Part 1 Hitting Projections
Part 2 Pitching Projections
When it comes to defense, I'll look into all the advanced metrics, and they're taken into account when I write this, but when faced with a choice of relatively easy to understand ratings or more accurate but complicated metrics, I tend to chose the former. Thus, my rating system is a simple +/- system. The more plus signs, the better, the more minus signs, the worse. a +/- sign means the player is average for his position. For each individual player, I will say a bit about their various strengths and how they got to that overall rating. To get the overall ratings, you can't simply add the pluses and minuses, because some positions weigh more heavily. SS and CF carry much more weight than 2B and LF, for example.
Brian McCann (C): +
McCann's defense has be maligned over the years, but he made a big step forward in his primary negative last year, throwing runners out, which he nailed at a 30% clip. He's always been good at blocking balls, he gives pitchers a good target and calls a good game. To my mind he's a solid + defender at this point.
Freddie Freeman (1B): +/- (neutral)
I'm tempted to give a plus, but he's also made a few shaky plays in spring. I watched him some at Gwinnett last year and while he's not a gold glove type guy like Teixiera was, he's definitely an improvement over last year's situation. Bottom line is that he has good/very good range at first base and makes some good picks. His arm is good for a first baseman.
Dan Uggla (2B): --
Well, let's not belabor the obvious. He isn't a good second baseman defensively. However, I don't think he's quite as bad as people think. He's not Brooks Conrad, for example, which is what I think some Braves fans are scared we're going to have at second. His biggest problem isn't that he doesn't field balls cleanly, he makes plays on the balls he gets to, it's that his range is relatively limited. We're going to see a lot of balls hit up the middle get through this year.
Chipper Jones (3B): +/-
He is very smooth at third, extremely accurate with his throws, has a strong, though not excellent arm, has great instincts for the position and he positions himself well. However, his range is extremely limited at third at this point in his career, he flat out won't make a lot of plays. Depending on how limited his range gets, he could be a - defender, but he's moved well in the spring.
Alex Gonzalez (SS): +/-
People may be shocked by this one, expecting a plus, if not two pluses, but you could basically echo everything I said about Chipper with Gonzalez. He is smooth, has an average arm at SS that is very accurate, can make spectacular plays. However, for the SS position, his range is becoming more and more limited. There are a lot of balls that a + shortstop should get to that Sea Bass won't even touch.
Overall infield defense:
This is an infield defense that will end up looking a lot better than it is using traditional defensive statistics. I think they'll be near the top of the league in defensive fielding percentage. However, they just plain won't get to a lot of balls. In the end I think it comes out to being an average to slightly below average infield defense. They won't frustrate people with errors, but they won't make very many plays you wouldn't expect them to either.
Martin Prado (LF): +/-
Has the potential for a plus here with how he's looked in spring. Remember he frequently played LF in winter ball. It's really hard to project here much, but I don't expect any sort of travesty from Martin. He's too good of an athlete and works too hard.
Nate McClouth (CF): +/-
Nate's our only player with a gold glove and he's at best a neutral fielder. I'm tempted to give a minus here, but I think he's just average if I'm being objective about it. He's great at making a routine play look like a fantastic catch, due to the often times awkward routes he takes on fly balls. His arm is average, though at times inaccurate. He has decent speed for the position which makes up for some of his other shortcomings. If he had better instincts for the position he could potentially be a plus defender, but he's been playing CF for a while now, and it's probably folly to expect him to all of the sudden develop better instincts on fly balls.
Jason Heyward (RF): +++
Lost in all the hype of his hitting last year was the fact that many services had Heyward ranked at or near the absolute best at his position. He has excellent range, good instincts on fly balls and a very, very good arm that is also accurate. Comparing to Francouer, he has better range, not quite as strong of an arm, substantially better instincts and a more accurate arm. He should win gold gloves at some point in his career, though the award is a farce anyway.
Outfield defense overall is slightly above average. With Heyward's greatness in right, it could be well above average, except that Nate's mediocrity in CF weighs much more heavily than either of the two corners. If Prado turns out to be an above average defender in LF, then the combination fo being next to two plus defenders could really help Nate, but that's to be seen.
Predictions:
NL East:
Philadelphia 92-70
Atlanta 91-69 (wild card)
Florida Marlins 78-84
NY Mets 75-87
Washington Nationals 73-89
NL Central
Cincinnati
NL West
San Francisco, despite being very close, if not under, .500
A quick note about my playoff predictions: It has always been my belief that the playoffs are essentially random, thus I just have a little fun with them. Don't consider them serious. In all but the most extreme cases I believe that every team that makes the playoffs has pretty close to a 1/8 chance of winning the world series. Baseball isn't a game where you can take two teams that are relatively close and have the better team win much more than 50% in seven games. Over a 162 game season, the best teams that make the playoffs tend to win 5/8ths of the time and the worst teams that make the playoffs win 4/8ths of the time. Yet we expect the better team to win these series with any sort of regularity?!
SF over Philly and Atlanta over Cincy first round
Atlanta over SF
AL East
Boston
AL Central
Chicago
AL West
Texas
AL Wild Card
Oakland
Boston over Oakland and Texas over Chicago first round
Boston Over Texas
World Series:
Atlanta over Boston
NL MVP:
Joey Votto
NL Cy:
Cliff Lee
NL ROY:
Freddie Freeman
AL MVP:
Adrian Gonzalez
AL Cy:
Brett Anderson
AL ROY:
Jeremy Hellickson
Sources: Baseball-reference.com, Maple Street Press 2011 Braves Guide, Bill James Handbook 2011, Atlanta Journal Constitution Braves beat blog (David O'Brien, Carrol Rodgers), Paul Lebowitz's 2011 Baseball Guide, MLB.com, Capitol Avenue Club
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