"Don't you dare!": Reyes's Forecast for '05

Remember when Jose Reyes looked so good as a SS prospect that the Mets were the envy of every team in baseball... or at least pitied somewhat less? Well stop reading if you're squeamish, because here is what PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus's wholly empirical and eerily accurate forecasting system, expects from him in 2005:

418 AB, 6 HR, 25 BB, 57 K with a line of 262/304/374

Even at shortstop, those numbers are atrocious. But here's the real beauty part: PECOTA also assigns a percent chance that a player will significantly improve over their baseline forecast. In Reyes's case that number is about 9%, and he's got a 1 in 4 chance of improving on that line at all.

I wish I could say that this quantitative doomsaying was at odds with what I've seen of Reyes, but, in the words of Eli Cash, "I can't say no." With precious few extra-base exceptions, he's a free swinging, light-hitting shortstop. Sure, he's still 22, but he's also our starting shortstop. The slack has to end at some point, and if he doesn't beat that projection I'd say he will have passed it.

At least the forecast is sunnier for his double play partner, as Kazuo is expected to post about a 740 OPS with good speed.

Aside: Apparently, in my eager anticipation of the Mets signing Delgado, I "made" him a Met on my PECOTA spreadsheet and never changed it back. Sorting by team and then by VORP, it's a much nicer sight to see Beltran-Delgado-Wright as the top three than Beltran-Wright-Matsui, but what's done is done. Now the Marlins don't appear to have prospect Josh Willingham as their third most productive player.

Notes:

The Cubs traded Kyle Farnsworth for very little, sticking with this offseason's organizational strategy of kicking the talent to the curb. He never did really harness his guatamalan-ness (his natural heat), but he was a damn servicable right arm who could fan some batters. It just means more work for Hawkins, Remlinger, and onetime "Closer" Joe Borowski. Jim Hendry has stumped me with this one.

The Giambi situation is indeed bizarre, but I'm not as disappointed as some that his apology didn't contain any explicit confession whatsoever. This "he apologized, but for what?" business is pure rubbish. Everyone knows what he's apologizing for. People just want to hear a detailed account so they can cross-check it with their copies of "Juiced." I don't know whether Giambi really was legally restricted from spilling his guts, but since we all have a pretty good idea what he's been up to I'm not sure what the rush is. Grand jury testimony is supposed to be sealed anyway.