Projections for the Cubs Line Up

***Note - These are statistical projections that are intended as general guidlines, not gospel. So many variables come into play such as playingtime, injury, etc. The numbers set about are based on past performance and future projection.

I'm writing this piece to take a look at what type of production the Cubs roster could produce. The numbers are taken from Ron Shandler's Baseball Forcaster. Over the past 3 years I have found these projections to be fairly accurate. Of coarse this is not  fool proof. What I have found is that in general it is a good starting point when evaluating players. Are these numbers always accurate? Of coarse not but I have found that Shandler does a real good job at giving you a solid starting point and he does a great job picking potential breakout players as well as identifying players that will not match a past year's production.

Please take this post for what it is. Nothing more then a starting point of what we may be able to expect. I find Ron Shandler's projections to be far more accurate then say Bill James. Is he dead wrong sometimes? Absolutely but sometimes things cannot be forseen such as injury's, trades, and playingtime. And sometimes a player such as Pablo Sandoval just doesn't produce.  These numbers are suposed to be taken in a vaccum. For example he projects Adrian Beltre's numbers yet he has yet to sign anywhere and as we all know park/league can affect a player's numbers. So agian take these number's with a grain of salt.

POS. NAME                AB   AVG/OBP/SLG   HR  RBI  SB

C.      Goe Soto           402  276/374/496     20   68    0

1B.    Carlos Pena     434  235/355/475     28   82    4

2B.    Blake Dewitt/     409 252/320/366       6    46    3   
          Jeff Baker           226 279/334/432       5    26    2

3B.   Aramis Ramirez 515 285/343/505     27   91    0

SS.  Starlin Castro      521 286/329/400      3    54   17

RF.  Tyler Colvin/         409 254/298/466     19   56    6

    Kosuke Fukudome 386 277/387/449     12   48     7

CF. Marlon Byrd           529 285/331/434      13   69    6

LF. Alfonso Soriano    502 267/325/496      25   74    5

Couple things to point out here. Colvin in his player notes is said to have a potential upside of 30HR/15SB. Not sure I buy this but I guess it's not completely out of the question. His 1st half hr/f of 30% was in no way sustainable but his 2nd half of 13% is very solid for a 20 HR type hitter and is very much sustainable and probably will settle a bit higher.

Soto's stats could surge if he could somehow get another 100 ABs.

Castro's 3 HR seem low to me. It may not all come this year but I feel those 2b (31) will start to turn into some more HR. I think for sure by 2012 he should be good for 15 HR annually. He's not the speed guy that Shandler thinks he is. After watching him this past year his speed is not plus as Baseball America suggested coming into this year but more slightly above average and probably just ends up at average as he matures.

A healthy Pena could very much match those stats and I think we'd all be happy with that. Don't count out a 30+ HR season.

FWIW - MLE's are Major League Equivelnce. Something that Bill James came up with in 1985. It's not a perfect stat but does have some value. So here is Robinson Chirinos MLE's. His stats are pretty impressive considering looking up and down the list there is a lot of sub 250 avg.

319 AB 268/322/464  13 HR 50 RBI.

So discuss the projections. I'll probably do the pitchers version in the next few days.