starters with sub-4.5 ERA, 3 starters with sub-4 ERA and NOT win the division?
ReplyDeleteWTF?
Indeed. I'll take that pitching staff -- with 200+ IP from 3 of the 5 starters -- with a huge smile on my face.
We scored 820 runs last season -- 6th best in the AL but only 50 runs out of 2nd place.
Timlin the closer? Huh?
Well, these things probably go to press in early January.
It always annoys me that people take the safe route and start the division: Yankees, Red Sox.....
ReplyDeleteThe AL East can go to the Blue Jays just as easily as it can go to the Sox and the Yankees. Tampa Bay is a dark horse that nobody can take for granted this year and the Orioles might make some noise too.
It's like they copy/pasted what they wrote in the 1990s. Sheesh!
I hate projections. I miss predictions. They can't even taking a friggin' guess on Pedroia? If they're gonna put "no info" for one guy, put it for all the others. Or have some guts and tell us what they THINK will happen instead of what the spreadsheet says. I mean, they're supposed to have some baseball knowledge of their own, right?
ReplyDeleteThe AL East can go to the Blue Jays just as easily as it can go to the Sox and the Yankees. Tampa Bay is a dark horse that nobody can take for granted this year and the Orioles might make some noise too.
ReplyDeleteI agree that thinking Yankees 1, Red Sox 2 is lazy and stupid. But the AL East can't just as easily go to the Blue Jays. The Orioles won't make any more noise than they ever do (except maybe more whining from Tejada) and we can TB for granted.