Fan Projection Targets – 12/28/09
Today’s three targets share two things in common: 1) each is a centerfielder, and 2) each stands shorter than 6′. They are Rajai Davis, Tony Gwynn (Jr.), and Brett Gardner.
Here’s a random thought about each.
Here’s a fun fact to show anyone that thinks Billy Beane holds the same thoughts as he did in Moneyball: Davis has attempted 84 steals in the last two seasons. In 2002, the A’s attempted 66… as a team.
The most annoying aspect about Gwynn is that the FanGraphs linker tool doesn’t know whether I mean him or his father. Argh.
Raise your hand if you had Gardner outlasting Melky Cabrera in the Bronx three years ago. Yep, this is why rosterbating years in advance often leads to blindness.
You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
So maybe I didn’t see Gardner outlasting him three years ago, but when he first came up almost two years ago, I was hoping and praying Cashman would ditch the Melkman. Gardner has better range, a better arm (or did that stat ever normalize after his freakish showing earlier in the year?), and can get on base more. Best reason for making the Granderson trade was to get him in the lineup.
Done re-hashing old analysis now. Carry on.