Lookout Landing

Bearskin Rugburn - December 15, 2010 reply

"Hit me," pleaded the masochist

“No, I won’t” said the sadist.

"You have been banned from Lookout Landing" said the red outlined pop-up box.

replied the Coach Owens.

qrsouther - December 15, 2010 reply

Currently thinking 75 wins...

… but voted 70-74 because I’m a goddamn pessimist that way.

c_dowley - December 15, 2010 reply

I don't think 80 wins is all that unrealistic.

I voted for 80-84, I think we’ll see some of the rebuilding start to take hold. I mean, other than Felix, who had a great year in 2010? Nobody. The pitching staff was okay (Felix, Lee, Fister, and Vargas were the only guys who were above replacement level) I think our success this season will obviously depend on players living up to their potential, and if any one player has either a career year or if multiple players regress to the mean, we’ll probably have a better season than last year. 75-79 is probably the most realistic for us, but who knows? maybe marginal improvements from Brendan Ryan, Saunders, Guti, and Smoak will propel this team back into some form of relevance.

I dunno though, W/O Niehaus, it’s going to be hard watching bad baseball and Olivo batting cleanup (oh God I pray he does not bat anywhere near cleanup)

Sambearpig - December 15, 2010 reply

Vargas and Fister had years well beyond any reasonable expectation going into 2010

And Felix won a Cy Young for his efforts.

There is definately room for worse results from the rotation.

CMC_Stags - December 15, 2010 reply

I wouldn't say WELL beyond,

but yeah they over performed, their peak is probably 2-3 wins. Which neither one of them was worth more than 2.9 wins last season, so while I expect some regression I don’t believe they’re all of a sudden going to be replacement level or something, they could still realistically put up 1.5-2.0 win seasons. I think the potential for the offense to improve solely on regression from last year to career averages is reason to believe we’ll win more games, I would be pretty surprised if we put up two historically bad offenses 2 years in a row, but hey, I won’t put it past them.

Sambearpig - December 15, 2010 reply

If Doug Fister posts a 3 WAR again

I’ll kiss Lee Elia

I think 3.5 wins for Fister + Vargas is perfectly reasonable

it’s not as if they were both running .130 BABIPs – FIP and tRA loved them both

Fister may have pitched well but that doesn't mean he will maintain the same FIP or tRA

If I remember right, low walk rates are very hard for a pitcher to sustain. They may or may not be lucky but they just aren’t as useful when trying to project a player’s performance. For example, I can say with higher confidence that a high strikeout pitcher will continue to be a high strikeout pitcher than I can say Doug Fister will continue walking less than 2BB/9IP.

I’m a little skeptical of Fister. He was good last year. I’m not arguing that. Its just if anything in his game goes downhill (command, velocity, etc.) he will have a tough time maintaining his success. 2010 RRS is an extreme example of what can happen to a guy with borderline talent who sees his home run rate and walk rate increase.

I completely agree about the Fister/RRS comparisons

He had a pretty good first half, so no, I don’t expect 2 wins from him, I do think that he and Vargas could combine for anywhere from 2.5-4.0 wins, and anything in that range is perfectly acceptable for me. As long as they can throw a ton of innings and and be serviceable.

Sambearpig - December 15, 2010 reply

All logical.

So where can we find optimism? Ackley, Smoak and perhaps Cust? Pineda may not even be around to provide it.

THolt - December 15, 2010 reply

For what it's worth, the low walk rates aren't anything new for Fister, he routinely put up low rates in the minors.

