Absurd Projections Part 2

It's hard to believe, but the baseball season is already one-fifth done. That's 20% gone, in the books and the Angels stand alone in first place at 17-15, one game up on Seattle.

At this pace the Angels will win 86 games which I doubt will be enough to win the West. Fortunately, no other team has got off to a hot start and ran away with the West.

A couple weeks ago I projected some season totals for the Angels players based on their first 16 games. Now that they have played 32, the same ridiculous projections can be made by multiplying their statistics by 5. I completely understand that there is no science behind this and that's exactly why I like doing it.

I'll start by looking at some of the projections and see how they're coming along.

Gary Matthews will hit 0 home runs. - At the time, Matthews had yet to go deep. He's now hit 2 long balls which puts him on pace for 10 this season. About half of the 19 he hit last year.

Orlando Cabrera will not commit an error, score 70 runs and hit in 40. - Cabrera finally made an error which puts him on pace for a fantastically low 5 errors this season. His bat has picked up as he is now on pace to score 100 runs and drive in 70 runs.

Vladimir Guerrero will have 40 hr and 130 rbi - In other words, a typical season for Vlad. He's currently on pace for MVP type number - 45 hr and 150 rbi.

John Lackey and Joe Saunders will have 20 win seasons - Lackey is still on pace with a record of 4-3 (projected 20-15), but Saunders is now only projected to have 15 wins - 10 in the majors and 5 in the minors.

Francisco Rodriguez will record 50 saves - After the first 16 games, Frankie had 5 saves. After 32 games, he has 10 saves. I would say that is consistent with 50 games this year.

Ervin Santana will go 10-0 at home and 0-20 on the road - Sadly this projection is still dead on. Santana is 2-0 (1.93 era) at home and 0-4 (7.97 era) on the road.

Kelvim Escobar will go on the DL 10 times this season - Good news, Kelvim is still healthy. Bad news for Garret Anderson and Bartolo Colon.

Now a couple of new projections

Scot Shields will surrender 15 long balls - He's given up 3 home runs already this season. He's only allowed an average of 6 per season for the past three years. Amazingly his whip (0.90) and baa (.148) are career lows, he has just been tagged for too many dingers.

Vladimir Guerrero will be the only Angel to hit more than 10 home runs - This is pathetic. Vlad leads the team with 9. There is a three way tie for second - Howie Kendrick, Gary Matthews Jr & Casey Kotchman all have hit a whopping 2 home runs each.