It has come time for me, one opinionated fan, to take on the unbiased statistical season projections of the venerable Baseball Prospectus, and see who comes out on top. This idea came from sabermetrician Tom Tango, who theorized last year that maybe a group of fans could do as well or better at projecting their team’s stats than the various projection systems out there could. In year one of the experiment, it certainly looks like he was right.

So on to year two! Here is an opinion on how our regulars will do this season, from a guy who watches almost every game and follows the numbers, but has no claims of being any good at forecasting. I’m making guesses at OPS (on-base-percentage plus slugging percentage) for the hitters, and ERA for the pitchers.

Carlos Delgado. My guess: 790 OPS. Baseball Prospectus’s projection: 815 OPS.

Delgado’s 2007 was much worse in my head than it was actual practice. In my head, he posted about a 320 OBP and a 410 SLG, when in real life he had a 333 OBP and a 448 SLG. He started off so bad that I suspect many fans would make the same mistake I did, and not realize he had an 837 OPS from May 1 on. After learning of these stats, I like BP’s number a lot better than I like my number for Delgado—so my guesses are off to a rollicking start!

Luis Castillo. Me: 715. BP: 702.

Castillo, at this point in his career, brings exactly one skill to the table—he gets on base slightly more often than an average major leaguer. His range in the field is severely limited. He won’t make many errors, but he won’t get to very much either and should be considered a below-average second baseman both offensively and defensively. Given his age and his bad knees, I have no idea why Omar Minaya decided to ink him to a four-year deal. But he did, so we should all get used to seeing Castillo hit singles and field the occasional groundball for the next few years.

Jose Reyes. Me: 775. BP: 788.

I’ve come around to the idea that Jose is not going to be a power hitter, and my guess for him reflects this belief. That said, he’ll provide us plenty of value with his speed and defense, in addition to being a plenty serviceable hitter at the plate. In short, I still love you Jose! Bring back the Professor Reyes bit!

David Wright. Me: 900. BP: 935.

David is a beast at the plate, and I expect him to continue to hit like one well into the next decade. I would say his fielding is underrated, but then again he won a Gold Glove last year that he probably didn’t deserve, so I guess his fielding is overrated. But know that David has excellent range at third, and I expect him to cut down on his throwing errors as he gains more and more major-league service time. BP and I both have him coming down from his mammoth 962 OPS in 2007, but I have him coming down a little further. Maybe my subconscious is just trying to lock in that 900 number and be satisfied. I mean, I personally would take a 390 OBP and a 510 SLG from David right now. Anything above that would be gravy.

Brian Schneider. Me: 700. BP: 664.

I don’t know much about Schneider, so my opinion doesn’t really add anything here. From everything I’ve read, though, he’s pretty much useless at the plate. I expect him to hit his career OPS of 700, while BP is seeing him as more like the player of last year, who posted a whopping 662 OPS. To be fair, Schneider did have a 649 OPS in 2006. (Sigh.) I don’t care how good he supposedly is defensively, there’s almost no way Schneider adds value to our team if he’s this disastrous at the plate.

Moises Alou. Me: 850. BP: 852

We all know Mo can hit. No one knows if he ever actually will.

Carlos Beltran. Me: 880. BP: 864.

Underappreciated by many Mets fans, Carlos Beltran is a tremendous hitter when healthy, and a pretty damn good hitter even when he’s a little nicked up. My guess for him represents cautious optimism that he’ll be slightly less nicked up this year than last, although I am worried about his molasses-like start to spring training this year (and by that I mean his inability to get on the field). BP sees Carlos doing basically what he did last year. I expect slight improvement.

Ryan Church. Me: 800. BP: 821.

Here’s another guy who was underrated in the minds of many baseball people until the Mets traded for him. He wasn’t worth giving up Lastings Milledge—not by a country mile—but Church can hit. We’ll see how he does in a full-time role, but I don’t expect a major drop-off from his rate stats of last year. Interestingly, BP actually sees him improving his rate stats. That’s good news.

Endy Chavez. Me: 705. BP: 696.

Endy is not much of a hitter, unfortunately. If he were, he’d be an everyday player easily given how he good he is in the field. He’ll make a great fourth outfielder for us, as he’s been for the last two seasons.

Ramon Castro. Me: 780. BP: 787.

Ramon, on the other hand, is an excellent hitter for a catcher. He hasn’t ever played a full season and the Mets don’t expect him to. I (along with everyone else) just hope he’ll be healthy enough to play about half the season, preferably the half during which Schneider is unable to play because of some injury or other. The days of Sandy Alomar Jr. and the like (as players) better be long over.

So there’s my take on the hitters. I’m going to make BP the early favorite in our prediction war (no surprise there), and I certainly hope their numbers are better than mine, as their numbers are higher for six of the ten hitters listed. Next week, I’ll take a look at the pitchers in Part II. And then it will be almost time to play ball!

At we cross the season’s thirty percent mark, here are ten fun statistics about our team.

1. The Mets lead the major leagues with a .284 Equivalent Average.

2. The Mets lead the major leagues in Defensive Efficiency, converting a higher percentage of balls put in play into outs than any other team. (After watching the last series, would it surprise anyone to learn that the Marlins rank 29th in this category?)

3. The Mets are second in the major leagues with a 3.40 ERA, trailing only the Padres who boast a 3.00 ERA. (And yes, in case anyone was wondering, the Padres scare me quite a bit.)

4. Although he doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify, Damion Easley leads the team with a .527 slugging percentage.

5. Although he doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify, Endy Chavez has a higher slugging percentage (.482) than David Wright or Carlos Delgado.

6. Jose Reyes has already equalled his walk total (27) from 2005.

7. Lino Urdaneta allowed one run over one inning pitched to lower his lifetime ERA by infinity. He has since been suspended, and may never see major league action again.

8. Joe Smith is fourth in the National League in Value Over Replacement Player among rookie pitchers, ahead of even San Diego’s Kevin Cameron, who has yet to allow an earned run.

9. Carlos Delgado has a lower OPS than any of the other regulars, and two of the starting pitchers, yet he is second in the team in RBI. If you think Delgado has been playing pretty well so far, you should interpret this discrepancy as evidence that OPS isn’t a very good stat. If you think Delgado hasn’t really performed very well, than you should interpret this discrepancy as evidence that RBI isn’t a very good stat.

10. The Mets have been caught stealing the same number of times as they’ve caught their opponents (11), yet they’ve stolen 36 more bases (the Mets have stolen 60, their opponents just 24).

10a. The Mets are third in the majors in stolen base percentage, succeeding on 85% of their attempts. They trail Boston and Philadelphia by less than one percentage point.

10b. The Mets have 19 more stolen bases than any other major league team.

I’m super-psyched for Perez/Lincecum tonight.

Let’s Go Mets!

Baseball Prospectus has unveiled their PECOTA projections. PECOTA, for those less nerdy than some of us, is a sabermetric system for predicting player performance. If you're looking for the gory details, check here.

Lastings Milledge's best-case (90th percentile), neutral-park projection for 2007 is
.320/.396/.551 (AVG/OBP/SLG). His weighted
mean projection is .289/.359/.476.

Mike Pelfrey 's Mean projection is 4.37 ERA, 6.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9.

Hat tip to Baseball Crank for the link.