Goose - December 16, 2010 reply

In 2009

not really before then

Matthew - December 16, 2010 reply

Yes, but 3.5 wins between the two is like 1.5 wins less than they combined for last season

it’s actually quite a realistic projection

seattlebruin - December 16, 2010 reply

WELL beyond any reasonable expectation

Fister (2010, MLB) – 171 IP, 4.11 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 4.27 xFIP, 2.9 WAR
Fister (2009, MLB) – 61 IP, 4.13 ERA, 5.10 FIP, 4.50 xFIP, 0.3 WAR
Fister (2009, AAA) – 106.1 IP, 3.81 ERA, 3.39 FIP
Fister (2008, AA) – 134.1 IP, 5.43 ERA, 4.06 FIP

I don’t think any reasonable projection would show him dropping his xFIP, FIP, and ERA will pitching 170 innings in his first full MLB season. Especially as he didn’t have a track record for that level of success in the minors.

Vargas (2010, MLB) – 192.2 IP, 3.78 ERA, 3.95 FIP, 4.82 xFIP, 2.6 WAR
Vargas (2009, MLB) – 91.2 IP, 4.91 ERA, 5.07 FIP, 4.68 xFIP, 0.3 WAR
Vargas (2009, AAA) – 51.2 IP, 3.14 ERA, 3.05 FIP
Vargas (2008) – injured, did not pitch
Vargas (2007, MLB) – 10.1 IP, 12.19 ERA, 8.08 FIP, 6.61 xFIP, -0.2 WAR
Vargas (2007, AAA) – 125 IP, 4.97 ERA, 4.06 FIP

No projection for Vargas for 2010 would have been no where near 192.2 IP, nor at the ERA or FIP he ended the season at.

CMC_Stags - December 16, 2010 reply

If he bats clean up I'm taking ny

THolt - December 15, 2010 via mobile reply

Damn phone...

Taking my money elsewhere. I’ll remain the die hard, borderline retarded fan that I am, but I wont spend money to see that.

THolt - December 15, 2010 via mobile reply

Conservatives estimates have the M's at 34 WAR. Which = 82 wins.

Pitching staff: 15 WAR
Infield + C: 8 WAR
Outfield + DH: 10 WAR
Bench: 1 WAR
Total: 34 WAR

silverbook - December 15, 2010 reply

Good post

but get your witchcraft math out of here, this is a place of unfounded speculation and outrageous projections.

162-0, swept by, like, the Blue Jays in the ALDS

tsunamijesus - December 15, 2010 reply

You have more faith

in the pitching staff and infield than I do. I came up with 14 and 7, but I guess that’s just 2 wins.

EnglishMariner - December 15, 2010 reply

This makes me feel better!

This similar to what I came up with, though my projection for Saunders was probably optimistic.

I should have voted 90-94 instead of 85-89

that way, if the only slightly more improbable happens, I’d be feeling good enough to come back here and say “I told you so”.

However, in defense of optimism – the uncertainty of projected performance makes positive prognostication plausible:

Ryan might hit, a little. Figgins might hit a little more. Guti might hit a little bit more. Moore might be more. Ackley will hit more than Wilson. More Ichiro, please. Saunders might hit a lot more. Smoak might hit a lot more.

See how easy this is??? And we haven’t even got to the pitching staff, yet.

More Fernandez, please.
Bedard might be more effective than Bedard.
More Cortes couldn’t be a bad thing.

Bottom line – it shouldn’t be that big a surprise to anyone if all the sudden players play like they should – and not like they have. If we get a couple of nice surprises along the way, this team will shatter expectations – a phenomena that happens somewhere all the time.

blacknoiseNW - December 15, 2010 reply

So you're saying that everything will go right and we still won't makes the playoffs.

Aww.

CapSea - December 15, 2010 reply

I think we need to plan on that though.

While everything went wrong last year and we were awful, everything could go great this year and we end up with 85 wins. This sounds like a familiar pattern doesn’t it?

Sec 108 - December 15, 2010 reply

It's an odd year so...

125 wins baby!

ToddK - December 15, 2010 reply

82 wins 'ish

But all that hinges on that fact I think Smoak is going to rake.

Scruffy Lefty - December 15, 2010 reply

70-74 wins is my guess.

