CHONE's 2010 Brewer hitter Projections

[kramnoj]

Projections can be found here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/2010/MIL2010.htm

Most interesting projection for me is that Lucroy and Salome are basically a wash, and looks to be better than any FA catcher that is available.

Edit:

I'll list the likely starting 8

Fielder +38
Braun +31
Weeks +11
Hart +4
Gerut +1/Gomez -11
Gamel -6/McGehee -7
Lucroy -7/Salome -8
Escobar -12

Looking at the link for FA, Cameron is at -4. A Gerut/Gomez platoon based on these projections could be close to Cameron, and at better value.

Escobar could cost the team a win with his bat, but will hopefully even that out with his glove.

[silversurferr]

For Escobar, look at the projections for the individual categories; .325 OBP, 58 runs scored, 20 doubles, about 70 K's. I will be happy if he hits those numbers in the projected 450 plate appearances.

[Ennder]

Still a good offense overall. Lets just hope we sign some guys before they do pitcher projections~.

[twobrewers]

They have Cole Gillespie and Jason Bourgeois listed as a Brewers.

 

Actually, they have quite a few non-Brewer players listed.

[Ennder]

They have Cole Gillespie and Jason Bourgeois listed as a Brewers.

 

Actually, they have quite a few non-Brewer players listed.

They give projections for any player who has even a small chance of making the majors usually.

[twobrewers]

Yeah, but they could at least list them with the correct clubs. Granted, Bourgeois was a recent departure. But we traded Gillespie almost 4 months ago.

[Ennder]

I completely misread what you posted, I thought you were saying they included minor league players and I had personally forgotten that Gillespie was traded. I'm sure he just pulled the info from some database that wasn't updated.

[brewjihad]

Keep in mind that the projections and website are entirely the product of Sean. It's not some big organization that can find errors like that. He has a lot on his plate.

[TooLiveBrew]

The walks in Fielder's projection are kinda strange. 76 BBs would be his lowest total aside from his rookie season, and by a pretty decent amount. I'm not saying Fielder will walk over 100 times each season, but to project a prolific young power hitter (who's demonstrated a great eye) for that kind of dropoff just seems kinda strange.

 

The Gomez & Gerut projections are interesting. I get the feeling that Gerut will see quite a lot of PAs v. RHP this coming season. He's a really good candidate to be our 4th OF with an all-RHB starting trio. CHONE has Gomez taking a step forward (.260/.324/.378/.702), if only a modest one, which is an encouraging reminder that he *is* still a work in progress. One of my main concerns for '10, though, is that one of Escobar & Gomez will be hitting high in the lineup.

 

The CHONE numbers are out for MIN, too... fwiw Hardy's line is .257/.311/.409/.720, roughly equal to his new teammate Brendan Harris. For comparison's sake, Escobar's line is .282/.325/.380/.705.

[logan82]

Seems a bit low for Hardy. I would have thought he would be projected closer to his career line of .262/.323/.428/.751.

 

Edit: I also question using the R/150 column at all. Hardy at -1 and Escoar at -12 makes little sense given their projections. I know that column is park neutral and the other projections are for players in their park, but Miller Park is neutral and the Twins new park should probably be assumed to be pretty neutral for the next year or 2. Given that and the other projection, I would think Hardy and Escobar would be a wash offensively instead of a win difference. Escobar's advantage in OBP should more than make up for Hardy's advantage in SLG.

 

Post edit: The only thing I can think of is that he forgot to scale the stats to 625 PA before plugging them into his linear weights formula. The result would be adding about 150 PA onto Escobar's batting line(75 for JJ) without adding any production.

[JoeHova]

The problem for the offense is that I doubt that the team will go with a Salome/Lucroy timeshare. They'll probably bring back Kendall or sign some other awful hitter and that will cost the team some of the benefits of Prince's and Braun's production, as well as money that could be used on players who aren't terrible.

