3 Decades of Minor League Translations

Attached is the current fruit of a long-term project I've been working on. Namely, a large reference of minor-league-to-major league translations (zMLE or ZiPS MLE). We get back into the late 70s here as going back to then, there's always some source that has the statistics required. Once we get earlier, there are some years that have BB and SO data, generally the most important missing data, but it's extremely spotty and sometimes, not even whole years are filled. Some day, I'll have these going back for as long as there was minor league baseball as SABR's database project proceeds.

So, what value do these have? For me, two things stand out as the most important. First, having these either reminds us or introduces us to fine players that never got a shot in the majors. We live in a time when Japan is a real alternative option for Ken Phelpsers like Greg LaRocca to have lucrative careers playing baseball and when increased understanding of the usefulness of minor league statistics in the mainstream has resulted in fewer guys getting completely overlooked.

Second, more information helps us increase our knowledge of how players age and develop. For systems that look at…

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2009 ZiPS Projection Disk Emergency Update

Sometimes, a final disk isn't quite a final disk.

Rod Miller has informed me of an extremely serious error in the final disk. I have Randy Johnson's splits reversed, causing him to be tougher against righties than lefties. I've uploaded a new copy of the final disk here which fixes this error. I've also fixed Madison Bumgarner's first name from Madixon to Madison, though that's a very small fix.

To leagues already running, please simply edit Randy Johnson's splits at the earliest possible convenience if you haven't noticed it already.

2010 ZiPS Projections - Toronto Blue Jays

In my opinion, you're looking at the 5th-place team in the AL East. There's just not enough upside, at least in 2010, in the offense and while the team has legitimate players at every position, that's not enough in this division. The rotation already had serious issues before losing Roy Halladay, with essentially every other 2006-2008 starter being injured and the loss of Doc really blows a short-term hole in the pitching staff. After the injury crew, there are simply questions marks of another kind, from Ricky Romero having serious problems in the Eastern League just a year ago and Marc Rzepczynski's control issues.

The Anthopoulos regime is going to have problems if they try to do any quick fixes. The team can contend, but it's going to need a long-term plan.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Adam Lind*               lf  26  .277  .339  .488 152 582  84 161 38  2 27 102  53 119  1  1   117 
Aaron Hill               2b  28  .275  .323  .447 131 528  72 145 32  1 19  73  36  82  3  1   103 
Lyle Overbay*            1b  33  .251  .339  .416 130…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Atlanta Braves

As of now, the Braves are my personal darkhorse pick in the NL. The infield should be solid, if unspectacular and while the outfield has been much criticized, there are enough bodies out there to patch an outfield good enough to keep from balancing out the strengths of the team. Jason Heyward forcing his way onto the team as soon as possible would allow a Hinske/Diaz platoon and let Cabrera fill in the remainder of outfield at-bats, a task he's qualified for.

Now, the team's a darkhorse for a reason as the Braves seriously contending does require a little luck with injuries because the positions where the team is most susceptible to boo-boos. Glaus missed almost the entire season with shoulder injuries and Jones is always an injury risk, but the team has very poor upper-minors depth at both positions. The rotation, if the projected 1-5 plays, is very strong and Hanson/Jar-Jar could be the new Smoltz/Glavine, but the team's 6-10 options on the mound aren't the best and Tim Hudson is still coming off major surgery.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Chipper Jones#           3b…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Milwaukee Brewers

While the offense finished 3rd in the league in runs, the starting rotation doomed the 2009 rotation. Gallardo came back and pitched very well in his first full major league season, Parra took a step backwards with his command and the Suppan/Looper/Bush troika, expected to be uninspiring but adequate, all cratered to one degree or another. Looper's gone, replaced with the superior Randy Wolf. Bush should be better after underperforming his peripherals in 2009 but the team still has another year of Jeff Suppan at $12.5 million to go. The team will miss Mike Cameron, but Carlos Gomez, whil an awful offensive player, is even better defensively than Cameron and Escobar should be one of the best defensive shortstop in the league and contribute more offensively than some people believe. Off-hand, I'd expect the Brewers to finish 3rd-7th in runs scored and 10th-14th in runs allowed, which makes them a middle-of-the-pack team. Since they don't play in either of the East divisions, the team's a realistic contender for the division, assuming that the Cubs Cub things up.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Prince Fielder*          1b…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - St. Louis Cardinals

The biggest questions surrounding the Cardinals for 2010 look to involve the pitching rotation. Carpenter was his usual amazing self last season, but he's still a pitcher that has always had health questions surrounding him. With a bit of fortune, Carpenter remaining healthy, Garcia being healthy and forcing his way onto the team, and Penny and perhaps another third-tier free agent being great Dave Duncan Specials and the rotation looks a lot better, but this is looking like the team's sore point this season. The bullpen is also missing a dominant reliever or two.

The offense, however, should keep the Cards in the thick of things in a rather weak division. Pujols and Holliday gives any team a great head start and while there aren't any other stars in the supporting cast (though Ludwick should be better), there also aren't any serious holes and most positions have viable fill-ins. Assuming of course, there's no repeat of the 2009 3B situation, with the stubbornly sticking through some pretty awful Joe Thurston play.

In this division, the Cards look like an 85-90 win team, which makes them contenders, but there are a few places where some things going horribly wrong could drop that…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Chicago Cubs

If you only read the media coverage of the 2009 Cubs, you would think the team finished 62-100 and edged out the Pirate for last place.

Despite some of the problems, the Bradley issues being the most prominent, the team still finished 83-78 and almost all the key contributors return this season. Harden is the biggest loss, but the rest of the rotation is strong, especially if Lilly returns on schedule and the team resists the temptation to use Shipwreck Silva or Jeff Samardzija in, well, games of baseball.

The team does have long-term offensive concerns, with most of the core in their 30s, but they still have enough time to develop a power bat or two (Vitters still has some serious issues to iron out and may not be one of them) and aren't playing in the NL East. The Cubs should seriously contend this year.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Aramis Ramirez           3b  32  .295  .368  .519 112 420  64 124 27  2 21 101  43  59  1  1   126 
Derrek Lee               1b  34  .293  .372  .502 125 482  75 141 31  2…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Arizona Diamondbacks

Pythagoras of Samos rose from the dead in 2009 to seek revenge on the Diamondbacks for 2007. That is, after figuring out exactly what he had to do with a sport invented more than two thousand years after his death.

Arizona really isn't a 70-92 team, despite 2009's disappointing record. The team's clearly inferior to the Dodgers, but there's enough of a core here, with some things going right, to be a player in the wild card race.

The team made some very quiet, solid pickup in LaRoche and Kelly Johnson and the offense ought to be better than 10th in the NL in runs scored. There are some definite concerns with the pitching staff, with Webb being a concern until he actually takes the field and not a lot of depth after the top 3 in the rotation. Bringing in an inning-eater at this point and another reliever are needed additions, but the market is kind of thin and Arizona, burned by the contract given to the recently released Eric Byrnes, might not want to jump into bidding wars for Garland or Pineiro.

The minors are very thin at the upper levels, with most of the help being speculative and…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Los Angeles Dodgers

While the Phillies are possibly the most dangerous team in the NL with their front-line talent, I think the Dodgers are the superior team over the season itself, thanks to better depth.

One thing the Dodgers demonstrate is that who the GM is can be overrated - the organization itself is top-notch and a testament to the work that Dan Evans and to a lesser extent, Paul DePodesta kept the team running while it recovered from the Kevin Malone era.

Even with a lot of the names on the list here only because they haven't signed yet, the Dodgers could trade the entire current bullpen and cobble together a fairly decent one from the remaining depth. Luckily, they don't have to do that. Of the pitchers I've projected so far (I've done most of the pitchers for all but the Braves, A's, and Angels), the Dodger bullpen sports 3 of the 6 lowest reliever ERA+s.

