February 7, 2006
BASEBALL: PECOTA 2006
David Pinto points out that Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections (subscribers only) are out for 2006. A few quick notes:
1. I notice that, by BP's reckoning, the fourth-most similar player to Coco Crisp at the same age is . . . Johnny Damon.
2. BP's 5-year projections for Ichiro are grim, showing him never again batting as high as .310 and being out of baseball after four more years. I assume his late-starting career makes Ichiro hard to project, career-wise.
3. Maybe it's just inherent conservatism for low-minors rookies (although it's not manifested in the projections for Andy Marte), but PECOTA is just brutal on Lastings Milledge, essentially projecting him as a below-league-average hitter for the next four seasons. Even if you think Milledge isn't ready yet - he presumably isn't - that seems like a long time to wait, at the end of which the projected payoff is a 25-year-old batting .285/.488/.347. Most likely PECOTA just isn't equipped to make long-range projections of prospects; if not, Mets fans are getting all excited about a guy who has years to go to pull even with Mike Cameron, and behind Cliff Floyd, with the bat.
Much of Milledges success will be determined by his ability to control the strike zone, which at his age is still questionable. I am hopin but....
Milledge doesn't currently walk a lot, but he doesn't walk ridiculously little, and he also doesn't strike out much. I think his numbers in that regard a pretty encouraging, although this season is likely critical to whether he's going to be a fast-track star, or a guy who will take three or four years to find himself in the big leagues.