Early Season Sox Projections That Won't Come True
OFFENSE:
- After 21 games and 83 AB's, David Ortiz has just 2 homeruns; that projects to 15 on the season. Ortiz hasn't hit less than 31 long balls in a season during his 5 year tenure in Boston. He's coming off minor knee surgery, but I'll still take the over... way over.
- After 21 games and 79 AB's, Manny Ramirez has 22 strikeouts; that projects to 169 on the season. Manny's never had more than 147 strikeouts in a single season and had just 92 last year. Way under.
- After 22 games and 88 AB's, Dustin Pedroia has 3 stolen bases; that projects to 22 on the season. Dusty had 7 SB's last year and is one of the slowest little men in the league, so we're going under here. With 3 SB's already, double digits is a possibility, though.
- After 21 games and 82 AB's, Kevin Youkilis has 29 hits; that projects to 222 on the season. That's a lot... seriously... it would tie Youk for 75th on the all time single season hits leaders list. He had 159 and 152 in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Under.
- After 20 games and 74 AB's, Julio Lugo has been caught stealing twice; that projects to 16 CS's on the season. He's never been caught more than 11 times in a season and was gunned down just 6 times last year. I like seeing Lowrie steal some time from Lugo, but he'll play 140+ games and still get the under.
- After 18 games and 61 AB's, Jason Varitek has 3 homeruns; that projects to 27 on the season. Tek's never hit more than 25 homers in a single year, and even that happened during his age 31-32 season. He also won't get as many AB's as this projection presupposes. I'll say under.
- After 18 games and 63 AB's, J.D. Drew has 18 strikeouts; that projects to 158 on the season. His career high in strikeouts is 116. I think the under's a safe bet.
- After 20 games and 52 AB's, Jacoby Ellsbury has 8 stolen bases; that projects to 64 on the season. It looks like he's got the speed to be a top 10 SB guy for years, but he won't get enough starts to prove it this year (at least as long as Coco's on the team). Under... unfortunately.
- After 9 games played and 30 AB's, Mike Lowell has zero homeruns; that projects to... well... zero on the season. He's averaged just over 20 homers per season in his 9+ year career and has been sidelined for the past 2 weeks. Can I take the over? Yes I can.
- After 5 games started, Daisuke Matsuzaka has 4 victories; that projects to 39 games started and 31 wins on the season. 39 starts is a little - okay, a lot - on the high side (he started 32 last year) and 31 wins would easily make Dice-K the leader in single season wins among active pitchers (Clemens, Johnson and Smoltz all have 24-win seasons). We'll go under on GS and way under on W (17-19 seems where he's headed).
- After 3 games started, Josh Beckett has 16 K's; that projects to 23 games started and 123 K's on the season. He's started 29, 33 and 30 games in his past 3 seasons and the lowest strikeout total he posted in any of those years was 158. We all know about his injury-riddled history, but I'm going over and over.
- After 10 games and 11.0 innings pitched, Jonathan Papelbon has 7 saves; that projects to 52 on the season. You know, Pap looks like he could be the next 50+ save closer, so this may not be that outlandish. The Sox seem intent on keeping him on a somewhat short leash with Delcarmen and Okajima stealing save opportunities here and there, so I'll tentatively take the under. But would any of us be very surprised if "Cinco Ocho" cracked 50 saves? I think not.
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