The team still could use another starter and they'll probably add one (at last check, they're still in the running to bring Jon Garland back).

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - San Francisco Giants

You get your hands on a Ferrari GT 250 from the 1950s. You painstakingly restore the car to its original form, from tires to roof. Now, it's time to get the engine up to snuff.

Something's not quite right! So, you put in an engine you found in a 1984 Dodge Dart at the junk yard and after doing your best to install the engine, using duct tape, honey, and twist ties from packages of hot dog rolls, that darn car just will not start! What's the problem? You have no idea.

You might not be a very good mechanic, but you might be Brian Sabean. The Giants have a ridiculous starting rotation, anchored by Lincecum, perhaps the leading candidate for best starting pitcher of the teens, Cain, one of the best number twos around, one of the best prospects around in Bumgarner, and the interesting Sanchez. Sure, Zito's overpaid, but if he's your 5th starter, your rotation's probably pretty good.

The offense is not, mainly consisting of Sandoval and the Seven Dwarves. A team mediocre everywhere and a playoff-ready rotation just screams to overpay for an actual slugger, but Mark DeRosa appears to have been the big target, though the…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Cleveland Indians

It should hardly come as a surprise to anybody who watched the Indians this season, but the team has some serious rotation issues going forward. Any team needs to have a lot of money to quickly be able to replace three excellent starters (Carmona's pre-implosion performance was still lost by the team, even if they weren't able to cash in like they did with Lee and Sabathia). The bullpen should perform a lot better, but that's going to hardly be enough with an extremely shaky rotation and an offense of serviceable players.

Don't get me wrong, the team isn't devoid of talent and if a few of the starting prospects stepping forward could make the Indians competitive fairly soon. It's a weak division and while the team has similar issues to the Orioles (but slightly worse), there's no juggernaut in the Central to worry about, let alone two.

Do remember, however, that some of the team's best pitching prospects aren't projected because they are still pretty far away. If one or two of Jason Knapp, Nick Hagadone, and Alex White pan out, the situation starts to look a little less bleak. The team can hardly be counting on Scott Lewis or…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Seattle Mariners

With the Angels losing some important pieces and the Mariners wheeling and dealing to add Cliff Lee and taking a chance on Milton Bradley, the Mariners are really looking like the favorite in the AL West.

The M's aren't a perfect team, however, so one can't count the Angels out. Seattle has an impressive defense, but the team really misses that one big bat in the middle of the lineup. Bradley has an amazing 2008 season with the Rangers, but he can hardly be counted on to repeat that in 2010, even if he's a model citizen. Another big bullpen arm would also be a huge bonus, but at this point, the M's look like a team that'll finish 1st in ERA (which they did without Cliff Lee), 10th-12th in runs scored, and hope to edge out the Angels or sneak a Wild Card spot with 92-95 wins or so.

However, the winter isn't done yet and while the Mariners don't appear to be one of Jason Bay's super-secret suitors, they could still make a move for a big bat. Nothing's been rumored, but the Mariners landing Cliff Lee came out of nowhere.

Even if the Mariners don't make the playoffs,…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Florida Marlins

Some years ago, I reach a translation of a French short story, the author and name of which eludes me at this moment. It was also later adapted into a short 20th-century opera, but again, the composer escapes me at this moment.

In the story, the protagonist is jailed as part of the Spanish Inquisition. The man had endured every kind of torture that the Inquisitor could throw at him. One night, a man came and told the hero that he was there to help him escape. So, the escape attempt happened and just as the prisoner thinks he's successfully escaped, the man who came to help him was in fact the Inquisitor and had set the whole scenario up. At that point, the man lost the will to live because to have hope and have it taken away from him was the cruelest punishment of all.

