We haven't seen the prodigal Jon Lieber throw in a Cub uniform yet this spring; when he does, this afternoon vs. the Mariners at Peoria (Sean Marshall is also scheduled to go today), it will be his first appearance in a Cub uniform since August 1, 2002, a seven-inning, two-run, no-walk outing which was one of his better ones in a season cut short by injury (the Cubs won that game in extra innings, Lieber long gone, no thanks to Dr. Tightpants, who helped cough up a 3-2 Cub lead).

Lieber's been bothered by injuries again in the last year and a half, but his arm is (supposedly) sound. I wasn't in favor of this signing but if healthy, he could put up numbers similar to his 2005 season with the Phillies, which are similar to his career norms. If so, it would be one of Jim Hendry's better pickups.

One thing you know Lieber won't do is walk people -- his career walk average is 1.74 per nine innings. That ranks 45th among all starters in major league history, seven spots ahead of Greg Maddux.

G 30
GS 30
IP 189
H 196
ER 85
BB 35
SO 135
W 12
L 6
ERA 4.05
WHIP 1.222

Jon Lieber's career stats at baseball-reference.com

Sometime later this weekend or early next week, after cwyers has a look over the spreadsheet he and Imtrejo have helpfully made for tabulating the projections, I'll get the ones for Carlos Zambrano, Rich Hill, Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster posted. In the meantime, have at Marquis. Will he be able to get back to what he did in the first half last year? Or will he be that horrid second-half pitcher who resembled the guy the Cubs attempted to rescue from the clutches of the Cardinals?

I'm voting for the former:

G 32
GS 32
IP 199
H 211
ER 100
BB 70
SO 100
ERA 4.52
WHIP 1.41

I'll have a game thread up later this morning or early this afternoon.

Jason Marquis' career stats at baseball-reference.com

Tomorrow morning, you'll see the first Game Thread for the 2008 season as the Cubs will face the Giants in the first spring game. We'll continue the projection series even while games are going on, but I wanted to get this one going now.

So far, we have projected eleven players -- and there's not much doubt that those eleven (eight position players, and the top three starting pitchers) will likely be in those spots all year. Now, we get into more of a speculative mode. I'll post projection threads for several rotation candidates, and also for the three closer candidates, over the next week or two.

And for the first time, I'm NOT going first. I, personally, am not sure what to make of Dempster's attempt to go back to being a rotation starter for the first time in five years (I don't really count his six starts for the '05 Cubs, because if Dusty Baker had listened to everyone shouting loudly at the time, Dempster would have started the season as the closer), when he was still with the Reds, and eight years removed from his only good year as a starter, 2000 with the Marlins.

So YOU start. I'll chime in at some point in the comments. I do know this: Dempster seems determined to succeed in going back to starting. Obviously, desire doesn't necessarily produce results. But it's a start.

Ryan Dempster's career stats at baseball-reference.com

(Incidentally, the photo on the card pictured above was almost certainly taken last May 17 at Shea Stadium, when Dempster had his worst meltdown of the season. Thanks, Topps.)

Just a reminder, I've left the Felix Pie and Kosuke Fukudome threads open all weekend; if you missed projecting these players, I'll leave them open till the end of the day. You can also project Carlos Zambrano and Ted Lilly, if you missed those threads over the weekend. Take a look at these stat lines. Do you know whose they are, and for what year?

Pretty similar, right? You should recognize the bottom line as Rich Hill's from last year. The top line is Erik Bedard's 2006 season, when he was 27, the same age as Hill was a year ago. Bedard had more experience than Hill when he put up those numbers, and I think Hill's going to be in line to improve in just that way. My pick:

G 34
GS 34
IP 200
H 176
ER 76
BB 60
SO 193
W 16
L 8
ERA 3.42
WHIP 1.18

Rich Hill's career stats at baseball-reference.com

Last year, a lot of people made comparisons between Ted Lilly and Bronson Arroyo -- a lefthander who had had middling success in the NL East, and guessed that Lilly, as did Arroyo in 2006, would do better coming over to the "easier" NL Central.

