Monday, October 23, 2006 - Posts

ZiPped again

It was a long shot to begin with, but some bad news out of the nation's capital:
Two other candidates [for the Washington Nationals' managerial opening] -- Houston bench coach Cecil Cooper and Chicago White Sox third base coach Joey Cora -- were informed last week that they would not be finalists for the job. Because of the secrecy of the Nationals' search, it's possible there are other candidates who have not been publicly identified.
Damn. 

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Over at Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski has posted his 2007 ZiPS projections for the White Sox.  Here's a link to his 2006 ZIPS projections, and it's interesting to see how they've adjusted after the 2006 season.  The projections look pretty solid for the starting rotation, given that every starter underperformed their ZiPS in 2006, but there are some interesting things going on with the position players.

Tadahito Iguchi, on one hand, is a player ZiPS has pegged relatively well, even as a rookie out of Japan:

Tadahito Iguchi
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2005 ZiPS
 480 12 62 .281 .363 .427 .800
2005 Season
 511 15
 71 .278 .342 .438 .780
2006 ZiPS
 506
 15 67 .283 .349 .441 .790
2006 Season
 555
 18 67 .281 .352 .422 .774

But here are some players that make projections tough last year: 

Jim Thome AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2006 ZiPS
 428 35 90 .241 .375 .539 .914
2006 Season
 490 42 109 .288 .416 .598 1.014
2007 ZiPS
 434 34 101 .270 .407 .558 .965

Even with his second half struggles, it could've been worse.

Jermaine Dye
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2006 ZiPS
 495 26 79 .265 .330 .483 .813
2006 Season
 539
 44 120 .315 .385 .622 1.007
2007 ZiPS
 526 34 110 .293 .359 .546 .905

Holy middle ground, Batman.

Paul Konerko
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2006 ZiPS
 555 35 101 .274 .363 .505 .868
2006 Season
 566 35 113 .313 .381 .551 .932
2007 ZiPS
 555
 37 115 .288 .372 .535 .907

It's interesting that Konerko is projected to just about match his excellent 2006 campaign, considering he has old-player skills.  Then again, he's further removed from the disastrous 2003 season.

Joe Crede
 AB HR RBI
 BA
 OBP SLG OPS
2006 ZiPS
 497 21 72 .256 .311 .437 .748
2006 Season
 544 30 94 .283 .323 .506 .829
2007 ZiPS
 494
 26 87 .267 .317 .480 .797

I'd say the 2007 projection is Crede with a bad back.

Now here's the most fun one:

Matt Thornton
 IP H ER
 HR
 BB K ERA
2006 ZiPS
 82 77 58 10 74 70 6.37
2006 Season
 54 46 20 5 21 49 3.33
2007 ZiPS
 54
 50 31 9 30 51 5.17

I think Thorndog broke it.

There are some other interesting lines, like Ross Gload (.481 slugging!), Josh Fields (surprisingly average looking), Ryan Sweeney batting 40 points higher than Brian Anderson, and so forth, but the playing time is so sketchy it's far more of a shot in the dark than it already is.
posted Monday, October 23, 2006 11:57 PM by Jim with 0 Comments