So, what does this have to do with the Florida Marlins? Well, fans of the Marlins are part of a baseball version of this scenario. I would argue that Marlin fans have been treated even more cruelly than Expos fans. Expos fans saw their franchise undermined at every opportunity and razed and then the…

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Brad Hawpe Projection Update

I've gotten quite a bit of feedback wondering why ZiPS projects such a dropoff in Brad Hawpe's batting average. I hadn't gotten around to double-checking that particular projection because I had a lot on my plate. In response to a question recently, I went back to Hawpe so I could give a step-by-step rundown of how ZiPS broke down Hawpe and why it didn't like him going forward.

So, I reran Hawpe. When there's a controversial projection, I run the numbers again to make sure that nothing went goofy. About 5 or 6 times a year a reader finds an error and I usually find 2 or 3 additional ones when I'm doing final projections in the middle of the winter.

Hawpe is the only player that there wasn't a question about that I hadn't gotten around to double-checking and it seems that I should have, as the Hawpe projection is wrong. And in this case, it's a fairly serious one. While ZiPS runs itself, I still have to copy and paste already formatted data into ZiPS but after some trial and error (I tried to recreate the wrong projection), it appears that Reese Havens's 2009 season (a 216/308/339) was entered…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Washington Nationals

The good news? Strasburg and Storer are projected to be the best starter and reliever, respectively, on the Nats in 2010. The bad news? Two pitchers that have never pitched in the major leagues are projected to be the best starter and reliever.

I know I said this last year, but I still think the Nationals could be a pretty decent team soon, despite the owner avoiding investing his windfall into the team like the plague. The offense projects to be pretty good, the primary problem being the Nats are an NL team with two designated hitters in Dunn and Willingham and both those players are key parts of the offense. It's a tricky situation for the Nats and they might be placed into a situation where they have to trade one of the two for a good bit less than ideal value. Unfortunately, Dunn is as bad as first baseman as he is an outfielder.

The pitching, of course, was a disaster this season, with the team finishing with a 5.02 ERA in a pitcher's park. They may not have been quite that bad consider the team's rather lackluster defense, but they were still pretty bottom of the barrel. Sadly,…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Baltimore Orioles

Despite almost the worst record for the team since 1997 (the 2001 edition was half-a-game worse), the Orioles probably had their most successful season since their wire-to-wire run, simply because the team continued rebuilding properly. Unlike some other bottom feeder teams (hello Kansas City!), the O's didn't undermine the rebuilding in any single aspect. Past editions of the O's would have found excuses to not play Nolan Reimold or to give Mark Hendrickson as many innings as possible. Even the Wieters case, the sole example of a high upside contributor not getting immediate playing time over the veteran, involved Baltimore trying to squeeze an extra year of arbitration, not a fetish for Rick Dempsey's nephew.

So what about 2010? The Orioles are going to be a bad team. However, they should be. The team is still in the process of sorting out a lot of young pitching and should realistically be looking at competing in the 2012/2013 time period. In fact, if the Orioles win 80 games, I'd consider the season a disappointment, because if they're winning 80 games, it probably means the team wasted time and money bringing in guys like Carlos Delgado to hot-shot a .500 season. Other than…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - San Diego Padres

The 2009 edition of the Padres improved on the 2008 team by a dozen wins, though you wouldn't know it given that all the attention was on the Jake Peavy Sweepstakes. 2010 may very well be a repeat, with Adrian Gonzalez's eventual destination being the primary target of media attention.

Improvement aside, the Padres are still a team with serious issues that are unlikely to be resolved in the next couple of years. The messy Moores divorce really threw the team into financial turmoil, which will continue until the divorce is finally settled and Jeff Moorad's group completes the sale of the team. As an example of just what a mess the whole situation is, Moorad's target date for completing the transition is in the 2012-2013 time frame.

It's not great news for Padres fans, but the team will be very resistant towards any kind of investment in the team, even good investments.

So what do the Padres do? Pretty much all they can do is try to trade well to keep enough talent coming-through the organization until such time as they're no longer a zombie team. A lot of the lesser teams at least have the option at aggressively trying…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Philadelphia Phillies

Outside of the need for additional catching depth, another solid reliever or two, and somehow eliminating the amplitude of the frustrating sine wave that is Brad Lidge's career, the Phillies should remain a solid team in 2010, though this isn't exactly going out on a limb considering the World Series appearances.

