It seems unlikely that D-Lee will return to the MVP-quality form he showed in 2005 -- that might have been a career year. But it also seems likely that, one year further removed from the devastating wrist injury early in 2006, that he'll put up better numbers this year than he did in 2007 -- not that he had a bad 2007, hitting .317/.400/.513 with 43 doubles. But his HR numbers were down.
Post-All Star break in 2007, Derrek hit .302/.386/.554 with 16 HR and 40 RBI in 68 games. Extrapolate that to a full season and that's going to be my projection for him in 2008:
AB: 560
R: 103
H: 179
2B: 40
3B: 1
HR: 36
RBI: 95
BB: 74
SO: 117
AVG: .320
OBA: .399
SLG: .588
Notes: I am going to close the Geovany Soto projections late this afternoon -- and that will be the general procedure during these projections, I'll leave them open for about two days, except for those posted on Fridays or weekends, those I'll leave open a little longer.
BCB readers cwyers and Imtrejo have offered to coordinate their efforts in compiling the totals. They've asked me to ask you to, at the very least, include the following numbers in your projections: AB, H, BB, 2B, 3B, and HR. That way, AVG, OBA and SLG can be calculated for every hitter.
Derrek Lee's career stats at baseball-reference.com
UPDATE [2008-2-19 12:59:19 by Al]: I have closed this thread. Final projection:
AB: 565
R: 99
H: 174
2B: 41
3B: 3
HR: 30
RBI: 99
BB: 73
SO: 110
AVG: .308
OBA: .387
SLG: .549