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Friday, January 27, 2006

PECOTA Drubs The Halos

Derek Jacques at Baseball Prospectus -- or maybe I should say PECOTA -- blasts the Angels for their offseason:
Given the current roster composition, PECOTA projects that the Angels would be the second-worst offensive team in the league, after the Royals, in 2006. That’s even with highly-touted Casey Kotchman taking over at first base, and incumbent first baseman Darin Erstad returning to center field. The next wave of Los Angeles of Anaheimian offensive talent--shortstop Brandon Wood, second baseman Howie Kendrick, Cuban refugee Kendry Morales--have played a grand total of four games at the Triple-A level (all by Wood), and are each presently blocked at the major league level. While one has to admire the Angels’ player development system, and their discipline in thinking of the long-term, this season could prove a rude awakening for Angels fans who have grown used to contending over the past few years.
Which is to say, second place may even be a bit ambitious.

Comments:
I will say this: PECOTA is notoriously unreliable when dealing with rookie- or near-rookie-level players.
 
I agree with Matt. Besides, I was already on board with this year being a transition year (I didn't support them picking up any bats this offseason...and they didn't). They won two division championships in a row and now they are going to be trying to break in a couple of young guys a year for awhile (Dallas, Kotch, Quinlan, and Mathis this year; probably some combination of Weaver, Wood, Kendrick, Morales, etc. over the two after that).
 
when is someone going to make a site that holds these predictie methods to some scrutiny?

It is getting a bit Miss Clio among the stat-wonks.

Of course, if someone were to post the results of all the awful predictions, the rationalizations posted as comments would cause the poor site to crash!
 
Why did the site crash the other day?
 
Aw, damn, you're in the HT Annual? I might actually have to buy a copy...
 
Sounds like the same drivel they wrote before the 2002 season when the Angels won the World Series.
 
The Angels were 7th in the AL in runs scored last year. In order to drop to second-worst, they would have had to score 63 fewer runs.

Given that the Angels may have only one player with an OPS over 800 next season, I think it's possible that the offense will be that bad...
 
That may be so, Matt. But Angels pitching will be much worse than last year. Washburn was preturnaturally good, and so was Byrd. Santana will have to show me he knows how to be consistent, something he's had a problem with throughout his minor league career. And this squad has no significant depth in the rotation outside of Hector Corrasco, unless you want to impress Shields into the rotation.
 

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