That Overbay projection looks way to high, and Halladay's looks way too low.

The Towers projection is certainly too high; I'm adjusting him down to a 4.70 ERA for my team projection.

I think the Halladay projection is dead on. Everything is pretty much in line with his career averages. And the last couple of seasons have showed us that he isn't nearly as durable as everyone gives him credit for.

I am a little surprised with the low OPS projection for Adams. He has a career 365OBP in the minors and hit pretty well in a small sample size in '04. And has always had a very solid BB/K ratio. All of this combined with a much better Jays lineup in '06. I project him out to 274/358/396 with about 80 runs and 65 RBI.

And the last couple of seasons have showed us that he isn't nearly as durable as everyone gives him credit for.

All the "So-and-so isn't durable because his bones break when he gets hit by a ball" is really starting to get old. How many players have gotten tagged with this nonsense the past couple years?

that's looking like a legitimate wild card threat to me...

I think Glaus is a good bet to log more than 115 games too, so I would expect alot more in the counting stats.

BTW, I'm still waiting for Wells' 30 steals....I guess this year isn't the year either.

ZIPS+PT: 89-73

All the "So-and-so isn't durable because his bones break when he gets hit by a ball" is really starting to get old. How many players have gotten tagged with this nonsense the past couple years?

This argument is all well and good, but dont forget that the line drive that hit Halladay in early July was supposed to keep him out 4-6 weeks, meanwhile he never made it back to the mound in '05. Couple that with him breaking down in '04 and that adds up to a misconception about Halladay being one of the most durable pitchers in the league.

ZIPS+PT: 89-73

Well, the Jays undershot their Pythag by 8 wins in 05, so that means they will overshoot it by 8 wins in 06...right? Right?

I'd be very pleased if Jays players hit those numbers. If AJ, BJ, Overbay, and Glaus all hit those numbers JP has to be pretty pleased with himself.

Very optimistic, nice. If Glaus and Overbay hit those numbers, I'll be a happy guy.

89 win pythag just screams "midseason acquisition of a RF who can hit better than Rios".

As for Halladay's durability, he's an interesting case, I think. He's very good at simulating durability, because he throws so many strikes that his pitch counts stay low. There's a lesson in there.

89 win pythag just screams "midseason acquisition of a RF who can hit better than Rios".

I'm shocked they haven't traded for Craig Wilson yet... they have to have something shiny to offer Littlefield that won't downgrade the rest of the lineup OR give up the farm.

"How many players have gotten tagged with this nonsense the past couple years?"

J.D. Drew was hit by a pitch and broke his wrist in both 2001 and 2005. A number of folks crowed about those injuries.

Of course, J.D. has a slightly more extensive injury history than most.

Of course, J.D. has a slightly more extensive injury history than <strike>most</strike> Evil Knieval

Fixed

Looks like a good year for Overbay, down year for Glaus.

sure would be nice to be a guy for whom 30 hr is a down year.

overbay's projection seems a bit optimistic--everyone in the media tried to liken him to john olerud...the projection pretty closely matches olerud's career numbers. He might do it, given that he's 29, but i don't like his chances of managing anything past that, given that he's 29.

which brings up another question--at what age is a player's performance easiest/hardest to predict? young and old players seem more variable this way--they can surprise you a lot...

Frankly, the Overbay projection makes almost no sense to me. I'm guessing there are some serious park effects going on here. He seems like a decent bet to be almost awful next year though.

Glaus looks just about right.

Overbay's going to a better hitter's park and a better hitter's park for him (Miller isn't a good BA park but a good HR park). He's not old and that line isn't much different from what he did in 2004.

This argument is all well and good, but dont forget that the line drive that hit Halladay in early July was supposed to keep him out 4-6 weeks, meanwhile he never made it back to the mound in '05. Couple that with him breaking down in '04 and that adds up to a misconception about Halladay being one of the most durable pitchers in the league.

Not buying. It was a freaking broken leg; they were overly optimistic to think that he'd be back in '05. I think Halladay's as good a bet as anybody to win the Cy Young in '06.

Oh, and. I'd be thrilled with a lot of those lines, but I'll be disappointed if that's really the best Russ Adams can do.