Oh, hamburgers!

urchman - December 15, 2010 reply

Like 80-84 wins

we know Jack is good at getting valuable players for cheap, which is the perfect strategy to try and make an awful team mediocre. We should be in line for bounceback years from several of our players, and have legitimate stars at CF, RF and one of the starting pitching spots

expected WAR of the projected Lineup

Starters:
Felix – 4
Vargas – 2
Fister – 1
Assorted other starters (Bedard, Pauley, French etc.) – 1

Bullpen: – 2

Lineup
1B Smoak – 1
2B Ryan, Ackley – 2
SS Jack Wilson, Ryan – 2
3b Figgins – 1
DH Cust – 1
LF Saunders, Bradley – 1
CF Guti – 2
RF Ichiro! – 4
C Olivo, Moore – 1
Bench – 1

26 WAR plus 48 wins for replacement level leads to 74 wins. I guess my vote (75-79) is a little optimistic.

btw, the WAR figures are just guesses on my part, I didn't check them with any projection system

but I suspect that individual errors cancel each other out more or less.

I have a hard time believing that Guti is a two win player, Figgins is a one win player, and that the starters will combine for eight wins

I think you’re selling us awfully low here, and if anything, this makes me more optimistic about the upcoming season

Guti

2.3 in 2008
2.3 in 2010

2009 looks like the real outlier, but it’s not unreasonable to expect 3 WAR. It just might not be likely.

I'd say that if you have any faith in his bat and think he's a +15 defender, three wins is a pretty reasonable projection

maybe even 3.5

Although 16.1 LD% in 2010 certainly is a bit concerning

Didn't get all of that 16.1% in the first 2 months or so as well?

I remember him being on fire to start the season.. then nothing.

splits

Pre: .256/.330/.388
Post: .230/.269/.332

Yeeks.

Injury?

I thought he has stomach problems later into the season.. maybe they were bugging him earlier.

Rec'd for understatement.

THolt - December 15, 2010 reply

That just seems way too high to me.

Aaron Campeau - December 15, 2010 reply

His last three years

2.3, 6.1, 2.3 WAR

His defense, according to UZR, regressed a bit last year. If you assume it snaps back into the 12-14 range (it was 31 in 2009) and he remains exactly the same on offense, he’s a 3 WAR player. I think you have to assume 2.3, but you hope for 3.5.

I think that there are enough questions about UZR and Gutierrez's numbers are enough of an outlier that it's unreasonable to expect that to happen.

He’s been a 2.3 WAR player two out of the last three seasons and while a higher upside is certainly there I think that 2.5 is far more realistic.

Aaron Campeau - December 15, 2010 reply

I agree

like I said, I think you assume 2.3, but you hope for more. I don’t think there are many people that think his defense is going to deteriorate, but if it does, his value gets hammered.

It's less that I think his defense is going to get worse and more that I think the error bars with UZR are huge.

I think he’s one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, but I don’t think his glove alone is worth three wins.

Aaron Campeau - December 15, 2010 reply

I don't think many other people believe that either.

When he posted +30 runs in UZR in 2009, most everybody was saying that no, he probably really isn’t that good, we need to expect some regression. Which is exactly what we saw last season.

A drop of 2.4 WAR from UZR isn't exactly "some regression"

it’s a massive regression and the lowest, the lowest, UZR/PA rate he’s posted in any season.

To add to that point

Guti UZR/150 since 2007 (first year he played 100 games)
2007 – 17.3
2008 – 26.0
2009 – 28.9
2010 – 6.8

though keep in mind he only played CF full time in 2009-2010

Yes, that drop wasn't likely all regression.

I can see how what I wrote could make someone think that. There was a drop in UZR this past season, which was expected for Gutierrez. A drop of that magnitude, however, was almost certainly only partially due to regression to the mean.

He was +16 in DRS and +14 in TotalZone last year, though. His 7.3 UZR isn't the only data point that we have.

Misleading. Guti wasn't a full time player in 2008

And you cannot just ignore 2009.

