Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the American League West, a division that has produced just a single World Series champion since the inception of the 3-division format. That run may come to an end soon, as the Angels now appear to be an elite AL team with the additions of Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, and the Rangers remain strong coming off back-to-back World Series appearances.

Angels

Although Mark Trumbo had tallied just 16 big league plate appearances prior to 2011, PECOTA nailed his full-season projection on the head. Trumbo had a breakthrough 2010 at AAA Salt Lake, posting a .301/.368/.577 triple-slash line at age 24, prompting PECOTA to name Joey Votto as Trumbo’s closest career comparable. However, even PECOTA knew that Trumbo lacked Votto’s elite on-base skills, and the beefy Angel showed why, falling about 30 points short of even PECOTA’s lackluster OBP projection. This can mostly be attributed to a batting average shortcoming that may or may not correct itself; Trumbo hit just .275 in the his minor league career, and posted a line drive rate of 15.9% in 2011 that was well below the league average. In any event, the ROY runner-up’s first season was a rousing success, and PECOTA deserves kudos for calling it.

PECOTA projected a fall back to Earth for Jered Weaver after he established full-season career bests in nearly every major category in 2010, including winning the ML strikeout crown. Much of the foretold regression was based on a correction in BABIP, since Weaver’s 2010 mark of .276 was well below the league average. Instead, Weaver’s ERA and WHIP dropped into Halladay territory when his BABIP pulled a Robbie Alomar and spat in the face of PECOTA’s projection, checking in at a microscopic .250. Although it’s often lazy to simply attribute an anomaly to simple luck (hyperlink to Burn’s True Value II acticle), it seems to be the culprit in this case, as Weaver’s line drive percentage rose from 15.8% in 2010 to 18.9% in 2011, and his LOB% was very high at 82.6% (his previous full-season career high was 76.2%). In all likelihood, PECOTA will again predict regression for Weaver and although it will probably be correct to a degree, it would be unsurprising to see Weaver – a master of changing effective velocity – continue to post BABIPs below the league average.

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Athletics

PECOTA and fans alike expected a strong season from Daric Barton after his breakout in 2010 that saw him lead the AL in walks and finish fifth in OBP. PECOTA in particular foresaw a slight regression in OBP that was made up for with an improvement in the power department as Barton entered his age-26 season. Barton started 2011 off slow, but by June it was apparent that this was no normal slump; nearly three months into the season, Barton still hadn’t hit a single home run, and his slugging percentage hadn’t seen the right side of .300 since May 2nd. Barton was mercifully sent to the minors in late June, where he slugged just .230 in 17 games before the mystery of the kidnapped clout was solved: Barton had a torn labrum in his shoulder that had poached his power, and the subsequent surgery put an end to his disappointing season. It’s hard to envision PECOTA being nearly so sanguine about Barton in 2012, as it’s difficult to be optimistic about the prospects of a 27-year old first baseman with career .378 slugging percentage coming off major shoulder surgery.

It’s not so much that PECOTA missed on Gio Gonzalez, but it’s fair to say that it underestimated him. Although Gonzalez didn’t blow his projection out of the water, he bested it soundly across the board, and it wasn’t due to luck – he did it by improving himself across the board. Gonzalez’s velocity on every pitch type increased from the year before: Both his four-seam and two-seam fastballs gained more than .5 mph of juice, his changeup increased almost a full mph, and his curveball hopped up a full 1.5 mph. Not only did he improve physically, but also stylistically: In 2010, 42.3% of his fastballs were two-seamers; in 2011, 52.4% of his fastballs were of the two-seam variety. PECOTA foresaw Gonzalez being the same pitcher he’d always been, with some BABIP correction mixed in. In reality, Gonzalez was a better version of the pitcher he’d always been, and has now moved on to Washington to team up with Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman in hopes of forming the best young rotation in the game.

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Mariners

When I was 22, my father died of a heart attack. It was probably the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me. I became depressed, and I drank to numb the way I felt. Sometimes, the simple act of breathing felt too tall a task to bear. It took me a long, long time to feel like myself again, and I don’t know that it’s something I’ll ever completely get over. On April 18^th of last season, Justin Smoak’s triple-slash line for the season stood at .291/.403/.491 and he had walked 11 times against 11 strikeouts. On April 19^th, 2011, Justin Smoak’s father died of cancer. Smoak returned to the lineup on the 26^th, but his line for the rest of the season was a dismal .226/.310/.382. I’ve never spoken to Justin Smoak, and I have no idea to what degree his father’s death affected his play last season. Justin Smoak himself probably doesn’t exactly know. Perhaps he was just off to a hot start over a small number of games, and he would have had a poor season regardless. It could be that his development was retarded by his receiving only 636 career minor league at-bats, and he has simply not been ready for the major leagues. But one thing is certain: Athletes are real human beings just like the rest of us, and matters of the heart can’t be explained by numbers.

