Ryan Braun is 24 years old and entering his 2nd season in the major leagues. One of three first round draft choices in the starting lineup Braun will play 2008 for something near the league minimum. There have been whispers about a Tulowitzki like extension for the 2007 rookie of the year. Braun did what only uber-prospects do in AAA last season. In 34 games and 117 at bats he struck out only one more time than his homerun total. If i'm looking to accurately project success in the major leagues from minor league numbers, you can't help but get excited about a HR/K ratio that approaches one. He was inserted right into the three hole in the Brewers lineup when he was called up and set a rookie record for slugging percentage. It was an historic rookie season. For '08, it looks like, at least for the beginning of the season, Braun will be hitting without the protection of Prince Fielder. He finished 2007 with a line of .324/.370/.634 on 451 ABs
Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.
For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747
I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.
Voting is still open for Bill Hall and JJ Hardy and both could use a little love!
Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks.