The National League Central is in a state of flux, given the cross-league emigration of two of the game’s biggest sluggers, and facing the eventual exile of one of the division’s six teams to the A.L. The Astros have new names signing the paychecks and fresh faces in the front office, the Cardinals are dealing with the departure of baseball’s longest-tenured manager in addition to their franchise icon, and the Brewers are watching their league MVP plead his case against a possible PED suspension.

Astros

Bud Norris has quietly established himself as a force near the top of the Houston rotation, and his strong K rates bode well for an American League transition that rests on his horizon. Norris displayed considerable growth in 2011, and exceeded PECOTA’s expectations in every category aside from homers allowed and the context-dependent W. The right-hander’s biggest gains came on the command side of the ledger, where he shaved a full walk off of his nine-inning pace from 2010 to ‘11, while leaving plenty of room for further improvement.

Every now and then, Wandy Rodriguez must look around the clubhouse and wonder if he is living a nightmare; teammates are dropping like flies, the organization is going through a complete overhaul while bracing for a move across league lines, and rumors are swirling about new team names and uniforms. The salary purge puts his name on the top of the list for relocation, and though his future destination may not be predictable, PECOTA had no problem projecting Wandy’s 2011 pitching line. The system foresaw a decline in K rate that was matched by Rodriguez, and the computer program came within striking distance of his other rates, including a close call in the category of innings pitched. The big discrepancy showed up in his homerun rate, though the Houston southpaw defied the odds to post a lower-than-expected ERA despite a jump in homers allowed.

-

Brewers

PECOTA pegged Corey Hart to ride the regression train last year, following an .865 OPS season that stood out among his career numbers, but the corner outfielder with a tight-end build defied the prognosticators and maintained his performance. Hart may have fallen short of his playing time numbers from 2010, but rate-wise he was able to replicate the previous season’s progress, clearing his ‘10 OPS by a single point. Even the seven steals were a carbon-copy of the previous season, though PECOTA projected that he would pilfer twice as many bags in less playing time. The question is whether PECOTA will come on board with the notion that Hart has turned an offensive corner, or if it will wait at the station for further regression.

The career of Yovani Gallardo has been plagued by the yips, but something finally clicked in 2011, and the 25-year old discovered a new level of domination over the strike zone. Gallardo staged a steep climb up the ranks of N.L. hurlers, as the ever-present ability to miss bats was complemented by the new-found ability to find the catcher’s leather. He teamed with Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum to form a formidable three-headed monster atop the Brewer rotation, and the trio represents the Brew Crew’s strongest claim to the N.L. Central crown in 2012.

-

Cardinals

The 2010 season was a disaster for Lance Berkman, and many thought that the 35-year old lumberjack was nearing the end of his career, citing his “old player’s skills” and advancing age. PECOTA saw otherwise, pegging Berkman to regain much of the offensive prowess that defined his Houston career, despite his coming off of an empty season that ended with his pinch-hitting in navy pinstripes. The switch-hitter staged a massive comeback in 2011, and though his splits were heavily weighted toward the first half of the year, his season totals crushed any system that takes age and previous season’s performance into account. PECOTA deserves credit for having faith in Berkman’s bottom line.

PECOTA foresaw a power spike for David Freese in 2011, and though the third baseman did not quite reach those computerized expectations, he did establish himself as a valuable cog in the St. Louis machine. The season numbers are modest in comparison to what Freese was able to accomplish in the post-season, as the 28-year old hit almost .400 with five homers while driving in 21 runs in 18 games during the playoffs. The outburst earned Freese MVP honors for both the NLCS and the World Series, and if we include the postseason stats with his regular season work, the final line comes out to .313/.397/.497 with 15 bombs and 76 RBI in 115 total games. PECOTA absolutely nailed his plate appearances, which is something akin to winning both showcases on the showdown in the Price is Right. Freese did supercede PECOTA’s wisdom in batting average and OBP, and though his ISO fell 43 points short of projection, his career minor league line of .307/.384/.531 in 1675 PA’s provides reason to believe that the postseason heroics were not a complete fluke.

