With less than two weeks of the season remaining, and our postseason chances really only still alive in the mad mad world of statistics, I thought it would be interesting to look back at some of the community projections we did in the offseason and see how right or wrong we were. That was a very long sentence. Anyhow, here we go. The first numbers are the projections and the ones after the slash are the actual numbers through last night's game.
Alex Gonzalez
BA : .263/.253
OBP: .316/.298
SLG: .397/.392
HR : 12/9
RBI: 66/46
R : 69/45
FP%: .979/.986
We seem to have been pretty spot on about Gonzo. Low BA and OBP, excellent defense. The RBI and run totals are a lot lower than we would have thought but at least part of this can be attributable to Gonzo's knee injury and the time he missed as a result of it.
Kevin Youkilis
BA : .281/.285
OBP: .396/.385
SLG: .419/.435
HR : 13/13
RBI: 78/72
R : 81/97
FP%: .985/.995 (at first, .927 at third)
This is uncanny. The BA and OBP are virtually spot on, the SLG is very close, the HR are exactly right, the RBI are only off by 6. We missed the runs by quite a lot, but that can surely be explained by the fact that we weren't counting on Youk batting leadoff virtually the entire season. Considering that this was Youk's first full season in the majors, we didn't have a lot to go on. That makes this even more incredible. Well done, projectors. Well done indeed.
Alex Cora
AVG: .255/.244
OBP: .309/.322
HR : 7/1
RBI: 56/17
R : 71/30
SB : 9/6
FP%: .979/.975 (roughly)
This projection was made way back when we thought Cora might be our starting 2B or at least platooning with someone, so the HR/RBI/R totals are obviously way off. As for the BA/OBP, Cora exceeded expectations with his plate discipline. I hope we keep Cora as an infield backup for next season, it will be hard to find someone equally consistent.
Keith Foulke
W/L = 6-5/3-1
ERA = 3.07/4.73
SV = 39/0
IP = 84/45.2
WHIP= 1.13/1.23
Yeah, ehm... we missed this one. We thought Foulke would be OK, he was atrocious. We thought he would be our closer yet again, but we found a substitute that turned out to be roughly six million times as good. Oh, and by the way, Keith Foulke made $7,750,000 this year. Good times all around.