I find it pretty hard to get excited about this team. They don't have any offensive players that have the "wow" factor. Their offense should be improved a bit (assuming these projections are realized - I'm not so sure about Overbay's), but their defense now sucks other than in CF, RF and 1B. Defense at third base and shortstop might be the worst in the majors as an aggregate. I'm not looking forward to the time Hinske will apparently be spending in LF. Chacin and Towers, and Halladay for that matter, are really going to miss the O-Dog and probably won't be too fond of Glaus.

Defensively, this team has made major downgrades. Russ Adams should no longer be allowed to play SS, and nothing suggests to me that Hill could fill that hole should Russ be moved. Glaus, by the way, is in steep decline with the glove. Of course, that only hurts the clubs only groundball pitcher, namely Halladay. Add a number of runs & hits to his total, though, I think.

Do the hits allowed and ERA numbers for the pitchers take into account defensive changes in the offseason? This has perhaps been explained elsewhere.

Burnett was an extreme groundball pitcher last year. It remains to be seen whether this was a one-year fluke.

No, I simply regress last year's defense towards league average. That's usually is in the ballpark, much better than simply using last year or league average. Ideally, I could base it on specific offseason changes, but I'd need to seriously do more work on defensive projections (blecch) and get someone who's good with computers to help me re-incorporate ZiPS into a format that I could do a bunch of players at once.

Vaux: are the ZiPS+PT numbers zero sum? Alternatively, do you have a website or somesuch where the system is explained or the results are hosted?

Thanks, Dan, for the explanation. It's particularly tricky for Halladay and Burnett (assuming that the extreme groundball trend holds for him). The off-season defensive changes in the infield have potentially large impacts although projecting them would indeed be blecch.

Towers seemed to make some mechanical adjustments with Brad Arnsberg last year and may have added a couple of mph to his fastball. He threw 200+ innings with 24 HRs and 29 walks, and made 12 starts where he threw 7 or more IP and allowed 3 or fewer ER. He'd never done that before; ZIPS thinks he can do it again. A 4.15 ERA would be almost half a point higher than '05, but still more than sufficient for a mid-rotation starter. I think it's a pretty decent projection.

Russ Adams should no longer be allowed to play SS, and nothing suggests to me that Hill could fill that hole should Russ be moved.

A number of Adams's errors were of the "lack of concentration" variety - more of less routine plays where he appeared to go into a walkabout. That's a fixable problem; whether the Jays have the right people in place to fix it is another issue.

-- MWE

"Glaus, by the way, is in steep decline with the glove."

Yeah, is this something that the former shortstop can come back from? Is it a matter of his injury preventing him from training the same way as before and now he can? Or is he permenantly 'disabled' now?

I think that Glaus will be better if his knee is fully healthy next year. He also was very careful on the field due to his injured shoulder, not wanting to do any diving for fear of reinjuring it. While he may never dive again, a healthy knee will go a long way toward increasing his range at 3B...

Since I'm going into so much detail with these this year, maybe I should get a blogspot space or something. Anyhow, the R and RA figures I get are zero sum, but only after I apply an over-projection factor to R (explained in today's Dugout). That is without specific projection of the four teams in each league that will absolutely not be in contention, however, but the mere assumption that they'll total as many runs scored and allowed among them as they did last year. This season, I think that's reasonable, but if I get the time, I'll run those teams and see what happens.

It will help in evaluating the Toronto projected record to know that I did regress Towers's ERA to 4.70, Burnett's to 4.20, and Halladay's to 3.60. Offensive rate-stats, I left alone, and in figuring playing time had Hinske as the odd man out in the 3b-1b-dh shuffle and Catalanotto and Reed sharing time in LF, with Wells and Rios full-timers, for the most part.

Oh, and. I'd be thrilled with a lot of those lines, but I'll be disappointed if that's really the best Russ Adams can do

I dont think its the best he could do. Rather just a reasonable projection for '06. I tend to think his BA will improve when he hits his peak.