-

Cubs

At the age of 20, Starlin Castro hit .300 over 500 plate appearances at the major league level. It was a remarkable achievement that would be incredibly difficult to repeat in his sophomore season, and though PECOTA tempered expectations, the player comments for Castro were glowing with praise. The young shortstop proved his line was legitimate in 2011, as he cracked a .307 average over 158 ball games, and having turned 21 years old just one week before the season started, he finally earned the right to legally crack a beer in celebration after one of his 57 multi-hit contests. Castro’s offensive profile already places him firmly in the 2nd-tier of major league shortstops, behind the Troy Tulowitzki’s of the world, and the Chicago wunderkind is just scratching the surface of his considerable potential. Castro would be a perennial All Star if he resided in the American League, and he will be stealing votes away from Tulo and Jose Reyes in short order.

Entering the 2011 season, the three-year OPS numbers for Geovany Soto read as .868, .702, .890. The backstop had struggled to stay on the field, falling short of 400 plate appearances in each of the previous two seasons, with injuries likely contributing to the disaster output of 2009. PECOTA can thus be forgiven for treating the middle mark as an outlier, and for predicting numbers closer to his established rates. When all was said and done, Soto had reverted back to his shell of ‘09, producing an OPS just 19 points higher than in that anemic season, sans the excuse of playing through pain. Entering his age-29 season, Soto is forming an inverse-Saberhagen performance pattern, and if the trends hold, then fantasy players should consider Soto to be a solid sleeper pick come draft day.

-

Pirates

Pedro Alvarez was supposed to be the power source that Pirate fans have lacked since Barry Bonds packed his bags for the Bay, and PECOTA’s projection was generous for a 24-year old with just 95 games appearances at the Major League level. Everything in the third baseman’s performance history suggested an immediate impact, from his college resume to his minor league domination, but Alvarez collapsed under the weight of expectations. Much can change in a year, and a player that was viewed as a franchise cornerstone heading into last season is now struggling to establish himself as a major league ball player. Bill James is anticipating a modest rebound from Alvarez in 2012, estimating a .252/.332/.429 line, and in a few weeks we will see whether BP 2k12 agrees with James’ assessment.

From some angles it would appear that PECOTA came pretty close to hitting the prediction for Andrew McCutchen, but the argument loses water as one breaks down the components of hits, walks, and isolated power. The center fielder’s rates had been remarkably consistent in his first two campaigns, but a low batting average in 2011 masked McCutchen’s growth in secondary skills, and Pirate fans continue to raise the roof on the youngster’s eventual ceiling. Alas, the perpetual rebuilding program in Pittsburgh has rumors swirling that the team’s greatest asset might be dangled in trade, though GM Neil Huntington has drawn a line in the sand, stating that a team would have to “unload the truck” in order to pry the McCutchen from his McClutches. The odds are more likely that the team will sign him to a lucrative extension, thus rewarding the best player that Pittsburgh has drafted-and-developed since Bonds.

-

Reds

We the people of baseball nation have waited with great patience and profound anticipation for the ascension of Jay Bruce to the pantheon of power demigods. We have sat through trials and tribulations, from a heart murmuring 37-PA introduction to summer swoons and hot September nights. Indeed, life is never boring aboard the Bruce bandwagon, where promising streaks are off-set by frightening slumps at regular intervals. PECOTA played it safe on his age-24 season, and aside from the single-season bests in playing time, Bruce ended up right within the drop zone laid down by BP’s projection system. JB is just entering his prime, and only the unfair expectations created by his meteoric rise to the majors can take the wind out of an impressive career arc.

Though he has failed to regain the bat-missing skills of his rookie season, Johnny Cueto has established himself as a stable fixture in the Cincinnati rotation. His 2011 ERA might be nigh impossible to repeat, given the insanely low rates of hits and homers allowed, but the right-hander’s peripheral numbers are solid across the board. There could be room for even more improvement, and Cueto has watched his performance rates decrease every single season in each of the following categories: ERA, WHIP, HR/9, BB/9, H/9, and… K/9. It might be an odd pattern, but Cueto is making his case as a trustworthy asset in fantasy leagues, as five of those six rate drop-offs constitute levels of improvement. PECOTA foresaw a mad case of gopher-itis for Cueto in 2011, but the right-hander must have hired Carl Spackler to scape his land, because those gopherballs disappeared in a puff of smoke.

It’s a shame that fifty years from now the Oakland Athletics of the late 1990’s/early 2000’s will be known for producing more Oscar Nominees than World Series appearances.

