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2012 AL East Projections For the Big Three

In the same vein as this and this, I've done early napkin projections for the big 3 of the AL East. I opted to not project bullpens at all, given how volatile relievers are, and I know the bench projections are somewhat lazy. They're fairly conservative predictions, but even though some players may slightly over-perform the predicted numbers, a few will drastically underperform them (due to injury, or general ineffectiveness), so for teams as a whole, they should be relatively accurate. Some random notes after the jump.

TB WAR NY WAR BOS WAR
C Molina/Chirinos 1 Martin 3.5 Saltalamacchia 3
1B Pena/Canzler 2 Teixeira 5 Gonzalez 6
2B Zobrist 6 Cano 5.5 Pedroia 6.5
SS Rodriguez/Brignac 1 Jeter 2.5 Aviles/Punto 2
3B Longoria 7 Rodriguez 5.5 Youkilis 4.5
LF Jennings 4 Gardner 5 Crawford 3.5
CF Upton 4 Granderson 6 Ellsbury 6.5
RF Joyce/Guyer 4 Swisher 4 Sweeney 1
DH Scott 1.5 Revolving Door 1 Ortiz 3
Bench 1 1 1
Total 31.5 39 37
S1 Shields 4.5 Sabathia 6 Lester 4
S2 Price 4 Pineda 3 Beckett 4
S3 Moore 2.5 Nova 2 Bard 2
S4 Niemann 2 Garcia 1.5 Buchholz 1.5
S5 Hellickson 1.5 Burnett 1.5 Lackey 1.5
Total 14.5 14 13
Total Total 46 53 50
  • Given that replacement level for a team is ~48.5 wins, this projects the Rays for 94.5 wins, Yankees for 101.5 wins, and Red Sox for 98.5 wins. Clearly my projections were still a little generous on the whole, probably due to health and such.
  • The hardest player to project was Jacoby Ellsbury, no question.
  • The Red Sox as a whole have a very high variance roster. Beckett, Ellsbury, Crawford, and Youkilis all have the potential to be worth more than 6 wins. They also could all be worth no more than 2 wins. Still, even if they end up in between, they'll still be very good players.
  • In the end, these projections are just predictions, and they have little value more than just looking at last year's statistics. No need to get too hung up on them.

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