Fan Projection Targets: 12/3/2009
Today’s targets are: Gregg Zaun, Rich Harden, Dan Uggla.
Zaun is a popular target among teams who are looking for a veteran catcher and has said he will sign this week. What will he do at age 39?
Harden is being pursued by several teams lured by his upside, but his durability is always a question. How many innings do you think he’ll throw?
Uggla is the most likely player to be traded at the winter meetings next week. Do you see him as a 2B or a 3B next year? How will he hit?
Yesterday, you guys projected Kelly Shoppach at +2.5 wins, Josh Johnson at +5.3 wins, and Jake Peavy at +3.8 wins. It looks like you guys are expecting good things from all three.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I’ve been waiting to hear about Harden’s signing before projecting him. As a pretty extreme FB pitcher, I want to know about his park before I prognosticate his HR/9. Since I absolutely love hard-throwing power pitchers that strike out a batter an inning, I’m not likely to forget to update this projection when the Mariners sign him. (Please, please, please, Jack, sign him to a one year contract.)
Gregg Zaun and Rich Harden, eh? I seem to recall reading about both of these guys in a recent blog post at ussmariner.com, written by…
hey, wait a minute!
When will you do a projection for Kenny Powers.
When the next season comes out I’m sure we’ll revisit the greatest pitcher who ever lived.
There are errors linking to the fan projection forum, sorry for the news.
Should be fixed.
There are errors all over the site right now. I assume it’s a temporary technical issue and we should just check back later….
I think everything should be fixed now, though I only noticed errors on the projection pages. Guess something broke when I uploaded some new code about 10 minutes ago.
Three days, three Marlins (or one soon-to-be ex-Marlin, I suppose). I like it Dave(s)!
In the projection, fans are asked to project games played and batting order slot but not PAs. For an everyday player like Uggla or Jay Bruce, it’s a pretty straight-forward translation, but for someone like Zaun (because of age, position and lack of speed), it is not so clear. He is much more likely to be brought into a game or taken out in the middle innings.
The result is that the fans have projected significantly fewer games for Zaun than James did, but significantly more PAs.