That's exactly what happened -- Lilly became one of the top lefties in the NL. Now, we are hoping that he doesn't regress in 2008, as Arroyo did in 2007 for the Reds.

One of the key things for Lilly is to keep his walk count down, as he did last year. Ted set career bests in innings, strikeouts, WHIP, and ERA. His 55 walks ranked sixth among all qualified (162+ innings) pitchers in the NL.

G 33
GS 33
IP 202
H 182
ER 90
BB 58
SO 170
W 14
L 11
ERA 4.01
WHIP 1.19

Ted Lilly's career stats at baseball-reference.com

Now that the dust has settled from yesterday's ticket sale, let's go back to our projections. All eight of the likely position player starters are now posted -- and I will leave the Kosuke Fukudome and Felix Pie threads open till Monday morning in case you want to add your projection for them -- so let's move on to pitchers.

For starting pitchers, let's use the following categories:

G, GS, IP, H, ER, BB, SO, W, L, ERA, WHIP

Please calculate your ERA and WHIP using the other numbers you post.

So, what say you for Z this year? Is this the year, at age 27 (in June) where he finally has that Cy Young year we all feel he has in him? Or has he established a new level of performance, too many walks, too many pitches, and will just be good, not great?

I'll start -- somewhere in between is where I see him.

G 34
GS 34
IP 220
H 190
ER 86
BB 87
SO 192
W 17
L 10
ERA 3.51
WHIP 1.259

Carlos Zambrano's career stats at baseball-reference.com

Kosuke Fukudome's rookie card as a Chunichi Dragon

This projection could go almost any way you want it to go. Will Dome continue to have the production he's had in Japan? Most Japanese position players have seen their power decline when coming to MLB, but the other parts of their game stay about the same.

Keep in mind when perusing Dome's NPB career stats that NPB plays shorter seasons than MLB -- 144 games to MLB's 162. When healthy, Dome has played nearly every game (five times played 130 games or more), and I'd expect him to play in over 150 games this year. Per 162 games, he has hit 28 HR in Japan. Here's my pick:

AB: 588
R: 96
H: 177
2B: 39
3B: 4
HR: 18
RBI: 86
BB: 80
SO: 120
AVG: .301
OBA: .385
SLG: .473

UPDATE [2008-2-26 11:48:33 by Al]: This thread is now closed. Here is the final community projection for Kosuke Fukudome:

AB: 568
R: 92
H: 169
2B: 39
3B: 5
HR: 19
RBI: 88
BB: 72
SO: 99
AVG: .297
OBA: .376
SLG: .481

This one ought to be interesting. Will this be the year that Felix Pie finally makes it as a major league regular? All along, I thought 2008 would be his target year to blossom. Will he be good? Decent? Great? Here's your chance.

My take: he'll become a solid regular, with hope that he could become more than that in future years. Let's do SB/CS for Pie.

AB: 501
R: 77
H: 138
2B: 29
3B: 9
HR: 9
RBI: 59
BB: 40
SO: 122
SB: 11
CS: 4
AVG: .275
OBA: .329
SLG: .423

Felix Pie's major league stats at baseball-reference.com

Felix Pie's minor league stats at baseball-reference.com

The Ryan Theriot thread is still open; I'll close that one this afternoon, and the Alfonso Soriano thread will stay open till tomorrow.

UPDATE [2008-2-20 15:36:12 by Al]: The Theriot thread is now closed and I've posted the final projection. Also, I had to change several others because I had posted the PA total instead of the AB total. All the final projections are now correct.

UPDATE [2008-2-26 11:46:12 by Al]: This thread is now closed. Here is the final community projection for Felix Pie:

AB: 479
R: 68
H: 127
2B: 26
3B: 6
HR: 10
RBI: 52
BB: 35
SO: 106
SB: 21
CS: 7
AVG: .266
OBA: .315
SLG: .411