2012 Astros Projections

Before I reveal the numbers, I want to explain how I came up with them. I'll keep it brief.

First, I needed to determine everyone's playing time. For this, I used the depth charts (may be behind a premium content firewall) over at Baseball Prospectus as a guide and adjusted where I felt necessary. Using those percentages and the average number of plate appearances per team last season I arrived at everyone's projected plate appearances. I used a similar idea for the pitchers' innings, again tweaking where I felt best.

Once I had everyone's playing time set, I turned my attention to the rate stats. For the hitters that meant walk rates, strikeout rates, rates of extra base hits, etc. Again, the process was very similar for the pitchers. These rates were derived from a loose averaging of the projections available at Fangraphs and the players career averages. Minor adjustments were made for those with very small major league sample sizes. From there, simple multiplication spit out their projections.

For the W-L record, I simply plugged the projected runs scored and runs against into the Pythagorean win theorem formula and out popped  the projected record. Last year our Pythagorean record was 62-100, meaning in theory we under achieved by six wins.

Obviously any major changes in roster make up (trades, injuries, etc) could change things dramatically. 

I feel like it's a little optimistic, but I can't find any major errors in the formulas or calculations.

Screw it, I'm running with it!

	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Lee	600	556	70	151	31	1	23	94	2	44	59	0.272	0.326	0.455	0.781
Altuve	578	556	66	160	32	3	5	58	19	22	72	0.287	0.314	0.382	0.696
Martinez	555	517	68	146	33	0	15	86	0	38	109	0.282	0.332	0.435	0.767
Schafer	489	445	60	109	18	3	4	24	23	44	107	0.244	0.312	0.326	0.638
Lowrie	478	434	59	112	30	4	10	61	2	44	82	0.258	0.326	0.417	0.744
Castro	455	410	53	97	19	2	5	46	0	45	81	0.237	0.312	0.332	0.644
Johnson	421	402	39	107	23	3	11	51	3	19	99	0.266	0.299	0.416	0.715
Bogusevic	414	378	51	97	19	2	7	35	10	36	91	0.257	0.322	0.378	0.700
Downs	404	373	46	94	30	0	13	52	1	31	77	0.251	0.308	0.438	0.746
Shuck	298	268	37	72	9	3	1	10	8	30	33	0.268	0.343	0.332	0.675
Ruggiano	297	278	35	70	13	0	9	33	5	19	75	0.250	0.297	0.398	0.695
Snyder	270	235	26	54	11	0	9	34	0	35	62	0.228	0.328	0.390	0.718
Gonzalez	270	256	29	68	13	2	2	23	4	14	35	0.265	0.303	0.357	0.661
Buck	231	213	25	51	13	2	6	25	2	18	46	0.241	0.300	0.399	0.700
Wallace	165	152	16	39	9	0	3	13	0	13	39	0.257	0.317	0.389	0.706
F. Martinez	164	154	17	36	8	0	3	14	3	10	34	0.231	0.278	0.339	0.617
Sanchez	61	57	7	15	2	0	0	5	0	4	9	0.256	0.307	0.309	0.616
Team Totals	6150	5683	706	1475	315	26	127	662	82	467	1110	0.260	0.316	0.391	0.707

So, how does the offense compare to last season? Well, that would give us 91 more runs scored, 32 more home runs, 66 more walks, 54 fewer strikeouts, and an OPS .023 higher than last year. To put it another way, these projections would give us an essentially league average offense. At first glance only Carlos Lee's numbers look especially optimistic to me.


How about the pitchers?

	IP	G	W	L	SV	H	HR	BB	SO	R	ER	ERA	WHIP
W. Rodriguez	180	32	12	10	0	178	20	62	156	85	76	3.80	1.33
Norris	170	30	10	9	0	166	20	69	164	87	77	4.07	1.38
Happ	140	28	8	7	0	130	17	66	113	73	68	4.39	1.40
Weiland	120	34	6	9	0	127	18	54	79	67	64	4.81	1.51
Lyles	120	26	5	7	0	137	16	34	86	67	62	4.62	1.42
Harrell	120	49	5	5	0	163	8	64	83	78	63	4.70	1.89
Myers	70	52	4	3	23	70	9	22	56	34	32	4.06	1.31
Lopez	70	66	3	4	0	76	6	16	52	32	28	3.64	1.30
Sosa	70	13	4	6	0	71	9	30	51	37	37	4.75	1.44
Carpenter	60	50	2	6	7	61	7	27	57	28	28	4.23	1.46
F. Rodriguez	60	54	2	3	0	59	7	32	60	31	29	4.31	1.51
Lyon	50	40	3	3	7	53	5	19	34	25	23	4.20	1.43
A. Rodriguez	45	23	1	3	0	44	6	18	35	27	23	4.65	1.38
Wright	40	43	2	2	0	39	5	18	37	20	18	4.15	1.41
Abreu	40	42	2	2	12	36	5	19	51	16	16	3.68	1.37
Abad	40	53	1	5	0	43	7	13	30	23	21	4.75	1.41
Cruz	35	27	1	2	0	36	5	33	27	26	24	6.18	1.98
Del Rosario	20	21	0	1	0	24	1	7	10	12	10	4.53	1.58
Team Totals	1450				49	1513	171	601	1179	770	700	4.34	1.46

Nothing here really stands out as unlikely to me. Maybe Happ's numbers are too good, but that's actually very close to his career averages. It's very possible one or more relievers is particularly ineffective this year, but who? And if so, they wouldn't get many innings anyway. So again, how does that stack up to last year's squad?  We're looking at a team ERA just 0.17 better as they only give up 26 fewer runs that last year. Walks are up by 41 and strikeouts are down by 12. This squad does allow 17 fewer homers, according to my projections. To again frame these projections against last year's competition a 4.34 ERA would have only put us ahead of one other team.

So, assuming my math is correct, 706 runs scored and 770 runs against would give us a projected team record of..............

74-88!

Yes, I question my own sanity for actually publishing that, but there it is. Led by a potentially much improved offense it is entirely possible that the Astros will finish not last in 2012.