The farm system is a bit on the weak side at this point as the Phils cashed in quite a few prospects, but the front-line talent on the major-league squad is strong enough to buy the system enough time to recover. The only pressing concern is keeping Lee long-term, a must after he conclusively demonstrated that 2008 was no fluke season. It's pretty amazing to have reached that point in 2 years; in the 2008 ZiPS, which pegged Lee at a very average 11-10, 4.63, the general consensus was that ZiPS was being extremely charitable.

Philly's not invincible, but an awful lot would have to go wrong for the team to not be the favorite in the division in 2010

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Chase Utley*             2b  31  .301  .398  .528 146 564…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Pittsburgh Pirates

This will probably shock absolutely nobody, but the Pirates won't be a very good team in 2010.

It's hard to tell a Pirate fan to be patient after two decades of futility, but that's pretty much what one has to do. The latest Pirate regime has shown a lot of acumen that previous management had not, but fixing the Pirates properly is and will continue to be a long, drawn-out process. Bonifay and Littlefield talked good games about rebuilding and five-year plans, but the organization under those two never showed the slightest bit of forward-thinking and five-year plans stayed endlessly at year two.

The Bucs will spend 2010 trying to sort out some of the talent they've acquired in the last year. There's not a whole lot of must-play star talent that will make some of the decisions easy (aside from McCutchen), so the team's going to be tested at how to find playing time for all of Walker, Milledge, Tabata, and Moss, among other questions. Some of the non-stathead Pirate fans are going to continue to be unhappy because Doumit and Duke should be the next to go.

So, 2010? Don't count the Pirates on getting too far into the…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Texas Rangers

The Rangers had a pretty good season in 2009, going 87-75 and scaring the Angels for awhile, but the team still has a number of holes to fill, a lot of starting pitcher questions to sort out, and some financial uncertainty going forward.

2009 was not kind to the Rangers vaunted catching depth, with Salty being disappointing, Teagarden even worse, Ramirez, being injured and even worse than the former. Pudge is just about done and even former Ranger catchers Gerald Laird and Rod Barajas saw their prospects for the future decline considerably.

At this point, the Rangers may have to mostly with the team that they have and while there are a lot of things good about the team, especially Andrus and Feliz, I don't think they're good enough to seriously compete for the division without some luck.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Nelson Cruz              rf  29  .270  .342  .512 133 482  73 130 23  2 30  81  50 120 15  5   116 
Ian Kinsler              2b  28  .274  .346  .486 127 508  91 139 30  3 24  71  53  71 25  3   111 
Josh Hamilton*…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Tampa Bay Rays

After staying 6 games out or so for most of the season, the Rays folded faster than Maxime Weygand once Carlos Pena's year ended early. Thanks to some pretty bad offensive holes that they weren't expecting in center, right, and DH, the Rays didn't quite have the offense they were hoping. A 102 OPS+ is perfectly respectable for a team, but with Longoria, Pena, Bartlett, and Crawford having solid seasons and an MVP-ish outburst from Zobrist, the team could've had the 2nd-best offense in the league if the supporting cast had pulled their weight.

The good news is that there are no structural issues in the Rays organization that should keep the team from doing bettr than 84 wins in 2010. CF, RF, and DH should get dead cat bounces that will compensate for Zobrist not being a superstar, but the team is going to have to answer some questions behind the plate. Navarro can be a solid contributor, but unless he's going to tell his team ahead of time that he's about to hit like a pitcher for 4 months, he's of little use as a starter.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Boston Red Sox

What can you say about the Red Sox? They're a solid organization, willing to invest in the team, and despite getting swept in the first round of the playoffs, they still went 95-67 in a tough division.

The Sox will need to replace Jason Bay's bat somehow. Bay's unfortunately probably not going to be worth the Teixeira numbers being tossed around thanks to pretty poor defense and there's simply no star bats coming up through the system at this moment. The team was obviously hoping for a breakthrough season in the minors for Lars Anderson, but he instead hit like a utility infielder. Reddick's not going to be a Bay replacement and neither will Ryan Kalish (whose projection I now notice is missing and I will add), so the team's going to have to be creative. Luckily, the team tends to be creative.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS  OPS+ 
Kevin Youkilis           1b  31  .282  .384  .491 137 507  84 143 30  2 24  83  74 120  5  3   127 
Jason Bay                lf  31  .268  .368  .507 146 537 103 144 26  3 32 110  81 153…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Cincinnati Reds

With the shackles of a one-dimensional offense led by base-clearing Adam Dunn fallen off, the Reds developed a flexible, aggressive offense, featuring the electric leadoff hitter Willy Taveras at the stop of the runner and even the home-run hitters, Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto able to run the bases a bit, especially Phillips. With red lights turning green, the Red offense would Billyball the team to 90 wins when combined with the improved pitching staff. Wizened manager Dusty Baker does his best job yet, integrating rookies with veterans and making sure everyone has their proper playing time.

An upopular 12-year-old boy is chased into an old building by other kids that wanted to beat him up. Inside, the boy finds a magic radio and inside, is a gigantic African-American genie named Kazaam. Kazaam grants the boy wishes, including junk food falling from the sky, until the boy is kidnapped by the owner of a nightclub. Kazaam finds the boy dead, but sacrifices his genie powers to bring the boy back from the dead and everyone lives happily ever after.

Which scenario is more plausible? It's close, but my money is on Shaquille O'Neal's 3rd-best movie being closer to a gritty depiction…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Colorado Rockies

In years past, my primary criticism of Dan O'Dowd has been the lack of planning. He's always been a solid evaluator of talent and a solid adminstrator, but the goals, both short and long-term, were always a little schizo.

This year, however, O'Dowd did a great job. A lot of the indecision and alternating between being too patient and too impatient with assorted players wasn't present in 2009 and I think that difference makes this edition of the Rockies a clearly better team than the 2007 team.

One can't overlook the fact that the team, after the season started, was generally pretty healthy. 5 starters got enough playing time to qualify for the batting title and a 6th, Ian Stewart, was very close. Only 10 pitchers got starts for the Rockies and only 5 pitchers got more than 2 starts.

However, even when you take the general lack of injury emergencies, O'Dowd made a lot of good decisions and most importantly, never displayed panic. For example, when Atkins started out terribly, the team didn't freak out and trade Jimenez for Melvin Mora or something, they took heart in still having Ian Stewart around, even if he hardly had a breakout season.…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Kansas City Royals

What can you say about the Royals?

The people who rightly criticize the Royals for not taking into account any advances in baseball thought in the last 30 years are actually missing the main problem with the Royals. It's simply that they don't seem to utilize any kind of rational thought process at all.

Teams can still be plenty successful without having a front office full of statnerds. Traits like creativity and a clear outline of short and long-term goals can be found in non-stat front offices. The Royals do not possess those traits.

One could write a doctoral thesis on the management bloopers of the Royals, but the primary problems of the Royals can be distilled quite well from just two transations. Namely, the use of Bloomquist in rightfield and the Betancourt trade. In both situations, the Royals showed no ability to adjust to unexpected situations.

In the former, the Royals, a team going nowhere, couldn't find anything better to do than give 105 starts to a pretty generic utility player in his 30s. The idea that they couldn't find anyone to get that playing time is absurd. Take a look at Garrett Jones in Pittsburgh. He's unlikely to be…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Detroit Tigers

The 2009 edition of the Tigers will sadly be remembered for losing the division in such a dramatic fashion. As bitter a taste as the last week of the season leaves, the team should largely return in 2010, and based on what information we have right now, be the slight favorite in the division.

This could change in the offseason, however, depending on what the Twins do. I don't think the Sox have enough offense to go into the season higher than 3rd, but the Twins have the new stadium revenues coming in next year and could choose to make a major acquisition in addition to extending Mauer. I'm not sure if they actually will (in fact, I kind of doubt it), but the Twins are an easier team to upgrade than this Tiger team.

