If you were too busy gorging yourself on chocolate today, pitchers and catchers reported!! Hope springs eternal!!

In honor of this most wonderful of days, I’m happy to let you all know that I’m very close to finishing up work on the "wisdom of the crowds" projections similar to those I posted last year. This year we have SEVEN different projection systems included, and that’s what has caused the delay… I was waiting for one more to be posted and it was just released today.

However, keep in mind that you have to take some projections with a grain of salt… for example, THREE of these systems included projections for Joe Kennedy, who passed away over the winter, several included Craig Biggio, who is most definitely retired, and one projected ZERO saves for Brandon Lyon, even though he’s already been named the closer (and the projections were released after that news became widely known).

That said, it’s interesting to see how many projections can be so close on so many guys, while also differing so much on other guys. I’m not going to provide the individual projections out of respect to the various companies (some of who charge for these products), but here are two to illustrate how much these things can vary for some guys but be so close for others.

1. Josh Willingham

PRO. AVG R  HR RBI SB
1   .271   85  23  82  7
2   .265   68  23  76  6
3   .268   74  23  79  6
4   .276   68  22  79  5
5   .268   71  23  83  6
6   .274   80  25  87  4
7   .266   70  22  76  4

I’d say that represents a high level of confidence, eh? On the other hand…

2. Maggio Ordonez

PRO. AVG R  HR  RBI  SB
1   .306   83   19   88    5
2   .302   91   23  111   2
3   .308   89   21   99    2
4   .322   92   23  112   2
5   .311   95   24  113   2
6   .297   71   16   88    1
7   .309   72   17   91    0

Obviously there’s some disagreement in the projection world over how to handle his monster comeback season from last year!

Anyway, this is all part of the fun. I should be done with this and have everything posted next week. Have a great weekend!

Thanks,
Cory