I'm not sure where I ignored 2009

But duly noted on the full time status in 2008. I think he had 450 plate appearances though, so he was likely playing at a 3 WAR level.

You ignored it when you said this

“I think you have to assume 2.3”

No, you don’t assume 2.3 unless you are completely ignoring that 2009 happened.

I also said

“If you assume it (UZR) snaps back into the 12-14 range (it was 31 in 2009) and he remains exactly the same on offense, he’s a 3 WAR player. I think you have to assume 2.3, but you hope for 3.5.”

The 2.3 assumption is just me being conservative I guess – largely based on how lost he was at the plate outside of April. But I completely see that he’s capable of better.

But I take your point, 2.3 probably isn’t fair.

starters

I had Felix at 6
Vargas 2
Fister 1
whoever 0.5
whoever 0.5

Should Bedard actually return and actually pitch and actually resemble anything close to Bedard pre-falling-apart, it would be reasonable to give him a 2.5, I’d think. If he made 25 starts, you could probably give him a 3 WAR

But as it stands, the rotation is a god-awful mess 2-5

I agree with the overall, that the rotation would be something like ten wins

if we bump Guti up to a reasonable three and Figgins back to two, that’s another four wins over vb’s projection.

I just don’t think we can replicate the injuries and bad luck from last season

It's probably best to not expect 6 WAR from Felix next year.

He’s a great pitcher, he certainly could do that, but you can’t expect such a level of performance from any one pitcher in a projection.

6.8 in 2009, 6.2 in 2010

it seems like 6 is pretty reasonable.

Don't want to say it but when projecting, there is always the question of whether you worry about the median or the mean

If you think about the mean then injury risk can make a big difference decreasing it alot. A 10% chance of 0 WAR will drag down a projection a ton.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments

as I said, my WAR-Nos were guesses. You probably easily can find another five wins or so without being unreasonable.

they were pretty darn good guesses

thoughts

Figgins – with a move back to 3b, his defense is going to improve dramatically, and I think it would be pretty safe to give him 2 if not 2.5 WAR, and he could easily exceed that by bringing the second-half Figgins to the plate for all 162 next year.

Felix the last two seasons – 6.2 and 6.8 WAR. 4 seems awfully pessimistic.

I think it’s optimistic to give French, Pauley, Olson a 1 WAR each.

I gave the bullpen 3 WAR, but maybe that’s too rosy

I think that's 1 WAR between the bunch

Even that might be optimistic, since they were ~0 WAR this year.

This.

Please do not make +1 type comments.

If you agree with something either expand on it or rec it and leave it be.

Right on!

strudel - December 15, 2010 reply

Do not make mocking comments toward moderators

I think he was just joking, I don't think he meant any offense.

SeaKoala - December 15, 2010 reply

The rules do not need to be underminded any further.

They need to be shown some respect. By everyone.

I meant no disrespect, sorry Matthew.

SeaKoala - December 15, 2010 reply

I think that looks realistic to me

This is reasonable, except there are no bombed-out craters.

I expect our bench to be replacement level or worse. Maybe the same for catchers. I know, regression means most M’s should improve to palatable. But if you combine that with increases for Felix, Guti, and either Saunders or Smoak, this looks about right. I went 75-79, too.

You are incredibly low on C, 3B, DH, CF

Olivo’s been nearly a 2 WAR player on average the last five seasons while playing roughly 75% of games. You’re best off assuming 0 WAR for the remainder, but still, 2 WAR for catcher is what’s reasonable.

Figgins was terrible this year, but if you just ignore defense, he’s close to a 2 WAR player. Unless you think he’s going to hit like he did last season and that he really is one of the worst 3B in the game, 1 WAR is simply ridiculous.

Cust has averaged over 2 WAR as a DH for the last four seasons and is coming off a 2+ WAR season. He’s not great, and yes, aging, but expecting 1 WAR out of DH is not grounded in actual numbers.

