Projected vs. Actual: Infielder edition

The season is essentially over and there won’t be many changes to the stats of these hitters over the next two games (if they play; stats accurate as of before last night’s game), so I thought now would be as good a time as any to compare the Yankee infielders (I’ll do the OFs, P’s, and bench/DH later in the week) and their actual results to what they were projected to do. While it would be fun to include Jesus Montero and in here, I’m only going to include players who had at least 200 plate appearances.

:

ACTUAL: .236/.324/.401; .323 wOBA
RotoChamp: .274/.373/.364/; .337 wOBA
Bill James: .270/.380/.398; .348 wOBA
Marcel: .256/.350/.350; .315 wOBA
ZiPS: .253/.358/.361; .322 wOBA

ZiPS essentially nailed it with Russell Martin, projecting him for where he ended up, though we’ve got to remember that ZiPS updates itself throughout the year. We’ll have to see if this becomes a trend for each player (which I think it might). The nice thing is that Martin definitely hit for a lot more power than anyone thought he would (.165 Iso). He couldn’t carry his insanely hot April throughout the season, but he was productive at times and played great defense.

ACTUAL: .244/.339/.482; .356 wOBA
RotoChamp: .282/.387/.519; .394 wOBA
Bill James: .282/.383/.532; .393 wOBA
Marcel: .273/.368/.496; .374 wOBA
ZiPS: .273/.375/.516; .381 wOBA

Sigh. While Tex did walk a lot (11.2%) and hit for good power (.238 Iso). Larry and I were chatting about Tex yesterday and came to this conclusion: He either had the worst good year ever or the best bad year ever. The peripherals–the aforementioned walk rate and Iso–were there, but his BABIP just destroyed his production, but we’ve been over that a lot, so I won’t rehash it here.

ACTUAL: .304/.351/.534; .376 wOBA
RotoChamp: .310/.363/.509; .376 wOBA
Bill James: .308/.356/.502; .371 wOBA
Marcel: .300/.347/.476; .354 wOBA
ZiPS: .298/.346/.491; .356 wOBA

RotoChamp nailed the wOBA, though Cano did it with more SLG than OBP. He lived up to the optimistic projections put forth by RotoChamp and Bill James. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty pumped about this guy’s bat.

ACTUAL: .278/.362/.466; .363 wOBA
RotoChamp: .286/.375/.527; .392 wOBA
Bill James: .284/.381/.530; .393 wOBA
Marcel: .269/.354/.486; .365 wOBA
ZiPS: .277/.369/.527; .383 wOBA

Unfortunately, Marcel was the closest here, practically nailing A-Rod’s wOBA. While he’s having a fine year, especially considering the depressed offense from 3B this year, his .188 Iso is the lowest it’s ever been in a season of at least 400 PAs and his 127 wRC+ is the third lowest of his career. Rodriguez was not exactly a paragon of health this year, though, so I think I’m okay with giving him a bit of a mulligan.

ACTUAL: .300/.356/.393; .334 wOBA
RotoChamp: .301/.371/.412; .353 wOBA
Bill James: .295/.365/.410; .344 wOBA
Marcel: .283/.350/.397; .334 wOBA
ZiPS: .280/.347/.393; .331 wOBA

Marcel matched Jeter’s wOBA and ZiPS successfully called Jetr’s SLG. This batting line seems like a freaking miracle considering how Jeter started off the year. His second half surge definitely buoyed his season totals and made his numbers look a lot more respectable. Hopefully next year won’t be a repeat of this, only because the first half was so conducive to hair pulling. I don’t think we’ll see Jeter depart much either way from that .334 wOBA (in either direction), but hopefully it can be a little more consistent next year.

Tune in tomorrow for the outfielders!