With the exception of playing time – Ackley wasn’t called up until mid-June – PECOTA had the young slap hitter pegged dead to rights, despite just one professional season of data to go by. The ability to accurately forecast a high-beta player like Dustin Ackley is truly a testament to BP’s projection system, and this was certainly one prediction that the Mariners are thankful came true; a second basemen who can post numbers like this at age 23 in a pitcher’s park figures to be a very valuable player for years to come.

PECOTA correctly predicted that Michael Pineda was ready for the major leagues – it just didn’t know he was this ready. Pineda shocked the baseball world by striking out more than a batter per inning over 28 starts and making the All-Star team in his rookie season. Although it projected an impressive 3.59 ERA for Pineda as a 22 year-old, PECOTA also reasonably assumed that there would be an adjustment period when it came to his mastery of the strike zone. Instead, Pineda carved up the big leaguers just as easily as he had done down on the farm, using an overpowering fastball that averaged 94.2 MPH (5^th-highest among ML starters) and a wipeout slider that he threw on 32% of his deliveries (4^th-highest rate among ML starters). Pineda is still a high-beta player, even more so than most pitchers his age; his second half (1-4, 5.12 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 5.8 IP/start) was significantly worse than his first (8-6, 3.03 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 6.3 IP/start), and he was traded from Seattle (5^th-lowest in 2011 ballpark factor scoring) to New York (6^th-highest) in the offseason. Pineda’s skill set is clearly elite, but a sophomore slump and a top-5 Cy Young finish seem equally likely at this point.

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Rangers

Over the course of his career, Ian Kinsler has shown off a wide range of skills – power, speed, the ability to hit for average, high OBP – but for the most part has failed to exhibit all of them in the same season. The one skill Kinsler has never shown is the ability to stay healthy; prior to 2011, he averaged just 124 games played per season. PECOTA reasonably projected Kinsler for a respectable showing across the board, along with his normal score of missed games. PECOTA couldn’t – and shouldn’t – have figured Kinsler to play a full slate of games, but that’s exactly what he did, appearing in 155 games and avoiding the DL for the first time in his career. With the playing time to let his power play out and without injury to sap his strength, Kinsler popped a career-high 32 home runs and even added a new wrinkle to his game with 89 walks – 27 more than his previous career high. It would be fairly unusual to see Kinsler continue his healthy ways going forward; look for PECOTA to again project Kinsler to miss time in 2012, and this time to be right on the money.

Adrian Beltre has been an unexceptional hitter for the majority of his career, exceeding an .850 OPS just once prior to the age of 30. That’s why, at 31, his 2010 season with Boston (.321/.365/.553, 102 RBI) appeared to be an outlier. PECOTA felt this way as well; even though Beltre was headed to Texas to hit in the most hitter-friendly ballpark in game, he was projected to fall back under the .800 OPS mark. PECOTA severely underestimated how Beltre would fair in Rangers ballpark, as his work there carried his 2011 season: In his friendly confines, Beltre posted 1.078 OPS (including an obscene .706 slugging percentage) that was over 46% better than his .737 OPS on the road. Beltre spent the first 12 years of his career in toiling in noted pitchers’ parks Dodger Stadium and Safeco Field; clearly the move to Boston and now Texas is a major factor in what appears to be a legitimate career resurgence.

Our review of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 PECOTA projections continues with the hits and misses of the National League West, a division comprised of top-heavy teams that has seen a different club capture the flag in each of the past three seasons.

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Diamondbacks

In 2011, Upton actually met Doug Thorburn’s expectations, and kicked the crap out of PECOTA’s. As a 21 year-old in 2009, Upton had a 20/20 season and slugged .532 in his first full season. However, 2010 represented a suspension-jarring speed bump as the potential Junior Griffey heir slugged a Senior-esque .442, prompting a lukewarm 2011 projection from PECOTA. Instead, Upton finished 4^th in the NL MVP voting and led his team to a division title. It’s going to be an awesome time watching Upton and Mike Stanton duke it out for the MVP award for the next 15 years.

