Welcome to my 8th-annual "Blue Jays Projected Record" article in which I sum individual projections for the Blue Jays players to project a win-loss record for the Blue Jays *before* the season starts. (See disclaimer below on accuracy.)
For each player, I projected his Equivalent Average (EqA). For those new to EqA, an average major league hitter has an EqA of .260, and an EqA of .300 represents excellence. Because of the DH rule, the average American League hitter has about a .264 EqA. EqA is directly related to how much the player helps the team score runs.
For projected EqA, in most cases I used a formula (same as last year) that incorporates past major league performance, past minor league performance (when major league data seemed insufficient) and the player's age. The idea is to come up with a middle-of-the-road projection (not to project "breakouts"). This year I tended to do a few more minor subjective adjustments and rounded to a multiple of .005.
For projected plate appearances (PA), I picked a number in line with the player's playing time history but also considered how the Jays intend to use the player this year.
Here are the individual hitting projections:
Age ProjEqA
RJohnson RF 27 .250 450 PA
Catalanotto LF 30 .275 500 PA
VWells CF 25 .290 700 PA
Delgado 1B 32 .315 650 PA
Phelps DH 26 .285 600 PA
Hinske 3B 26 .280 600 PA
Woodward SS 28 .250 400 PA
OHudson 2B 26 .255 550 PA
KCash C 26 .230 300 PA
Age ProjEqA
Myers C 38 .255 300 PA
CGomez IF 33 .230 250 PA
Berg UT 33 .235 150 PA
Pond UT 27 .245 150 PA
Age ProjEqA
Rios OF 23 .255 150 PA
Gross OF 24 .250 100 PA
Quiroz C 22 .245 100 PA
HClark UT 30 .240 100 PA
Hermansen OF 27 .235 50 PA
Sequea IF 23 .225 50 PA
----
6150 PA
The team offense projects to a .268 EqA. Remembering the 4% adjustment for the DH league, this works out to an offense 4% better than league average:
(.268/.260)^2.5 / 1.04 = 1.04 (4% above league average)
For example, if you figure an average team will score 5 runs per game, then the Jays would project to score 5*1.04 per game (5.20).
This performance would actually be quite a drop from last year's offense which was 11% better than average (depending on the park factor estimate). The biggest projected drop is at the catching position, but there are also projected drops at some of the outfield positions and among the backup infielders. The all-stars (Delgado and Wells) are also projected to not quite repeat their exceptional performances of last year. (You can see last year's EqAs here).
For projected opponents EqA, while I looked at formula estimates based on the pitchers' runs allowed history and "defense-independent" history (as per McCracken theory) including recent minor league history if major league data seemed insufficient, and while the pitcher's age was also considered, a lot of subjective reasoning went into the final estimate.
For projected innings pitched (IP) and games started (GS), I picked numbers in line with what the pitcher had done in the past (adjusted somewhat based on the Jays' expected use of the player).
In principle, one should adjust for team fielding if its quality is expected to be different than most of the pitchers are used to, but I don't expect a big quality difference from last year.
For those not used to opponents EqA as a pitching stat, remember that .260 is average (like having a 4.50 ERA, or a .500 pitcher). Halladay's runs allowed average last year translated to .231 opponents EqA. "Replacement level" (what the better triple-A pitchers can probably do) would be about .275.
Here are the individual pitching projections:
Starters:
Age OppEqA
Halladay 27, 240 IP, .230, 34 GS
Batista 33, 180 IP, .250, 30 GS
Lilly 28, 180 IP, .265, 30 GS
Hentgen 35, 160 IP, .270, 28 GS
Towers 27, 120 IP, .270, 22 GS
Bush 24, 30 IP, .265, 6 GS
McGowan 22, 25 IP, .265, 5 GS
Chulk 25, 15 IP, .275, 4 GS
Arnold 25, 10 IP, .275, 3 GS
--- ---
960 IP. .255
Pen:
Age OppEqA
ALopez 29, 80 IP, .245
Speier 30, 75 IP, .245
Ligtenberg 33, 55 IP, .260
TAdams 31, 70 IP, .260
Kershner 27, 90 IP, .260
VDeLosSantos 31, 50 IP, .265
Douglass 25, 50 IP, .275
Rosario 23, 15 IP, .275
--- ---
485 IP, .258
Overall that works out to a projected .256 opponents EqA for the staff, or 4% better than league average. Last year's the Jays' pitching & defense was 3% worse than average. The projected improvements are in the back-end of the starting rotation and the pen.
To estimate the projected team winning percentage, we use the Pythagorean formula with an exponent of 1.83:
1.04^1.83 / (1.04^1.83 + 0.96^1.83) = 0.537 wpct -->87 wins, 75 losses
So that's my official projection this year: 87 wins.
87 wins would be 1 more win than last year's team achieved, and would be exactly the same as last year's Pythagorean record.
Toss a fair coin 162 times, and your best bet is to predict 81 heads, but there's only a 6% of chance of that happening, even though it really is the best bet. There's a 5% chance that the fair coin will produce either 68 heads or fewer or 94 heads or more.
Even if this article has accurately estimated the Jays' probability of winning each game, there's just a 6% chance of the projected win total matching the actual. The 95% confidence interval for an "87-win coin" is approximately 75 to 99 wins.
(But we're not claiming to even be 95% sure of a 75 to 99 win season because we can't be sure the errors in the individual projections will all cancel out, and we can't be sure that all the other assumptions of this article are valid.)
If we do assume an 87-win quality team, the Jays have a 35% chance of winning 90 games or more and a 12% chance of winning 95 or more (based on assuming a probability of 87/162 of winning each game).
Previous year's articles are on the web at
Sources:
-- Stephen Tomlinson http://www.stephent.com/jays/ mailto:stephent@magma.ca Ottawa, Ontario "What is the evidence, and what does it mean?" (Bill James)
Last Updated: 2004 Apr 4
Comments are welcome at comments@stephent.com.