Royals Review: Projecting the Royals’ 2009 Offense with Bill James (Not Really, Though)

Yeah…but it sells the article!

Let me say from the get-go that, in my utterly amateur opinion, the James projections aren’t that good. I don’t know why. They tend to be overly optimistic regarding power hitters. In post-season discussions about the relative success of different projection systems, I don’t recall the Bill James projections ever coming into a serious conversation among the “winners” (generally ZiPS, CHONE, and PECOTA are at the top.). But this was the first full set of “free” projections that came out, and they aren’t totally uninformed. Yeah, I could use a Marcels (I’m going to start doing them myself one of these days, and Colin Wyers has already done some for 2009 to tide you over until Tango does his “official” set), which do surprisingly well. However, they don’t work as well for young players with less than three years of experience in the majors, and the Royals best players fit that description.

In short, I am not endorsing the James projections. I’m not saying they’re worthless, either. I just wanted an excuse to work with converting stuff to wOBA and bRAA and to get an idea of what sort of offense Royals fans might expect, as these projections, while probably not the greatest, aren’t completely unrealistic.