Guti’s never been a full time 2 WAR player. Never. At worst he’s 3 WAR and that’s if you think he repeats 2010.

I repeat, the numbers were just guesses

My point was more about the method of arriving at an estimated win total than the specific numbers. Feel free to add a win for each of the four positions plus 2 to Felix to come to an estimated win total of 80, if you feel optimistic about this team. I’d say that after a 61-win-season, 74 wins would be a nice improvement.

Your phrasing is still misleading.

Rooting estimates in reasonable projections is not being optimistic. It’s being reasonable.

If we add those adjustments in we are looking at maybe ~5 WAR more

So something like an 80 win team with lots of upside or downside, right?

100+ BABY!

C’mon.. you all know it’s going to happen. Mariners win 118 games, the world series..

Then the apocalypse comes and the world ends..

The one time I prefer East Coast Bias.

ThundaPC - December 15, 2010 reply

I welcome the end of the world if we win the world series

You're all crazy.

What happened to the pessimism? I still have mine, dammit! 69 wins ahoy!

Eyebrows - December 15, 2010 via mobile reply

7 more wins than this year?

I call that optimism.

RunningFool - December 17, 2010 reply

Or 8.

Math is fickle and imprecise, so it’s hard to be sure what the real difference between 61 and 69 is.

RunningFool - December 17, 2010 reply

Well, Dave Cameron's said that his offseason plan team (with Berkman, Jeff Francis, etc.) projected to win about 80 games.

Here’s the link. And the current M’s roster isn’t too different from it. The only differences are:
Brendan Ryan (1.5 WAR?) instead of Nick Punto (1 WAR)
Jack Cust (1.5 WAR?) instead of Lance Berkman (2 WAR)
Miguel Olivo and Adam Moore (combined 2 WAR?) instead of Adam Moore and Gregg Zaun (combined 1 WAR)…+1 WAR
Benchwarmer (0 WAR) instead of Ryan Roberts (0.5 WAR)… -0.5 WAR
Erik Bedard (????) instead of Jeff Francis (2 WAR)…
The bullpen is pretty much the same.

So if Bedard doesn’t throw a pitch, this team seems about 2.5 WAR worse than an 80-win team (ergo, it’s a 77-78 win team), which is what I voted for. If we can sign Jeff Francis and see a healthy Bedard for a decent part of the year, then maybe it’s a .500 team. If Bedard stays healthy, or if Gutierrez and Figgins play more like 2009 than 2010, or if Ackley, Smoak, Saunders, or Pineda become above average players this season on top of everyone else playing up to their projections, we have a reasonable chance of being competitive.

Of course, it's the Mariners, so they'll still suck no matter how good they are.

Aim low

and miss?

I question the +1 WAR increase for Olivo over Zaun.

Plus, the move somewhat eliminates a potential “holy wow” good year from Moore.

So I calculated this after I voted (75-79)

But here:
Catcher: 1.9
Smoak: 2
Ryan: .5
Wilson: 0
Figgins: 2.4
Saunders: 2.4
Gutierrez: 3.3
Ichiro: 4.1
Cust: 0.9
Bench: ~0.5 (add however much for Ackley)

Felix: 7
Fister: 2.9
Vargas: 2.3
French: 1
Pauley (or whoever): 1
Bullpen: ~3

Overall that’s about 35 WAR or about 83 wins. I feel like I’m probably optimistic in left and at third but I think I’m underestimating Ryan and Ichiro somewhat so maybe it’ll even out. Assuming regression happens then we’re average!

Also Cust is probably an underestimate.

I think you're way high on Fister and Vargas, but maybe by 1.5 wins between the two

French and Pauley, I think they’re a bit closer to replacement level, and not sure Felix’s true talent is seven wins.

I think the point is that we project to be OK next year sheerly due to some upgrades and regression alone.

How did you do this calculation, if I might ask? Fangraphs Bill James projections?

I did the fan projections for each of our players on Fangraphs.

