From the horse's mouth

The horse in question being BP's Nate Silver, who designed PECOTA was good enough to respond to my question in today's chat (The screen name refers to my alma mater, not the defending NL champs or the Catholic prelate):

Cardinal991 (New York): How bad does it look for Jose Reyes? His 2005 PECOTA is so bad, does he still project to be an above-average SS down the road? His star has faded about as fast as any once-coveted prospect I can recall.

Nate Silver: Reyes' PECOTA has also faded about as fast as anybody that I can remember, at least in the three long years that I've been doing this. PECOTA expected him to stay healthy and post a .261 EqA last year, which would have been fantastic for a 21-year-old shortstop; instead he got hurt and had an ugly .237 EqA. He's off the Roberto Alomar career track and on the Garry Templeton career track.

In Monday's post (conveniently linked for those unwilling or unable to scroll), I pointed out the ugly prognosis for Reyes. It's a hollow vindication to have Mr. PECOTA himself confirm that it's time to ratchet expectations down many, many notches from 2002. Here is Templeton's career. He did make three All-Star teams, but damn Nate, that's still ice cold.

Notes

Baseball America has named Carlos Quentin the Diamondbacks' #1 prospect. No surprise there. He did hit 357/433/533 at Double-A El Paso after his promotion last year, and while it's true that El Paso is one of the more hitter-friendly locales in the minor leagues, Quentin is only 22. Some organizations have better prospects, but the D-Backs are not one of them. He's still recovering from Tommy John surgery, which sounds strange for a position player, but BA praises him for showing that "bulldog mentality" by playing through the injury at Stanford. Ugh.

I cannot wait for some Spring Training results and storylines (even the "Griffey feels 100%" one) to take Jose Canseco off the front/back pages. I don't think I'm alone.

It's old news by now, but the Twins did themselves a huge favor by locking Santana up. Both sides were happy to avoid arbitration, huh?

Twins: "We're not willing to pay you $6.8 million. Five is the best we can do."
Santana: [lifts up AL Cy Young award in one hand and birth certificate dated March '79 in the other]
Arbitrator: "6.8 it is."