Projection Dejection

A buddy of mine, who knows I’m a sucker for baseball books, recently gave me a copy of the 1993 Elias Baseball Analyst that had been lying around his house. I’m pretty sure I had all the Elias books back in the day, but time and circumstances have led them who-knows-where.

The 1993 edition, like the entire series, is full of numbers and little tidbits such as the fact that Bob Welch absolutely owned Wade Boggs (1-for-27 against him at the time). It also contains an unfortunate attempt to project the future performance of rookies.

Here’s a quick look at the projected career home-run totals of a few current and former big-leaguers:

“Best Guess”

• Chad Curtis: 56
• Mike Piazza 17
• Tim Salmon: 9
• Jim Thome: 27

The best guess projection had Curtis finishing with more home runs than Piazza, Salmon, and Thome combined. As anyone who has been paying attention to the sport over the past 13 years will know, this didn’t quite happen. In Curtis’ defense, it’s awfully difficult to average 119 home runs a year for an entire decade.

Salmon’s projected total is particularly amusing. He ranks behind such luminaries as Ruben Amaro Jr., Kim Batiste, Chuck Carr, Archi Cianfrocco, Scott Cooper, Monty Farriss, Carlos Hernandez, Steve Hosey… forget it, I’m not going past the H’s.

“Optimistic”

• Chad Curtis: 143
• Mike Piazza 80
• Tim Salmon: 110
• Jim Thome: 151

I like Piazza’s optimistic projection. He actually reached it by the time he was 26 years old. The 339 homers he’s hit since then are just gravy.

Not to pick on Elias, but this sort of thing makes you wonder what kind of algorithm was being used to translate minor-league statistics. Piazza had complied a .512 slugging percentage in over 1400 minor-league at-bats before he arrived to stay with the Dodgers toward the end of the 1992 season. The optimistic projection gave Piazza a career line of .266/.322/.421. That’s not Piazza, that’s Darrin Fletcher.

Actual

• Chad Curtis: 101
• Mike Piazza 419
• Tim Salmon: 299
• Jim Thome: 472

The two players who still are active — Piazza and Thome — one day will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Salmon, whose career was cut short by injuries, had some fine seasons himself and was one of the more feared hitters in the American League through much of the ’90s.

Curtis, meantime, made a living as a roughly league average journeyman outfielder. Cooperstown? He never even made it to an All-Star game.

Point of all this? Even when it’s done well, projecting future performance is an inexact science. When it’s done as it was in the 1993 Elias Baseball Analyst, the results can be downright laughable.