I guess I’m having a lot of faith in Fister and Vargas being able to repeat their seasons but Safeco helps. And Felix is obviously high but I just don’t see him doing any worse. Maybe bring it back a win.

Basically it's hard not to wear the rose colored glasses with someone like Felix.

Felix put up 250 inning with an xFIP of 3.26 to get 6.2 WAR

I just don’t see him greatly exceeding either of those totals. Six seems reasonable because hey, Felix is awesome, but I ended up using 5 in my projection anyway

That was my thinking

We should be better than last year thanks to regression alone

Hell, the 2010 roster could win 70-74 in 2011.

fiftyone - December 15, 2010 via mobile reply

I think you're high on bullpen by a win.

Also high on Felix, Saunders, Fister.
Everything else is pretty good to me, however, except Cust seems a bit low

lailaihei - December 15, 2010 reply

Yeah I admittedly went a little crazy with League and was still including Aardsma.

But we do have a lot of possible .5 win guys coming up with Lueke, Cortes, Varvaro, The bullpen is probably the most volatile area to project because holy shit relievers are weird.

I think you're high on the rotational top three and Saunders

but low on Figgins, Cust, Ryan and Wilson.

Overall, close to a wash I think.

Matthew,

you say that we can’t just ignore an outlier season to help our data, and Figgins was absolutely miserable in 2010. How does that affect his projection going forward? Since much of his issues came from awful fielding at 2B in 2010, do you think he completely rebounds in 2011?

For my projection, I used a 4-3-2-1 scheme and projected him to be worth ~3.3 wins/162 games, and guessed he’d play ~130 games this season for 2.7 WAR. Do these seem reasonable to you, and if not, why?

Reasonable,

but I’d up his games played a touch. Part of his low games total prior was him not being a full time starter with Anaheim

I tried to be a bit conservative on the games played for everyone - the only guys I had over 135 were Guti and Ichiro

If I bump Figgins up to 145 games played, then he looks like a three win player almost exactly

Hey, you didn't include a choice for somewhere between 50 and 100 wins.

I really have no idea any more what to expect.

OK, so from my calulations, I got the lineup being worth like 22.6 WAR

I used a .4-.3-.2-.1 regression of the past four years where available to get WAR/162, then normalized for expected playing time.

The PT numbers were quite arbitrary, of course.

Olivo (95 games) – 1.9
Moore (57 games) – .3
Smoak (135 games) – 1.7
Ryan (105 games) – 1.2
Ja. Wilson (74 games) – .8
Figgins (130 games) – 2.7
Saunders (125 games) – 1.5
Gutierrez (150 games) – 3.5
Suzuki (155 games) – 4.7
Jo. Wilson (55 games) – replacement level defined
Bradley (72 games) – .9
Cust (103 games) – 1.6
Ackley (92 games) – 1.8

For the younger guys, I had to make up a bit of the projection, but I don’t think five wins between Ackley, Smoak and Saunders is out of the question. The total there is 22.6 WAR, and if we guess at the pitchers being something like

Felix – 5
Vargas – 2
Fister – 1.5
French – .5
Bedard – .5
Other starters – .5
Bullpen – 2

I came up with about 34 WAR, so ~82 wins.

I think it’s a bit high on Ackley, Bradley and Wilson, but by maybe a win or two total. I feel pretty comfortable saying I would guess ~80 wins, especially knowing GMZ probably isn’t done for the winter yet.

how did u manage

to pull that out of your ass?

I can't speak for SB, so I'll just quote from the post you should have read more thoroughly.

I used a .4-.3-.2-.1 regression of the past four years where available to get WAR/162, then normalized for expected playing time.

Also please refrain from using chatspeak on LL.

GOD DAMN YOU

YOU AND YOUR STUPID TIME MACHINE

FARNSWORRRRRRRRTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHH

Once again brevity wins the day!

