For baseball junkies (such as myself), the season never really ends. After the regular season comes the postseason. After the postseason comes the Arizona Fall League. After the AFL comes the Hot Stove League which includes tons of player movement and all the offseason analysis and projections. That leads right in to Spring Training and then boom, we’re playing for real again!
Bill James usually has the first set of projections out with his yearly Handbook and then Fangraphs will incorporate them into their player profiles. We now have our second set out as Chone Smith has released his 2010 CHONE hitting projections found here. If I recall from last year, the CHONE system is ULTRA conservative with its projections. Almost no growth for anybody. Meanwhile, James takes a lot more chances with his numbers. All both of them really are is another data point. I wouldn’t trust either blindly, of course that’s true of any projection set even if you love the outlet that dispenses them.
The Player Profiles moving forward will now include both the James and CHONE projections along with my own. Well the hitting ones will, the pitching ones will only have James and my own as CHONE hasn’t finished his pitchers yet.
The hottest name going this fall was that of Oakland A’s prospect Grant Desme. Desme played three years of college split between San Diego State and Cal Poly. He did nothing of consequence the first two seasons hitting a whopping .280 (84-for-300) with nine home runs and 50 RBIs. You can hit .280 in the majors and make millions of dollars. Heck, even .280 in the minors will at least garner some attention if you’re the right age or below for the class you’re in. But .280 in college is utter trash. It’s like .280 in softball.
His final year of college got him drafted. He nearly doubled his power (from eight to 15 home runs in the same 195 at-bat sample), raised his average 118 points to .405 and struck out less while walking more (from 2.6 to 1.4 in K:BB rate). He was drafted in the second round (74th overall) by the A’s. He played a bit in short season that year, but then lost almost the entire 2008 season to injury after just two games. It was a combination of shoulder and wrist injuries that felled him. So basically 2009 served as the team’s first real look at their second round pick. Splitting time between A and A+, Desme had a solid season hitting .288/.365/.568 with 31 home runs, 89 RBIs and 40 stolen bases. But he was also 23 years old so he was a man amongst boys.
As I mentioned earlier, he’s now tearing up the AFL hitting .344/.438/.740 with 11 home runs and 27 RBIs. The question is where will he start 2010? Will he skip AA completely and go to AAA? For now, I would temper my expectations for Desme as all of his big time production has come in very favorable surroundings. I want to see how he performs when he isn’t in an extreme hitter’s league or when he isn’t the oldest of the bunch. In the meantime, I hope he keeps hitting home runs.
He is a quick breakdown of him swinging and missing badly at a pitch before bouncing back within the at-bat and getting a base hit.
Baseball By Paul 