Of course, at least those Athletics teams will go down in the history books as fielding competitive teams for the better part of a decade.  The Oakland teams of late are now better known as being lame ducks while MLB and the San Francisco Giants continue their behind-the-scenes feud over territorial rights in the South Bay.  The non-news off the field still generates more headlines for the team than the product they produce on the field.

While the Athletics haven’t fielded any embarrassing teams in recent years, they have never appeared truly close to being competitive.  Moneyball did teach us there are ways to succeed in baseball beyond simply throwing money at available free agents, though bringing in at least some talent by opening the checkbooks is both expected and required of playoff-worthy teams.

The players Oakland has signed, or considered signing, in recent years share one thing in common – baggage, whether in the form of injuries (Ben Sheets), age (Hideki Matsui) or every character issue imaginable (Manny Ramirez).  Oakland’s flirtation with Manny Ramirez in the current offseason is the type of little risk, little reward signing with which the team has been forced to roll the dice.

With the future of the Oakland/San Jose Athletics not looking any more promising in the near future, I took a look into my own personal crystal ball to see what free agent signings we should expect to see from of the East/South Bay in the years to come:

2013 – After missing over a year and a half following his walkoff celebration, Kendry Morales found himself competing with too many veterans with long-term contracts in Los Angeles and was not offered arbitration by the Angels following the 2012 season.  Billy Beane had been waiting two years for this market inefficiency to become available, however, Morales’s 2013 season ended prematurely with a hamstring pull on a trot to first base following a walk-off walk on Opening Day.

2014 – They say you can never go home again, but when you’re Barry Zito (his full name is not Barry Zito’s Albatross Contract despite what Giants fans wanted you to believe) you may be better off hiding your talents in a stadium where no one will watch you play.

2015 – For the ninth consecutive year Wells found himself alternating between good years (even years) and poor years (odd years) through the 2014 season.  Knowing full well that any string of luck has to end eventually, Billy Beane is the only GM to offer Wells a contract for 2015.  Naturally Wells continues his “streak” and is out of baseball by June 2015.

2017 – The Philadelphia Phillies’ slow decline from 2011 to 2016 was not due entirely to Ryan Howard’s diminishing power stroke.  Beane thought a change of coasts could be good for Howard, whose contract with Philadelphia seemed to exist for too long before it even started in 2012.  Following a switch to the designated hitter for the first time in his career, Howard posts a 2011 Adam Dunn-like year and is out of baseball by the end of the season.

2018 – If you can’t field a competitive team at least you can fill some seats for otherwise meaningless games by signing Alex Rodriguez.  Rodriguez finished 2017 with 755 career home runs but also found himself hitting fewer home runs every season for the tenth consecutive season.  However, the home run record is still the home run record and Rodriguez finally hits #763 against the Yankees in early September.  Upon taking a curtain call from the 12,000 in attendance Rodriguez shoots a glance upstairs towards Yankees Assistant GM Derek Jeter to see if they can now be friends.

2021 – After declining to re-sign Alex Rodriguez Beane decides to reunite the best players on the greatest Milwaukee Brewers team of all time by signing Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun.  In early June after grounding out to the right fielder for the fifth time on the season Fielder is given his unconditional release, which is followed a day later by Ryan Braun fighting his fourth drug suspension.

2023 – After finding his career arc eerily similar to that of former first round pick Phil Nevin, Bryce Harper is not resigned by the Nationals, who can simply no longer afford yet another offseason of unnecessary contracts.  Harper, determined to keep playing until he sets the career record for most ejections, signs with Oakland.  Despite hitting 150 home runs over the next five years his career is still considered a failure, mostly because no one likes him.

2024 – While Harper drew the ire of Nationals’ fans, Strasburg drew their pity.  Following a fantastic 2022 campaign, Strasburg sat out the 2023 campaign with his 6^th Tommy John surgery (recently renamed the Stephen Strasburg surgery), and determined to make up for his previous Vernon Wells mistake, Beane signs Strasburg for the league minimum.  After striking out 15 on opening day, Strasburg throws out his arm one final time on a throw to first baseman Bryce Harper following a tapper to the mound.  While trainers tend to Strasburg Harper sets the major league record for most ejections while arguing with the first base umpire that he really is the best number one pick of all time.

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.

-

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.

-

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.

-

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.