Welcome to my 10th-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, though there weren't many rookies this year) and the player's age. The idea is to come up with a middle-of-the-road projection (not to project "breakouts"). Like last year I also made some 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
RAdams SS 25 .255 550 PA
Catalanotto LF 32 .270 450 PA
VWells CF 27 .275 650 PA
Glaus 3B 29 .285 600 PA
Overbay 1B 29 .275 600 PA
Hillenbrand DH 30 .265 600 PA
Molina C 31 .250 350 PA
Hinske RF 28 .260 500 PA
AHill 2B 24 .255 550 PA
Rios RF 25 .250 450 PA
Zaun C 35 .240 200 PA
RJohnson LF 29 .250 350 PA
McDonald IF 31 .210 200 PA
Phillips C 29 .235 100 PA
----
6150 PA
The team offense projects to a .261 EqA. Remembering the 4% adjustment for the DH league, this works out to an offense 3% worse than league average:
(.261/.260)^2.5 / 1.04 = 0.97 (3% below league average)
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, and there is some reason to think the defense may not be as strong this year, but I only applied minor adjustments for this subjectively.
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 in his Cy Young year translated to a .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 29, 230 IP, .235, 34 GS
Burnett 29, 180 IP, .255, 29 GS
Chacin 25, 190 IP, .255, 32 GS
Towers 29, 170 IP, .260, 27 GS
Lilly 30, 160 IP, .265, 28 GS
Downs 30, 60 IP, .270, 9 GS
JBanks 23, 15 IP, .270, 3 GS
----
1005 IP
Pen:
Age OppEqA
BJRyan 30, 70 IP, .235
Frasor 28, 70 IP, .245
Speier 32, 60 IP, .255
Chulk 27, 65 IP, .260
Schoeneweis 32, 50 IP, .260
Walker 37, 35 IP, .275
Tallet 28, 15 IP, .280
Marcum 24, 25 IP, .270
McGowan 24, 20 IP, .275
League 23, 20 IP, .280
Rosario 25, 10 IP, .280
---
440 IP
Overall that works out to a projected .255 opponents EqA for the staff, which is 5% better than league average:
(.255/.260)^2.5 = 0.95 (5% better than league average)
To estimate the projected team winning percentage, we use the Pythagorean formula with an exponent of 1.83:
0.97^1.83 / (0.97^1.83 + 0.95^1.83) = 0.510 wpct -->83 wins, 79 losses
So that's my official projection this year: 83 wins.
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 "83-win coin" is approximately 71 to 95 wins.
(But we're not claiming to even be 95% sure of a 71 to 95 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.)
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: 2006 Apr 2
Comments are welcome at comments@stephent.com.