The season is now more than one-tenth of the way done. If this were football, that would mean we’d played two games. But it’s baseball, so we’ve played seventeen. It’s obviously way too early to draw conclusions about how our Mets will fare by season’s end, but it’s not too early to evaluate how things are going so far.

Before the season started, TangoTiger offered fans the chance to project the season’s statistics for players on their teams. I hesitate to call my picks projections, as they were nothing more than my best guesses, but I did make my picks. Baseball Prospectus, of course, did extensive research to create their projections. So I thought it would be fun to compare my projections to theirs periodically throughout the season, and analyze how our guys were doing in the process.

I only projected OPS (on-base-percentage plus slugging percentage) for hitters, and ERA for pitchers. Let’s look at our eight regulars.

Paul Lo Duca. Current OPS: .637, Baseball Prospectus projection: .726, my pick: .695.
Ironically, a BP writer’s column mentioning Lo Duca’s age (35) and the tendency for catchers to wear down is what caused me to pick a low OPS for Paul this year. (He posted a .783 OPS last season.) On BP’s advice, I went lower than even BP did. Unfortunately, Paul has struggled so far, with just two extra-base hits in 53 at-bats. Even if I accept that part of Lo Duca’s job is to hit behind Reyes and help him along the base paths–let’s face it, Reyes doesn’t need much help. Castro has been much more effective than Lo Duca so far. We’ll see if that continues going forward.

Carlos Delgado: Current: .546, BP: .876, me: .930.
Wow, is Delgado in a funk. He posted a .909 OPS last season, and has a career OPS of .943. Still, all is not lost. According to BP, Delgado has a higher line drive percentage than even Moises Alou. I’m not sure those stats are perfect, but clearly Delgado has hit into some bad luck. I think it’s safe to say Delgado is not himself right now, and that he will certainly start hitting for power at some point, and probably some point soon.

Jose “Stash” Valentin: Current: .762, BP: .776, me: .750
Stash has been right in line with the projections so far. No one expects him to duplicate the .820 OPS he posted last year, especially not the .490 slugging percentage part of it. Valentin remains a solid contributor at second base though–especially on the defensive side. He is becoming one of my favorite Mets, but just so I don’t jinx him, I’ll add that the man is still 37 years old.

Jose “Jose Jose Jose” Reyes: Current: 1.096 (!!!), BP: .766, me: .890
This is one where I’m quite confident I’m going to beat the staff of Baseball Prospectus, who saw a decline in both OBP and slugging percentage for Jose this year. Come on. What is there to be said about Jose’s performance so far? It’s been fantastic, phenomenal, otherworldly, just pick whatever superlative you like. Let’s just hope he can stay somewhere near this pace for 162 games.

David Wright: Current: .717, BP: .925, me: .910
Everyone knows David is in a little slump. But his OBP is still a very respectable .368. That’s pretty good for somebody in a slump (see Carlos Delgado, OBP .278). David is not going to hit the 29 home runs that BP projected. If you go back to an earlier post I wrote, I said David would not hit more than 22 home runs this year. I stand by that. I’ll also say now that he’ll give us plenty of extra-base hits and a great OPS before the season’s end.

Moises Alou: Current: .926, BP: .839, me: n/a
I didn’t pick this one, because what do I know about Moises Alou? The idea behind fans making projections was to get the input from people who watch these guys every day, and see how their predictions compare to the expert stats guys. Well, I certainly didn’t feel qualified to say anything about what Alou would do this year, and so I didn’t make a pick. Clearly, Alou has been great so far.
He never seems to have a bad at-bat. If he can stay healthy, he may prove to be the best signing of the offseason.

Carlos Beltran: Current: 1.091, BP: .906, me: .940
Beltran has picked up right where he left off. He gave us a .982 OPS last year, and he doesn’t appear to be letting up. He’s still only thirty. By the time he’s done, he may be the most productive outfielder the Mets have ever had.

Shawn Green: Current: .980, BP: .760, me: .740
Green has been the most pleasant surprise of the season. But let’s not go crazy. According to BP, he has by far the lowest line drive percentage among our regulars. Again, I take those numbers with a grain of salt, because it seems like a fairly difficult thing to track. There’s no doubt, however, that Green has been lucky in this first tenth of the season. I sure hope he keeps it up, but I expect his OBP and slugging percentage to drop off in the coming weeks.

It’s really too early to say much about the pitchers’ performances, but really quickly, here are the numbers:
Current/BP/Me
Glavine 3.07/4.05/3.88
El Duque 3.24/4.18/4.42
Maine 1.93(!!)/4.33/4.00
Perez 3.31/4.46/4.00
Pelfrey 5.06/4.38/3.85
Wagner 0.00/2.32/2.41
Heilman 3.18/3.81/2.45
Feliciano 0.00/3.90/2.98
Schoeneweis 2.70/4.30/3.67 (I don’t know why I made a pick on this one. Also, it’s worth noting that BP didn’t know he’d be pitching at Shea when they made their projections.)

Even though it doesn’t mean anything, I’d like to enjoy this moment where my picks are beating BP’s for 10 players. They’re beating me for 6 players.

And finally, here’s the best player who neither BP nor myself projected.

Joe Smith: 9 1/3 IP, 6 H, 4 BB, 10 K, 0 R

Welcome to the bigs, kid.

Let’s go Mets for the other ninety percent!