Not buying. It was a freaking broken leg; they were overly optimistic to think that he'd be back in '05. I think Halladay's as good a bet as anybody to win the Cy Young in '06

Optimistic or not the timetable was set, and he still didnt return from it two months after his targeted date. He's a great pitcher no doubt and a very good bet to win the Cy. I'm just making the point that he probably wont be pitching 260+ innings per season the next few years.

I don't think they'd let him get to 260+ innings. Whatever it was that happened in '04, they don't want a recurrence. (Although Halladay has adjusted his personal throwing program, which had formerly been quite rigorous, since then.) But I'm predicting more than 25 GS.

Dan, I have one more question. There seems to be a significant talent gap between the American and National Leagues. Are you adjusting for this when projecting transferring players and if so, how? Thanks.

Wow, ZiPS seems high on Quiroz, unlike the actual Blue Jays.

Dayn Perry looks at the Blue Jays, and gets very defensive about them...

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5235682

I think Perry hits the nail on the head there.

I think Perry overstates the case. I think it's correct that the Jays' infield defense will not be as good as last year's. I don't think it's going to be all that bad, though; certainly not bad enough to negate the improvements to the lineup and pitching staff.

(However. Hinske in the outfield sounds to me like a recipe for disaster.)

Glaus isn't the biggest problem in the infield, Russ Adams is.

Perhaps Hill would play a better short and Adams can handle second.

I really don't understand trading Koskie. The could have kept his glove at third, DH'd Glaus, and traded Hillenbrand, or kept him as a backup and released Hinske (they more or less released Koskie).

It probably comes down to Glaus wanting to play 3rd base as a condition of accepting the trade, and they made the decision that the offensive boost from Glaus outweighs the defensive hit.

I don't know why Perry thinks Hillenbrand can give them similar production to Glaus. They aren't anywhere close on offense. Hillenbrand ain't much aon defense either. And Glaus is actually the younger of the 2.

I don't think Perry overstates the issue at all. Hudson is insanely good. I love Roy Halladay, but when Doc won the Cy Young O-Dawg should have been up there on the podium with him. Hill/Adams will be hard-pressed to replace him.

If Glaus can play closer to 140-150 games, ZIPS seems to think the Jays could have the AL home run champ on their team. That's pretty cool. Still, it irks me that J.P. took the one legitamitely great hitter he's ever had in his lineup for granted. When you consider Glaus is costing them $10.5M/yr, how is Delgado at $13 M/year not an incredible bargain--especially if it means you keep Hudson? This isn't hindsight. I hated watching Carlos leave.

Overbay and Glaus are good players, guys who can clearly contribute to winning teams, but unless Paul Gottfried found some kind of time machine in the basement of the Rogers Centre and sends Vernon Wells back to 2003 to retrieve his magic amulet, they're also the team's two best hitters. With dead weight like Rios and Adams in the lineup, I don't think that's enough. When you consider the Jays gave up Koskie, Hudson, Bautista, Gross, Bush, Jackson, and $8 M (!!!) for Glaus, Overbay, Santos, and Wolf it's a little depressing. That's WAAYYYY too much talent to lose in exchange for players who aren't the kind of slam-dunk All Stars it'll take to compete with Boston and New York. I realise Bowden's too much of an idiot to realise that Toronto could have offered more value than Texas for Wilkerson, but shouldn't we have gotten Dunn? Or J.D. Drew? Or why couldn't Toronto get Bradley? Or, hell, Jim Thome?

Of all the players Toronto traded away, I'm still amazed the Jays gave up on Bush so quickly. Worst case scenario would have been to move him back to relief, a role he's proven he can handle back in his days as a dominant college closer (remember how much everyone loves those these days?).

As the offseason has progressed, it's clear the Jays were smart in their free agent signings to get the two guys they wanted at the price they paid. (You're telling me you'd rather have Millwood at $60M?) But J.P.'s trades have reaked of desperation, too eager to undo past mistakes. I hope this Bengie Molina talk is nonsense, and Mike Piazza is a possibility as fulltime DH and backup C. That would make me all warm and fuzzy. And, Mike, gay marriage is legal in Canada.

Now if Zips could predict 7 year multi-zillion dollar contracts, we'd be set.