Bill James: Zorilla to struggle in 2010

Bill James, who makes a pretty good living predicting the future bases on the past, is not high on Ben Zobrist in 2010. According to the Bill James Handbook 2010, '10 won't be > than '09 for Zorilla.

Here is the release ...

In the recently-released Bill James Handbook 2010, baseball guru Bill James projects the 2010 seasons for players on the Tampa Bay Rays—and predicts a slight down-turn offensively from second baseman Ben Zobrist.

“In any season, the vast majority of players play in a manner that seems a natural extension of what they had done before,” James says in his new book. “When that happens, our projection should be reasonably accurate.

With this in mind, here are five key Tampa Bay hitters for 2010, according to the new Bill James Handbook 2010:

Key Rays Hitters (by OPS)
Player At-bats R HR RBI SB Avg. OPS
Evan Longoria 595 106 37 120 9 .287 .918
Ben Zobrist 509 86 23 75 15 .281 .876
Carlos Pena 530 88 36 99 3 .240 .858
Carl Crawford 528 82 12 62 41 .295 .786
B.J. Upton 507 81 13 59 39 .266 .768

Projecting stats for pitchers is very different from projecting offensive stats for hitters.

"We used to believe that pitching performance was much, much less predictable than batter performance," James says. "This is probably still true...due to injuries and other factors. Sometimes a pitcher gets hurt, and when that happens our projections for him are knocked into a cocked hat."

Here are three key Tampa Bay pitchers for 2010, according to the new Bill James Handbook 2010:

Key Rays Pitchers (by ERA)
Player IP W L K SV ERA
James Shields 220 14 11 178 0 3.80
Matt Garza 201 12 10 175 0 3.85
David Price 180 10 10 157 0 4.30

The complete projections for the 2010 Tampa Bay Rays can be found in the Bill James Handbook 2010.