Every offseason the guys at Baseball Think Factory do ZIPS projections for every baseball team. I won't go through all the details on where they get these projections from; you can check that out at their website here.

I tried copy-pasting the projections from their website for our likely starting lineup as it stands right now, but it didn't work so well. Instead, just link to that page right here.

Here are my comments on a few players:


Wow, Hunter Pence!! Those are pretty sweet projections for both Luke Scott
and Hunter Pence; maybe Carlos Lee is unnecessary after all. Seriously, a 841 OPS (Scott)
and an 845 OPS (Pence) from the corner OF spots is pretty decent AND it wouldn't cost very
much. I seriously doubt the Astros will do that; I have a hard time seeing them
going into 2007 with a Scott / Taveras / Pence outfield. More likely we sign a FA
and platoon 2 of Scott / Pence / Lane. I'm pretty excited about Hunter Pence, though.

Morgan Ensberg is a better choice than Aubrey Huff (373 OBP vs. 348 OBP). His defense is better, he draws a lot of walks in front of Berkman, and he might not be as expensive.

I hope Craig Biggio can beat that projection (.255/.311/.419), and if not, I hope he gets to 3000 hits quickly so Chris Burke can step in.

Ugh...two guys at the bottom with a sub-700 OPS (Guess who? Everett and Ausmus again). Giving Quintero more playing time (.269/.311/.395) or signing / trading for a new catcher would be sweet, 'cause Ausmus is BAD.

Nice projection for Lamb. Not a bad projection for Brooks Conrad, either -
almost as high an OPS as Burke or Biggio. Palmeiro and Bruntlett, meh.


Starting Pitchers:

Man, we need to sign Pettitte. ZIPS actually likes Buchholz (4.43 ERA) and Sampson (4.32 ERA) a lot; more than Hirsh (4.47) or Nieve (4.78, nice strikeout rate). Clemens would be a nice boost, huh? Wandy is terrible. Buchholz and Sampson! Kinda surprising to me.


Bullpen: ZIPS likes Lidge a LOT! (3.51 ERA, 106 K in 75 IP) Look at that strikeout rate. In fact, look at the strikeout rate for all of those guys (Wheeler, Lidge, Qualls, Miller, Springer, Paul Estrada?). We'll almost certainly put one of our extra starters in here as well - probably Nieve, darn. Hey, I gotta run, but look over these stats, they're pretty darn cool.