Pirates in 07: Top 5 Projection Systems

First things first - the answer to yesterday's trivia was Nelly. Yep - the Pirates scouted him in high school.

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As promised, here is the first anywhere release of all five of the top projection systems side-by-side projecting the 2007 Pirates. If you want to save some time I will give you an abstract conclusion - an average of 89 losses.. dead last in the NLCD by everyones projection. Not just dead last, but dead last by a margin. Add a LaRoche type and Trot Nixon, subtract Gonzo and either Maholm or Duffy and you still get dead last but at 87 losses.

Here's the gloom:

These charts were composed using the following eight position players and five starters:

Duffy, Bautista, Nady, Bay, Wilson, Castillo, Sanchez, and Paulino
Duke, Maholm, Gorzelanny, Snell, and Chacon

Not a pretty picture by any means. James and Shandler are the most optimistic with our starting pitchers but then they hit the Pirates offense.. give and take.

Worth mentioning is that almost every single projection system sees starters on the DL.. some for as many as 8 starts. And they are split to Castillo's playing time.. some give him just 225 ABs or so and others double that.

BP's system has been the best at projecting batters and they see the Pirates flat.. even adding Nixon. Adding a LaRoche type improves the offense by less than 1%, or another way to look at it, not enough to make much of a difference. And yes, I used BP's latest and greatest which will be released January 15th. Buy a subscription - they really are worth the $39.

Now the disclaimers:

1. Projection systems are baselines.. not the Holy Grail. Think of them as player production projections at the 50th percentile. Some players will perform at the 60th or 70th percentile, some players will regress to the 40th percentile. Projection systems attempt to capture the median. While the overall value of projection systems isn't perfect, they have shown to be pretty reliable - reliable enough that even Vegas uses them now.
2. Batting projection systems are significantly more accurate than pitching projection systems. So if you consider the average of all the projection systems above which see us scoring about the same amount of runs as in 2006, you can better realize how much the pitching has to improve to win more games in 2007. The answer to that is -- a ton.

That being said, this is what Littlefield is looking at too. He knows adding a LaRoche is not going to get us +5 wins. He knows adding Trot Nixon is not going to get us +any wins. He also knows the only prayer this team has is with its five starting pitchers, their health, and the pen, which becomes pretty shaky if Gonzalez leaves.

Further, Littlefield *has* to consider the potential impact of Bullington, Herrera, Burnett, and Johnny V. So far he hasn't drank the funny water expecting any of these guys to take a meaningful role but if we start hearing expressions like 'maybe Burnett or Herrera can challenge Chacon' in February, we are in deep do-do. These guys need 2007 to rehab and be evaluated by Littlefield.

So we have gone in a circle. We aren't going to mash past anyone, we aren't going to pitch past anyone, and our record in close games is horrific with no offense, to say the least.

I go back to the original thought that it is time to trade Bay for impact 0-3 players. Trade Gorzelanny, trade Wilson, trade Gonzalez, trade Duffy, trade anyone we can trade this year to get the best 0-3 impact players that we can build around McCutchen for 2009 and on. Make a decision with Walker.. is he going to play 3B or catch? If he's going to catch no matter what, then move Doumit behind the plate this year to evaluate him and get Paulino playing RF instead of bringing in Nixon. Get bold. What can we possibly lose considering the track record?

But more importantly, the Pirates front office needs to be HONEST with its fans.

To simply stand behind the 'look how good we did in the second half' BS to sell more tickets is an organizational disgrace. They don't believe it, and if they do, then there really isn't any hope left in Pittsburgh because they have admitted they are only after profits.. not improvement.. as we have always known.

This organization is going nowhere. It's time for someone to get some balls.