We wrapped up all the pitcher projections and now we can move on to the hitters!
There are a lot of stat projection publications available on the internet and magazine shelves. Rather than trusting one (although if I had to pick one, it would be Baseball Prospectus), I like to average the projections together. In a perfect world, I would take data from the several years I’ve done this to figure out how to weight the projections in the average, but for now just a straight average will be fine. This tends to round out the higher/lower outliers while still allowing them to have a say in the conversation. Let’s take a look at the average projections for Asdrubal Cabrera:
| Asdrubal Cabrera | |||||||||
| PA | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
| 2016 | 568 | 521 | 65.00 | 23 | 62 | 5 | 0.28 | 0.336 | 0.474 |
| Projections | |||||||||
| MLB.com | 540 | 64.00 | 21 | 65 | 4 | 0.269 | 0.319 | 0.454 | |
| Steamer | 476 | 58.00 | 16 | 57 | 4 | 0.25 | 0.31 | 0.414 | |
| ZiPS | 558 | 68.00 | 17 | 63 | 6 | 0.259 | 0.316 | 0.428 | |
| ESPN | 65.00 | 20 | 59 | 6 | 0.267 | ||||
| Baseball Prospectus | 531 | 59.00 | 15 | 59 | 6 | 0.248 | 0.309 | 0.406 | |
| Sporting News | 520 | 62.00 | 16 | 66 | 2 | 0.258 | 0.31 | 0.411 | |
| NBC Rotoworld | 504 | 64.00 | 18 | 68 | 6 | 0.264 | 0.322 | 0.433 | |
| Rotowire | 521 | 67.00 | 19 | 61 | 5 | 0.269 | 0.323 | 0.488 | |
| Baseball America | 564 | 64.00 | 16 | 57 | 6 | 0.262 | 0.315 | 0.408 | |
| FBG 2017 | 541 | 70.00 | 20 | 62 | 7 | 0.261 | |||
| Average | 544.5 | 523.71429 | 64.1 | 17.8 | 61.7 | 5.2 | 0.2607 | 0.3155 | 0.43025 |
Last year during this article I called Asdrubal Cabrera as exciting as a Turkey Sandwich. He’s a sensible choice at short stop and won’t disappoint you. Well he was amazing. He was hurt most of the year and still had a crazy good year and is a key part of the team while we wait for Rosario. Plus, he can play multiple infield positions which is good as the Mets are crowded all over the infield.
The projections do see a regression of about 20 points across the slash line and a reduction in power, but about the same amount of playing time.
The regression stinks but is not unexpected. Cabrera is older and had an astounding year. His projected line is still better than one I expected at the start of last year and I’ll gladly take it!
Sources:
MLB.com and Steamer Projections can both be found here.
ZiPS projections can be found here.
ESPN projections can be found here.
Seidler, Jarrett & BP Staff. (2017) Baseball Prospectus 2017. New York, New York:Turner Publishing Company
The Fantasy Baseball Guide (2017)
Sporting News Fantasy Baseball (2017)
Baseball America Fantasy Guide (2017)
Rotowire Fantasy Baseball (2017)
Rotoworld Fansty Baseball (2017)
Notes:
Article Written on 3/14, stats collected 2/19 and may have changed after collection. Not all sources above may have been used in this article specifically but were used in judgment calls for reliability of the data
