Bill James 2011 Projections

The first 2011 projections are out, courtesy of Bill James. Player pages at FanGraphs have them available for individual players!

So, does Bill James see the 2011 M's offense rebounding at all? Let's look at the wOBA projections:

	2010	2011 projection
Adam Moore	.224	.303
Justin Smoak	.300	.343
Chone Figgins	.302	.323
Jack Wilson	.262	.290
Jose Lopez	.268	.307
Michael Saunders	.296	.313
Franklin Gutierrez	.300	.322
Ichiro	.338	.338
Milton Bradley	.289	.349

Of the nine players listed, eight are expected to be noticeably better, and Ichiro is expected to be as good as this past year. These are only projections of course, so there is no guarantee that the season plays out anything close to these numbers. Nobody predicted the M's offense to be as bad as it was last year.

But, to a degree, that is the point. The only thing less likely than the year the M's just went through at the plate would be another year just like it. James's projections illustrate the concept of regression to the mean, and why it is reasonable to expect the Mariners offense to be better next year, even if they do nothing at all.