With my NFBC team pretty much out of it right out of the gate, I’ve been given some free time to start the process for projecting the 2008 season.
Winston Churchill said it best when he said, “The further backward you look, the further forward you can see.” In my particular case he also said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
With that in mind here are the average Major League baseball team’s statistics since 2003. I have pro-rated the 2007 season up to 162 games.
|
Year |
G |
AB |
R |
H |
2B |
3B |
HR |
TB |
RBI |
SO |
BB |
HB |
IW |
SB |
CS |
BA |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
|
2003 |
162 |
5558 |
766 |
1469 |
294 |
31 |
174 |
2346 |
730 |
1027 |
530 |
62 |
44 |
86 |
38 |
.264 |
.332 |
.422 |
.754 |
|
2004 |
162 |
5578 |
779 |
1484 |
297 |
30 |
182 |
2386 |
742 |
1061 |
541 |
62 |
46 |
86 |
37 |
.266 |
.335 |
.428 |
.763 |
|
2005 |
162 |
5545 |
744 |
1466 |
295 |
30 |
167 |
2323 |
708 |
1021 |
507 |
60 |
41 |
86 |
36 |
.264 |
.330 |
.419 |
.749 |
|
2006 |
162 |
5578 |
787 |
1502 |
305 |
32 |
180 |
2409 |
750 |
1055 |
528 |
61 |
47 |
92 |
37 |
.269 |
.336 |
.432 |
.768 |
|
2007 |
162 |
5586 |
777 |
1496 |
307 |
31 |
165 |
2361 |
741 |
1066 |
537 |
58 |
44 |
97 |
33 |
.268 |
.335 |
.422 |
.758 |
There are a couple of noticeable trends here. There has been a significant drop in home runs in 2007. That drop existed in 2005, but a number of power hitters were hurt that year including Jim Thome and Frank Thomas. 2005 can be easily explained but 2007 cannot. I’m sure anabolic steroids played a role as did the uniform storage of baseballs in humidity controlled rooms. The question is will this trend continue?
Before I answer that question, I’d also like to look at stolen bases. As you can see, there is an opposite trend in stolen bases. After hovering at 86 from 2003 to 2005, they have gone up significantly.
What I would like you to pay particular attention to is how runs dropped in 2005. Power was down and speed was not used to compensate. In 2007, the use of speed was used to compensate for the reduction in power.
I’m going to make the claim that in general, the player who hits for power does not steal bases and the player who steals bases doesn’t hit for power. I know that is not always true. David Wright quickly comes to mind. I’m stereotyping here. The reason I’m making that claim is that I believe one can use the increase or decrease in power and speed to predict the other category.
If power is truly down, then managers will use speed to compensate for the reduction in power. We are seeing a downward trend in power and an increase in speed. Therefore, the decrease in power is real and is not a statistical anomaly.
That is important because if power is truly down, then the value of power will increase and therefore so will the cost. On the other hand, speed will see a reduction of value and price.
With this data, I did some trend analysis using the Least Squares method to guess what the 2008 results will be.
Runs: 780
Homeruns: 168
RBI: 743
Stolen Bases: 98
So, the math says that based upon the trends in these categories, there will be some recovery in homeruns, but not much. Speed will increase slightly. Runs and RBI will increase due to the increase in the other two categories. Based upon what I’ve seen, I agree with the math. There are a number of impact-rookies who have had their first or second seasons in the books. There power should begin to replace the older power hitters of the steroid era. We will no longer see 180 home run seasons and it won’t be long before the average team steals over 100 bases.
JP Kastner is the winner of the 2007 Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online Expert League World Series. In five seasons of SOMBOE, JP Kastner has five winning seasons, four playoff appearances, three World Series appearances and now one World Championship. He is in his second season in the Tout Wars mixed league.