Breakout Players, and Some Projections

by Marty McSuperFly on Jan 9, 2007 1:32 PM CST Comment 3 comments

Last night, I reached the final article in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007 (which I highly recommend to anyone that enjoys this blog). I enjoyed the descriptions of the 2006 season, including a review of the World Baseball Classic by BCB's own Jeff Sackmann. Unfortunately, apart from an obligatory mention in the review of the NL Central, there isn't much Brewers information in there.

However, the final article in the book does offer some hope for Brewers fans in 2007. The article, Who Will Break Out Next Year? by David Gassko, attempts identify variables that can be used to indicate a player is likely to have a breakout season. I won't get into the methodology (you should really buy the book), but the results are intriguing, and left me wondering if Doug Melvin has some people crunching some similar numbers. In short, some of the Brewers with a high probability of having a breakout season are (a breakout year is considered to be a year in which a player has a good season, and reaches a new level of play):

Rickie Weeks 30%

Prince Fielder 23%

Corey Hart 18%

Derrick Turnbow 39%

Damian Miller appeared as one of the least likely, which makes Melvin's trade for Estrada look even better, I think.

Anyone else surprised to see Turnbow's name up there? Following his spectacular implosion last year, he became one of the fans' favorite whipping boys, but apparently there's something in the numbers that indicate he may recover. I thought it might be interesting to look at how some of the key Brewers have been projected next year in the CHONE and Marcel projections, and see if they agree on Turnbow and the young guys. I also thought it would be interesting to see how the other whipping boy, Jenkins, has been projected.

CHONE
Weeks .274/.375/.453
Fielder .277/.364/.501
Hart .272/.336/.450
Hardy .261/.337/.420
Hall .264/.331/.487
Jenkins .260/.342/.442
Turnbow 64 IP, 69K, 3.86 ERA

Marcel*
Weeks .274/.361/.425
Fielder .284/.364/.492
Hart .277/.341/.462
Hardy .264/.346/.423
Hall .275/.343/.498
Jenkins .274/.365/.465
Turnbow 60 IP, 56K, 4.5 ERA

* I had to calculate these from the raw projected stats. If in doubt, check my work.

Projections aren't necessarily reliable, but they do provide some food for thought. For myself, I'm wondering if the emotional piling-on to Jenkins is really justified, and if they Brewers might coax a decent year out of him, especially as a role player, rather than the star.

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Great stuff, Marty

Thanks for posting this. I still haven't read the entire book; I got a few copies and have given them all away!

Part of the reason Turnbow is projected to bounce back so much is that projections are usually based on 3-year averages. So if you pitch great for two years then crappy the third year, your projections for the fourth year are somewhere in between.

Those CHONE numbers for DT make me extremely happy.

by Jeff Sackmann on Jan 9, 2007 2:12 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Thanks

Thanks, Jeff. Imagine my surprise finding it on the front page.

I've actually been giving Turnbow a fair amount of thought lately. I think it was another article by David Gassko that got me thinking that maybe Turnbow still has the potential to be a solid closer.

by Marty McSuperFly on Jan 9, 2007 7:19 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Bill James

For further review, here are the projections from The Bill James Handbook 2007:

Weeks .271/.354/.437 Fielder .280/.360/.517 Hart .283/.338/.483 Hall .268/.330/.485 Hardy .252/.325/.403 Jenkins .273/.351/.476

Turnbow 50 IP, 45 K, 4.32 ERA

by Marty McSuperFly on Jan 9, 2007 7:13 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

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NL Central Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
St. Louis Viva El Birdos	91	71	.561	0	Lost 6
Chicago Bleed Cubbie Blue	83	78	.515	7.5	Lost 1
Milwaukee Brew Crew Ball	80	82	.493	11	Won 3
Cincinnati Red Reporter	78	84	.481	13	Won 2
Houston The Crawfish Boxes	74	88	.456	17	Lost 3
Pittsburgh Bucs Dugout	62	99	.385	28.5	Lost 2