Most people would be fooled into thinking that a 26 year-old centerfielder coming off an All-star appearance and career-high OPS would be destined for even greater heights in the coming seasons. But PECOTA saw that Young is what he always will be: A nice player with speed and some pop that will always limited by an inability to maintain consistent contact (evidenced by a failing to even sniff PECOTA’s meager .245 batting average projection). Young has improved his game over the past two seasons by upping his walk totals, but aside from that is still the same player he was at 22.

Unless you had Ian Kennedy on your fantasy team last year, you might not realize that he went 21-4. 21-4! It was no dumb luck either, as Kennedy unveiled the pinpoint control upon the NL West that he’d exhibited in his minor league career. He walked just 2.2 men per nine, nearly one and a half less than PECOTA prognosticated. However, the biggest surprise was his ability to keep the ball in the yard, allowing just .77 HR/9 after a 1.2 mark the year before. Look for PECOTA to predict a good amount of regression for 2012, but if Kennedy keeps putting up 3:1+ K/BB ratios, he’ll be a true ace for years to come.

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Dodgers

You can’t blame PECOTA for its projection of Kemp; I defy anyone to accurately predict a man to finish 2^nd in the MVP voting after posting a .760 OPS the season before. Yet that’s exactly what Kemp did, breaking out across the board and falling one homer shy of the 5^th 40/40 season in baseball history. If he can hang onto the ability to walk 70+ times per season, he’ll be a better player than Andre Dawson ever was.

PECOTA completely missed the dartboard when it came to the Dodgers, whiffing wildly on Kemp, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Hong-Chih Kuo, and Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw – basically, every Dodger that matters. PECOTA also missed on some that don’t, like Jerry Sands. Based on the strength of his minor league-leading 35 homers in 2010, PECOTA saw Sands coming up to The Show and slugging nearly .500 at 23 years old. Well, it didn’t quite happen like that. Called up in mid-April, Sands spend the rest of the spring waving at low-and-away breaking balls, slugging just .328 in 41 games before being sent back down to the farm. Sands did offer hope for the future in a September callup, posting a .908 OPS in 83 PA’s; next season will be a truer test for both Sands and PECOTA in terms of his projection.

Lilly is proof that even PECOTA can hit a batting-practice fastball; his level of performance has been remarkably consistent since 2007. PECOTA nailed Lilly’s performance across the board, and it would not be surprising to see the soft-tosser keep it up for several more seasons; his closest comparable, Mike Mussina, pitched effectively until he was 39.

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Giants

Since Sandoval has been a consistent raker since he reached the legal drinking age, it was reasonable to expect a sizeable bounceback after an inexplicable 2010 in which he seemingly forgot everything he ever knew about hitting. The Round Mound of Pound rebounded in a big way in ’11, slugging a robust .552 despite a wrist injury that cost him six weeks of action. That slugging percentage was the one area in which PECOTA shortchanged the otherwise bulbous Panda, and it marks the second time in four ML seasons that Panda has slugged over .550 – big production from a player yet to play in his age-25 season.

Aside from the drop in innings PECOTA seems to project for every starting pitcher, it pegged Timmy pretty well, although his drop in K-rate and rise in walk rate were slightly more dramatic than projected. If you’re wondering if this signals the beginnings of a career swoon for The Freak, note that his closest comparable as of last season was Pedro Martinez, who was excellent until age 34. It’s worth noting that 2011 was Lincecum’s first full Major League season in which he didn’t win either a Cy Young or a World Series ring.

Much like was the case with Jerry Sands, PECOTA erroneously thought Belt was ready to hit in the majors. Belt sure looked ready judging by his minor league stats, but got chewed up and spit out against his first tour of major league pitching. He did hit in the minors (.989 OPS), and he’ll be given every chance to break camp with the team again, this time with tempered expectations from both PECOTA and fans alike. Belt sports a career .343/.457/.596 triple-slash line in the minors, but it must be concerned to Giants fans that Belt’s #2 and #3 comparables are notorious Major League flops Matt Gamel and Jeremy Hermida respectively.

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Padres

2011 could have gone any number of directions for the volatile Latos, but PECOTA pegged the young righty good, sans a 91-inning chasm that’s on par for BP’s projection system. Coming off a pair of impressive major league seasons at age 24, Latos figures to continue to develop into a frontline starter, provided the dreaded injury bug doesn’t bite. His trade to the The Great American Ballpark will make for a bumpier road to stardom than the one winding through Petco Park, but Latos’s career 8.7 K/9 and 3.1 K/BB ratios will play anywhere.
Everyone knew Ludwick was going down a sharp downhill … everyone besides The Padres and PECOTA, neither of whom apparently got the memo. Luckwick’s OPS has dropped every year since age 30, culminating in last year’s pitful .673 effort. Don’t expect PECOTA to misfire on Ludwick again, as history is littered with one-dimensional sluggers who enjoyed one monster season before slowly flailing into obscurity. Richard Hidalgo, anyone?

