Project your 2011 Florida Marlins!

This offseason, I figured we could go ahead and begin the process of thinking about 2011 extremely way too early by attempting to project the 2011 Florida Marlins and how well they will play next year. In order to do that, I decided to enlist the assistance of you, the Marlin Maniac readers, to figure out how well the team will do next year. I created a set of Google Docs forms where you can make an input as to how well a player will perform in four different categories. Here’s how it works:

1) You name a player of your choice that you think will be on the 2011 Florida Marlins (try to restrict yourself to players already on the roster).

2) You predict the number of games he will start and in what part of the lineup he will hit. This will approximate playing time. In these categories, try to keep in mind things such as injury risk or team roles whenever possible.

3) You predict that player’s strikeout rate (K%), walk rate (BB%), extra-base hits per PA (XBH%), and BABIP (batting average on balls in play).

Now this may seem like a bit of a daunting task, so I will provide some assistance. The following are the 2010 and three-year averages of these stats for all position players that are currently on the Marlins roster. I’ll also provide the 2010 range for each statistic among qualified players in both leagues. After the jump, you’ll find the table and the ballot.

Player (2010)	PA	K%	BB%	XBH%	BABIP
John Buck	434	25.4%	3.7%	10.3%	.335
Gaby Sanchez	643	15.7%	8.9%	9.2%	.299
Omar Infante	506	12.3%	5.7%	5.1%	.355
Hanley Ramirez	619	15.0%	10.3%	6.6%	.327
Chris Coghlan	400	21.0%	8.3%	7.0%	.336
Logan Morrison	287	17.8%	14.3%	10.1%	.351
Emilio Bonifacio	201	21.0%	8.5%	4.5%	.333
Mike Stanton	396	31.1%	8.6%	11.1%	.330
John Baker	88	20.5%	10.2%	4.5%	.283
Wes Helms	287	26.5%	9.1%	7.0%	.294

Player (Three-Year)	PA	K%	BB%	XBH%	BABIP
John Buck	1057	24.8%	6.3%	9.6%	.306
Gaby Sanchez	674	15.7%	8.7%	8.8%	.298
Omar Infante	1083	12.3%	6.5%	6.3%	.343
Hanley Ramirez	1964	16.1%	11.0%	9.6%	.346
Chris Coghlan	965	16.7%	8.9%	7.7%	.354
Logan Morrison	287	17.8%	14.3%	10.1%	.351
Emilio Bonifacio	896	20.4%	7.3%	4.2%	.319
Mike Stanton	396	31.1%	8.6%	11.1%	.330
John Baker	744	20.8%	10.7%	7.7%	.337
Wes Helms	799	24.4%	7.0%	6.3%	.312

Stat	2010 Average	2010 High	2010 Low
K%	18.5%	35.4%	6.3%
BB%	8.5%	16.0%	3.0%
XBH%	7.5%	13.5%	2.7%
BABIP	.297	.396	.196

Strikeout rate (K%): K / PA
Walk rate (BB%): BB / PA
Extra base hits / PA (XBH%): (2B + 3B + HR) / PA
Batting average on balls in play (BABIP): (H – HR) / (AB – K + SF)

Keep in mind with regards to these stats that K%, BB%, and XBH% are more likely to be closer to your career averages while BABIP is more likely to be closer to the league average. That is, the first three are much more likely to stabilize for a player at around their three-year average, but a BABIP is going to be closer than the rest of them to the league average. That being said, readers of Marlin Maniac I am sure are familiar with most of these terms and what they mean*.

*If there’s one term you’re likely to be unfamiliar with, it is BABIP. Here’s a quick definition, and I’ll add to that that while BABIP for pitchers is much more likely to hover around .300, most batters have a decent enough control of BABIP that predicting values like .320 or .330 isn’t out of line. Anything past .340 is usually not predictable though. A similar effect can be seen below .300 as well.

From this data, hopefully you can help me by putting in your best guesses and voting for your favorite Marlins! I’ll keep track of this as the offseason rolls along and debut the actual numbers sometime in January or February. I’ll make a page with a link to this up at the top of the site as well. This can be the official Marlin Maniac Fan Projection, entirely consistent of votes by you, the readers! Vote for as many players as you’d like, but please only vote for each player once! I’ll have the pitchers up at the end of the week in a similar format.

Without further ado, here is the form:

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