I was joking around

sorry for saying the A word Farnsworth, I sincerely apologize. I know you said your process is arbitrary but if you can pump out an equation to give the Mariners 82 wins then you really need to run the numbers for every other team in the league, I don’t think the math works.

Actually there is tha math around and similar projections for other teams.

It’s not all that hard and the equations are there.

21 win increase

I don’t remember them adding Cliff Lee and Carl Crawford

Do you remember how everyone on the team last year, save Felix, had a down year.

Yeah, that doesn’t happen every year.

Well, Ichiro and Josh Wilson both also performed about what we expected as well

I think Ichiro was a little under what I would have expected but I am going to be the first to admit that I have high expectations from the guy.

Offensively, but his UZR made up the gap

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2010/2/15/1312100/sabremetrics-101-regression

You also don't seem to remember career lows for pretty much everyone on the roster

I just don't see

how in any universe this could be considered an above average Major League Baseball team. I mean Cliff Lee went 8-3 for us last year, Vargas Pitched the best he’s ever pitched. Same thing with King Felix and Fister. I just don’t see how we go from historically bad to an above average team. Expecting 82 wins would be a progression to the extraordinary.

A good first step is to learn that pitching won-loss records are pointless.

Literally pointless. They bestow no point.

A second step is to remember that while the pitching was good, the hitting was actually historically bad. Most of it has been replaced or is due massive positive regression.

Yes the

Pitching was good. It definitely wasn’t awful, and they still managed to lose over 100 games. The thing is I can see a scenario where our pitching declines from last year, and I don’t think our juggernaut offense is going to carry us to 82 wins..

The game of baseball is more than just pitching and offense.

There is also the element of defense which we happen to have elite defenders on our team. All over the field. Our pitching, while not amazing, is pretty good as well. You have to be able to get past the bad offense to make accurate projections for next year. And as everyone has been saying, our offense will not be as bad as it was last year.

It seems like you and other commenters are talking past each other a little bit because your understanding of how to project a team's record is very different from theirs.

In this thread, everyone here is using Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as the yardstick to measure players by. Here’s the best introduction to how it works. People here are basing their guesses on a mixture of computer-based projections systems, commentary from scouts, saber people, and other writers/reporters, and their own intuitions. The projection systems are measured every year against one another and against the actual, honest-to-god results on the field and reworked and improved accordingly (and this process has been going every year for at least ten years). It’s perfectly fine to be pessimistic and say that this team won’t win seventy games (at least a few regular commenters here believe this). It’s perfectly fine to do this while buying into the projection systems wholesale or questioning their entire validity (although I probably could not follow the argument of someone who could make that argument skillfully because it would involved either a ton of math and spreadsheets or serious scouting acumen or both).

Please note...

…the 2011 offense will NOT be the same as last year’s.

Your sense of that offense will be that
   a) Every returning veteran will repeat their putrid performance from last year.
   b) Every new person will do no better than the person they replaced.
   c) There is no improvement in defense.

None of those are likely, given what these players have done in the past.

rtang - December 15, 2010 reply

i'm expecting improvements

but I don’t think it’s realistic to expect 82 wins, but on the other hand crazier things have happened

Based on the voting

Neither do the vast majority of people here.

Most expect the team to be below average (81 wins) by somewhere between 2-11 games.

CMC_Stags - December 16, 2010 reply

Mariners 2007: 88–74

Mariners 2008: 61-101
Mariners 2009: 85-77
Mariners 2010: 61-101

I explained my methodology

here

but if you don’t feel like reading all that, here’s the Cliff Notes version

I used a .4-.3-.2-.1 regression of the past four years where available to get WAR/162, then normalized for expected playing time.

The PT numbers were quite arbitrary, of course.

For the younger guys, I had to make up a bit of the projection, but I don’t think five wins between Ackley, Smoak and Saunders is out of the question. The total there is 22.6 WAR, and if we guess at the pitchers being something like

I came up with about 34 WAR, so ~82 wins.

