PECOTA: We're All Going to Die

2007 Pitching Projections: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

OK, I'll admit it is a little sad that this headline was the best I could come up with (hey, it has "blue" in it!), but I'll leave the witty stuff for Sax and Orel. I wanted to follow up on my earlier post on Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections for the Dodgers' hitters in 2007 with a quick look at the PECOTA projections for the pitching.

• It comes as little surprise (and, likely, a sigh of relief from Trader Neddie) that new acquisition Jason Schmidt is projected to lead the Dodgers in BP's "Value Over Replacement Player" metric (a VORP of 29.4, for the record). What comes as a bit of surprise is that BP projects Schmidt to pitch 189 innings over 29 starts and post an ERA of 4.12. Not exactly dominating. Actually, Schmidt's projection is awfully close to the projection of his replacement on the Giants (Zito's projected to pitch 178 innings over 29 starts with a 4.22 ERA; luckily, the Dodgers don't have to pay $126 million for the privilege). It might give little solace that Brad Penny is projected to be the second most valuable pitcher (24.7 VORP).
• The biggest surprise from the PECOTA projections is that the #3 pitcher on the list is 19-year old Clayton Kershaw - the Dodgers' #1 pick last June. Not too shabby for a guy just a few months removed for being the Gatorade National Player of the Year. While it's not likely that Kershaw will be rushed to the majors, it's another data point for what a super job Logan White and the staff have done.
• While resident flake Derek Lowe projects to be the #4 pitcher, the next four slots are filled by the Dodgers' young guns: Kuo, Broxton, Billingsley, and Meloan. So there's cause for optimism. Well, until Neddie decides to trade them at the deadline to the Devil Rays for clowns like Josh Paul and Ty Wiggington.
• For what it's worth, Eric Gagne is projected to save about 35 games for the Rangers next year.

Kemp Projected to Propel Dodger Offense

So Nate Silver and the good folks at Baseball Prospectus released the 2007 Weighted-Mean PECOTA Projections yesterday. What's a PECOTA, you might ask? Just the dead on balls accurate projection system that some of us have been using to dominate our roto leagues for the past few seasons. While I won't spoil all of the surprises (and, really, you should subscribe to BP to get some of the best baseball content outside of Sons of Steve Garvey), I thought I'd pass along a couple of quick points of interest.

1. Matt Kemp's weighted-mean projection leads the Dodgers position players with a VORP (that's Value over Replacement Player for the uninitiated) to the tune of .295 AVG/.346 OBP /.507 SLG. Not too shabby of a forecast for a 22 year old.

2. Andy LaRoche, the 23 year old 3B prospect, projects to be the Dodgers' second-most valuable hitter with a VORP of 32.5 (.285/.356/.490). Furcal (30.2), Kent (28.2) and "Gentleman" James Loney (23.0) round out the top 5.

3. Baseball Prospectus has another metric called WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player). Loney's WARP projects to 3.7 Wins. While that may not sound like much, Beloved Nomar's WARP projects to just 2.6 Wins. So for the $X Million more a year that the Dodgers are paying Mr. Hamm, playing him over Loney over the course of the season could cost the Dodgers in the Win column. Given how tight the NL West is likely going to be (particularly with the Unit returning to the D'Backs), Grady would be better served to put his Beantown loyalties behind him and try to accumulate as many marginal wins as possible.

4. Finally, for those sadists interested in this kind of thing, J. D. Drew and Julio Lugo project to have a VORP of 19.6 and 15.6, respectively, for Boston. For that kind of money: Ouch.

Basically, hats off to Logan White for his terrific job in scouting. Now let's just hope that Trader Neddie realizes that his younger and cheaper players may even be the better ones.