A 2010 Projection In Which Tampa Bay Rays Finish 113-49
Playoffs? April 6th. 2010, 10:30amA recent look at several systems suggests the Rays will win about 91 games this season and finish third in the AL East. That’s nice, but what is the full potential for the 2010 Tampa Bay Rays?
In the PECOTA projections over at Baseball Prospectus they actually provide a range of projections for each player. The highest (best) projection for each player is their “90th percentile.” We decided to take a look at what the 2010 Rays would look like if each player played to their 90th percentile.
Notes on the projections are found after the tables…
Notes on the 90° PECOTA projections…
- We used all 25 players on the opening day roster as well as the two players on the DL.
- The offense is projected to score 1,189 runs. That number is based on 7,912 plate appearances. The 2009 Rays only had 6,223 plate appearances. Based on that number, the Rays would be projected to score 935 runs.
- The pitching staff is projected to allow 686 earned runs in 1,814 innings. Last year, the Rays pitched 1,427.1 innings and the total runs allowed was about 10% more than their earned run total. Based on those numbers, the projected runs allowed were scaled back to 593 total runs.
- Based on Pythagorean Win Expectation, scoring 935 runs and allowing 593 would translate to a .697 winning percentage or a record of 113-49.
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If Burrell goes .268/31/98 this year… well, I’m not sure what I’d do, but rest assured it would be illegal in most of the developed world.
Kapler’s numbers…LOL
Yeah, I did this last year and I remember thinking that nobody had numbers that seemed overly-rediculous. But Kapler’s are pretty absurd. I’m not even sure he would do that if he played 162 games and every at bay was against a lefty.
Seems to me with the exception of Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria–these power numbers are incredibly inflated.
Upton and Zobi-won could def put those HR totals up.
See if they have a betting pool …I’ll bet under on everyone of them…except Zobrist, Bartlett and maybe Longo IF he has his “breakout”
year….If CC bats .328 with 20+ HR Sternberg doesn’t have enough Wall Street money!
The year Kapler hits .299 and Navarro jacks 18HRs will be the year the Rays expand the payroll to $200 million…
I was gonna write that “The day that Navarro bats .292 I’ll eat my hat.” but then I decided to look up his career number and saw he batted .295 in ’08. Maybe last year’s pathetic .218 has shaded my view of him too harshly, but as of now I will stick to my saying of “Navarro has never found a double play that he didn’t want to bat into.”
I actually thought that the weak infield pop up was more his signature at bat….double play balls are at least hit hard.
Breaking this down player by player to see how ridiculous it is. The numbers for Longoria actually look realistic, as do certain numbers for other players. But you did not reduce the stats based on the number of at bats each player could reasonably get, particularly the non starters. The at bats for Navi and Shoppach, for example, total over 1000, which breaks out to about 6 1/2 at bats for the catching position per game. Also, When looking at Aybar, Kapler, Brignac, Rodriguez and Joyce, each could only get the projected at bats at the expense of the others. The pitching stats look much more attainable as a group, though obviously, not every one is going to have a winning record. You have the five current starters set to pitch 999 innings and that’s Maddon’s goal. That would eliminate Sonnenstine from throwing 191 though. I’d say more of the pitchers will reach these stats than the position players.
Another thought comes to mind. What did the team stats look like on the Seattle team under Pinella a few years back that had an overall record similar to the one you are projection for the Rays?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Seattle_Mariners_season#Player_stats