I think it’s a bit high on Ackley, Bradley and Wilson, but by maybe a win or two total. I feel pretty comfortable saying I would guess ~80 wins, especially knowing GMZ probably isn’t done for the winter yet.

Man, I even quote failed on my reply, too

This is an excellent projection.

Well done.
I have a gut feeling that Saunders will be worth a bit more than you projected. I feel like this is the year he makes a big leap forward.

chezbergrur - December 16, 2010 reply

Of course - of the three young guys, I think they have the most variability

any one of Smoak, Saunders or Ackley could have a huge year, but keep in mind what Matthew said, that these are median projections – if you ran the season twice and in one Saunders was four wins and negative one in the second, that would be an average of 1.5 wins per year

seattlebruin - December 17, 2010 reply

Very true.

It’s hard to keep that in mind.

chezbergrur - December 18, 2010 reply

My mind said 79 wins but my heart said 80. In the end heart won out.

ThomasG - December 15, 2010 reply

As everyone's making projections,

keep in mind this article by King Kaufman, that 20-25 percent of players are sub-replacement level. Yeah, the whole team fell apart last year and regression should help, but someone’s liable to do that this year. I mean, just look at whose picture he chose at the top. Who would’ve predicted how bad that guy was this year?

That's where variability comes in.

We try to project a player’s mean or median value, not their 15th percentile or whatever.

Projecting Jack Wilson/SS at 1 WAR, for example, does not, does not, does not equate to saying that Jack Wilson/SS will not be below replacement level in 2011. It means that I/we/you believe that given a sufficiently large sample of 2011 seasons, Jack Wilson/SS would accrue 1 WAR. Within that sample of seasons would be seasons where he is worth -2 WAR, would be seasons where he is worth 4 WAR and so on.

This is vitally important to remember.

I understand.

I just don’t think all these projections (like Felix at 7 WAR) are median values.

Felix at 7 WAR is a bad projection

Trying to figure out who voted for 95-99

Obviously, those that voted for 100+ are just being epic homers. But why would someone vote 95-99? If you are that warped in your view of this team, then why not just go for the 100?

spencer peaty - December 15, 2010 reply

Voting 100+ is too obvious.

joof - December 15, 2010 reply

Exactly

It’s like if you were getting a fake ID, you’d want to say you’re 25 instead of 21.

What if you don't look 25?

File this on the list of things you only have to worry about for 17 more days!

But those 17 days are so important.

Why is everyone so low on Pineda?

As one of the top pitching prospects in baseball shouldn’t he have a floor of 1 WAR over 120 innings, and a ceiling of something 3 WAR over 160 innings?

I even think his learning curve will not be as rough as for most pitching prospects because he has the control to be effective even when the strikeouts aren’t coming, and the velocity and movement to get away with making some mistakes. The list of hard-throwing prospects with good control over the past few years includes Mark Prior, Wade Davis, Phil Hughes, Gallardo, Matt Garza, Adam Miller, Liriano, and Annibal Sanchez .The early seasons for most of those guys went pretty well.

silverbook - December 15, 2010 reply

Is that where the list ends?

Or are those just some of the hard-throwing prospects with good control that we’ve seen come up the last decade?

Because there is no guarantee of anything from Pineda and even when they do call him up, there is no guarantee he will pitch a large amount

unlike Ackley, who is viewed as a sure thing, we have no idea what to project getting from Pineda – thus it’s best to assume he will have a small impact and toss him in with the “other starters” group.

He's gonna only pitch a partial season with pitch counts. Is an injury risk. Still has weaknesses in his game that might hurt him in the majors.

He isn’t perfect probably the big factor will be that he might only get 50-80 IP in the majors this year (my guess).

That's a fairly comprehensive lists from BA top 30 prospects since 2004.

Plus Prior.

silverbook - December 15, 2010 reply

Eight guys in nine years?

So that’s about one per year. Are you saying that Pineda is the top pitching prospect among those expected to make their debut this season?