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Rockies

Despite finishing third in the 2010 Cy Young race, PECOTA expected major regression from Ubaldo in 2011. As it turned out, major regression is what we got. Despite identical marks in walk and strikeout ratios between the two seasons, Ubaldo’s ERA jumped nearly two full runs as his BABIP spiked from .271 to .314 and his home run rate doubled. Expect a correction in the good direction in 2012, but asking for another 2010 is probably a little much.

Tulo posted a .930 OPS at age 24 and a .949 OPS at age 25. Natually, PECOTA projected an .835 OPS at age 26. Of course, he posted a mark nearly 100 points higher and finished in the top 10 for MVP voting for the third year in a row. Tulowitzki is a wonderful player, combining the ability to hit for both average and power with legitimate gold glove defense at shortstop, and often topping the whole thing off with an awesome mullet. What more could you ask for?

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*Adventures in managing: After leaving Clayton Kershaw in for 117 and 111 pitches in his previous two starts, an undeterred Don Mattingly left Kershaw out there for 122 pitches in his next start in a misguided attempt to let him complete 2-1 a victory against the Atlanta Braves. A clearly fatigued Kershaw got the first two outs, but then allowed consecutive singles before surrendering a walk to left-handed rookie Freddy Freeman. With the bases loaded, Mattingly didn’t make a move, and Kershaw was left stranded on the mound like Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. He promptly gave up a two-run single to David Ross, squandering the lead.

In extra innings, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez attempted to out-toot Mattingly in the battle of rookie manager brain-farts. In the bottom of the 12th and the game tied 3-3, Andre Either reached 2nd on a one-out double. Up stepped Matt Kemp, who had just hit a walk-off homer just four days earlier. Instead of intentionally walking Kemp – setting up the double play while denying the Dodgers’ best hitter a chance to win the game – Gonzalez elected to pitch to him in a move as curious as George himself. Kemp subsequently launched a home run deep into left center, and we had our answer to the question, “who wants it less?”

•Another post-hype prospect off to a nice start is Orioles catcher Matt Wieters.  In the season’s first month, the kid slugged .493 and is on pace to drive in 95  runs, despite primarily batting 8th. Catchers often develop slowly at the plate, and Wieters is still just 24. He may be a star yet.

•Those in deep fantasy leagues in need of a dope middle reliever need look no further than St. Louis Cardinals reliever Eduardo Sanchez. The 22 year-old Juan Cruz clone has whiffed 17 in 10 innings against just two walks while surrendering nary a long ball. This is no fluke; in his two previous minor league seasons, he struck out 140 against 45 walks in 128 innings while sporting a nifty 2.32 ERA and 1.02 WHIP. He may even have a shot at closing for the Cards long-term after converting the first two save opps he was given following a Mitchell Boggs hiccup.

•After watching Charlie Morton for several starts, it’s clear that his new motion is a near-perfect facsimile of Roy Halladay’s. To boot, he has wicked sinking movement on his 93 mph fastball, and his curveball is a true plus-plus hammer. I feel Mel Gibson-crazy writing this, but his sinker and curveball are just as good on a stuff scale as Halladay’s.

So armed with the same fastball, curveball, and pitching motion, why can’t Morton come close to Halladay’s results? Besides the fact that he is Charlie Morton, I can think of two reasons: Command and repertoire. Morton can’t consistently hit his spots for the life of him. The movement on his fastball takes it all over the place, reducing his options to aiming it down the middle and hoping. Also, Morton really only has those two pitches; Halladay also sports a cutter, two-seamer, and changeup – all of which are plus offerings.

If Morton can harness his command issues (and perhaps given time with his new windup, he can) and add a good changeup, he has the potential to be something special. (Of course, the same could be said for a lot of middling starters in the majors.) Until then, he’ll remain the guy at the back end of the Pirates rotation that has more walks than strikeouts.

•You know the sharp cracking sound you hear when someone hits the ball square? When Brad Hawpe hits the ball, it sounds like a soggy twig smacking a bowling ball – the sound of.143/.191/.190.