[logan82]

Solome/Lucroy are not expected to hit much better than Kendall though. If Kendall comes back at $1-2M then that is probably a better option than using up a year of service time with Solome/Lucroy. Neither of those 2 guys were exactly exceptional last year where they need to be moved to the majors.

[trwi7]

Solome/Lucroy are not expected to hit much better than Kendall though.

Don't buy it for a second. You're going to have a lot of trouble convincing people that Salome and Lucroy couldn't do better than the .636 OPS and .290 wOBA that Kendall put up. I mean look at Lucroy's projection in this. .251/.339/.383. Far better than Kendall.

[kramnoj]

You can look at the FA projections here: http://www.baseballprojection.com/2010/free2010.htm

 

Kendall is projected here to OPS .626 leading to a contribution of -25 runs, almost 2 wins worse than either Lucroy or Salome.

 

My line of listing Lucroy/Salome was not meant to represent a timeshare, although it's easy to see it that way. I just meant that either one of them are projected to have practically the same offensive value. Given Melvin's statements about becoming more comfortable with Lucroy skipping AAA, it is attractive to me to look at this and see that a Lucroy/Rivera catching combo for about a million total would be the best and also cheapest solution available to the Brewers.

[logan82]

You're going to have a lot of trouble convincing people that Salome and Lucroy couldn't do better than the .636 OPS and .290 wOBA that Kendall put up.

 

I would never go to the trouble of trying to convince anybody of anything here. I know better. All I would ever do is present an opposing viewpoint and hope it gets people to think.

 

Kendall is projected here to OPS .626 leading to a contribution of -25 runs, almost 2 wins worse than either Lucroy or Salome.

 

Like I said before, I don't put any stock in the R/150 portion of those projections. 2 wins seems excessive.

 

 

I just get the feeling that people are stuck in a "Kendall sucks, anybody would be better" mindset. I wouldn't argue against the first part, but am a little skeptical of the second part. Many people seem willing to believe every bad thing about Kendall and positive thing about the alternatives. I think we also need to consider what this team is shooting for next year. At this point we are probably looking at a low 80 win total. Even if we believe one of Lucroy/Solome would actually be 2 wins better than Kendall, I don't think it is worth using a year of service time just to get us to 85 instead of 83. I say sign Kendall to $1-2M for one year and worst case scenario, we cut him a month or 2 in and bring up one of the kids. Buys an extra year and has minimal impact on our overall win total.

[kramnoj]

Lucroy is going to be 24 next year, he's not exactly young. I'd rather just assemble the best possible team for the whole season rather than spend an extra million or more to play with Lucroy's service time. That million would be better spent on pitching or saved for a possible midseason move.

[Ennder]

Kendall's hitting came out at -15.8 runs this season. Going with someone else is most likely at least a win. He was also below average defensively and I find it hard to believe his 'handling of the staff' has been helpful since almost every pitcher has gotten worse since he joined the team.

[logan82]

Considering the projections for Lucroy/Solome are for them to still be below average, I think a win is much more accurate than 2. Taking into account that rookie catchers have a hard time, I still think the difference between Kendall and one of Solome/Lucroy is still pretty small.

 

Lucroy is going to be 24 next year, he's not exactly young.

 

No he isn't. Players start to decline in their early 30's so we would get him for all of his peak years. His peak years are worth more than his current years.

[JoeHova]

If Kendall played well enough last year that people want to re-sign him, who in baseball history has ever played poorly enough to not be re-signed? How bad does a guy have to be before people are willing to let him go?

[logan82]

It isn't that Kendell played well enough or well at all. It is that the alternatives are weak as well.

[TooLiveBrew]

Given the catcher position in general, I'm not sure that our alternatives are weak. I think the fact that we have both Salome & Lucroy is a nice (semi-)luxury. I agree with the notion that one of those two will be dealt before ST, and the addition of Kottaras (.235/.322/.386/.708 CHONE projection) gives a bit more flexibility. All 3 players project to be better offensive options than Kendall, & the Brewers seem very confident in the defense of Lucroy.