Offseason Notes, With Some Cespedes Projections

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Four Projections for Yoenis Cespedes
2. A Fifth Projection for Yoenis Cespedes
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Toronto Television

Four Projections for Yoenis Cespedes
As you are very likely aware, Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes agreed to a four-year, $36 million contract with Oakland on Monday. Naturally, the next question to ask is, “How well will he play in the majors?”

Below are projections from four different sources — with some serious caveats. Caveat No. 1: from what I can tell, only the the ZiPS slash-line below is adjusted for park. This is a big deal, as the Coliseum depresses wOBA by about 5% for both left- and right-handed batters. Caveat No. 2: the WAR projections are per 600 plate appearances and very rough. Each one is derived merely from the slash line, working under the assumption that Cespedes is an average major-league center fielder. (If Cespedes is merely an average corner outfielder, remove about a win from each of the WAR600 projections.) Also, in terms of run environment, I’ve used league-average wOBA of .320. Caveat No. 3: generally speaking, I have no idea what I’m doing. If you sense any errors here, do not hesitate to inform me of same in the comments section below. The idea here is merely to put some offensive projections on equal footing with each other.

Now here are those projections, from most to least optimistic:

CAIRO: .272/.318/.483, 3.5 WAR600

Davenport: .260/.325/.458, 3.3 WAR600

ZiPS: .265/.329/.418*, 3.2 WAR600

OLIVER: .266/.308/.447, 2.6 WAR600

*Slash-line is park adjusted.

A Fifth Projection for Yoenis Cespedes
I cannot speak to the accuracy of this projection, courtesy Andrew Bryz-Gornia.

@cistulli I project Cespedes to find the key to your heart by July.

— Andrew Bryz-Gornia (@Bryz_OffTheMark) February 15, 2012

Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Toronto Television
This offseason, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs. (Click here for more on this project.)

Rate other teams: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago (AL) / Chicago (NL) / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Miami / Houston / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL, Home Games) / Los Angeles (NL, Away Games) / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York (AL) / New York (NL) / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas.