Hey, we thought we'd let you do the work today. Here, compliments of Baseball Projections, are the CHONE ratings for your 2009 PBC's hitters and hurlers. Read 'em and weep.
If you'd like a look at all the players, here's Fangraph's MLB CHONE Projections.
CHONE is a system that projects a player's performance for the upcoming year, as worked out by Sean Smith, and cover a team's MLB and upper minor league roster. The team list may have a gonzo name or two; it's a month old, though the numbers still stand for 2009.
I don't think much of many of those numbers. They look uniformly low or at least very conservative. Particularly the pitching numbers. Pitching probably is more vulnerable to big swings from year to year. Guys get sore arms or lose their slick-fielding shortstop or just get lucky with loads of run support---like when Dan Spillner inexplicably won 17 games for Cleveland in the pre-steroid days despite an ERA of nearly 6.00! (For my money one of the truly great statistical fluke seasons of all time.) Others, like Nolan Ryan and Bert Blyleven, see their entire career numbers greatly lessened by playing on crap teams. Others, like Andy Pettite, see their entire career numbers greatly increased by playing on winning teams almost every year. In that vein, I honestly believe Paul Maholm would have won 20 last year with any support at all.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I've seen worse "analysis" than what CHONE puts out, but I think they are playing it too close to the vest. Every year, some guys hit their career averages (Adam LaRoche), some underperform (Ian Snell and Freddy Sanchez, though due to injury in Freddy's case), some break out (Nate McLouth) and some overachive (Xavier Nady). CHONE to me looks like it takes career averages, then deducts 10% - 20% across the board.
Oh, I generally agree, Will - I just tossed them out for a little comparison and discussion. All in all, the younger a team, the bigger the swing between projections and production. And if there's one thing Pittsburgh is, it's young.
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