It also remains to be seen if the Tigers have the money this offseason to be aggressive - someone like John Lackey would be perfect most offseasons. With Michigan's economy being hard hit and Detroit in particular in so much trouble that Coinstar machines could start reimbursing customers for their change jars in house deeds, the Tigers very well might go with what they have in…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Minnesota Twins

The 2009 Twins are probably one of the strongest examples of a "Stars n' Scrubs" teams that we've had in recent years, with the team kind of resembling a hybrid between the American Dreams and the SNK Crushers.

The starting pitching was extremely disappointing and the biggest obstacle the Twins have this offseason is that they will probably have the lesser starting pitcher in every game they play this month. I agree with ZiPS that Baker and Slowey will be a bit better than league-average and Blackburn about average, but Liriano didn't return to be an ace, as least as of yet, and that really hurt the team.

Luckily for Twins fans, the team survived on the strength of 5 starters having star seasons and one of the greatest seasons by a catcher in baseball history. Nathan was great, the rest of the bullpen was solid, and the Twins had one of the most exciting stretch runs ever. Mauer and Morneau with a supporting cast of Cuddyer/Kubel/Span look solid going forward, but all bets are off after 2010 if they don't sign Mauer.

Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - Chicago White Sox

It's hard not to classify the 2009 season as a disappointment as the White Sox really should have been able to compete with two very ordinary teams in the Tigers and Twins. The Pale Hose received excellent pitching, looking even better than the ERA due to a merely adequate defense and a hitter-friendly environment, but the team was sabotaged by an extremely disappointing offense at essentially every position. Podsednik returned and was actually relatively adequate for the first time in years, but when Scott of the Pod People is standing out as a performer, you know you have some issues that need to be addressed.

Not a single player in the starting lineup, despite some impressive names, really had an excellent season. Or even a very good one for that matter. Without anyone playing at a star level, the usual bland supporting cast just dragged the team down even farther, with the offense ending up with an unimpressive 90 OPS+ on the season.

I expected Alex Rios to be a good pickup for the Sox and as I noted at the time of the trade, I have a tendency to get every single Kenny Williams move wrong. As such, Rios hit…

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2010 ZiPS Projections - New York Yankees

Obviously, not a lot goes wrong wrong for teams that win 103 games. The Yankees were no exception, essentially improving offensively at every position from 2008. Even the things that did go wrong, like Joba Chamberlain not being a star this year, weren't exactly deal-breakers.

The Yankees scored the most runs this season (unless the Angels score 37 more runs in their game against the A's, which they're losing 2-1 in the 3rd as I type this) and even though the offense is fairly old, they talent is simply too deep and the position that may need to be fixed soonest, catcher, is the position Montero plays, at least right now. Not that Posada stinks or anything, but backstops pushing 40 aren't exactly known for gentle declines.

The team has a few more questions with the pitching, most notably just what to do with Hughes long-term after his excellent stint in the bullpen and what to make of Wang. It's not a deep free agent pool for starters, so I wouldn't be surprised if the team mostly trolls for relievers after the big Sabathia/Burnett haul last winter.

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Offensive Projections 

Name                     P  Age   AVG   OBP   SLG…

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ZiPS Career Projections for Eric Davis, Darryl Strawberry, Cesar Cedeno, and Thurman Munson

A recent question was raised in a thread, how did Eric Davis's career ZiPS projection look through the 1990 season?

For this exercise, I'm making the assumption that Davis stays with the Reds and as the park factors and league offense are known, unlike in most cases, I instructed ZiPS to convert the projections to the context of the year's in question.

Update: I've done the same thing with Darryl Strawberry at the request of @millerparkdrunk. I have done the same for Cesar Cedeno. The points of convergence for the two players are after 1991 and 1977, respectively.

Last update: Filling a request for Thurman Munson. I told ZiPS to move him to 1B/DH after 1980.