Ian Kinsler projection discussion thread

by bigsteve on Mar 11, 2009 12:32 PM CDT Comment 19 comments

Coming off a season that was MVP quality up until he got injured, again, Ian Kinsler looks to have another breakout season. Last year he put up a line of 319/375/519 and I look for him to put up a similar line in 2009. I have him projected at 308/370/530. But the key is I have that in 660 plate appearances. Kinsler has never played over 130 games in a season as a major leaguer and never eclipsed 583 plate appearances which he achieved last year while hitting leadoff.

I look for him to continue hitting leadoff and have to err on the side of caution and expect a DL stint somewhere along the way. Hopefully not a long one this time but enough to not allow him to reach 700 PAs.

So what are your thoughts on Ian Kinsler in the 2009 season?

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714 ABs

Wow, same prediction as MY. I am looking for Kinsler to regress some this year to a .833 ops. I fear that 2008 was his “career year”.

Elvis Andrus - 2009 AL Rookie of the Year

by RangerMad on Mar 11, 2009 12:38 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

um, what's with that guy who did 1000's

are we going to count that?

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by ab03 on Mar 11, 2009 1:22 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

but what does it all mean

I’ve put together a spreadsheet to turn the slash stats into the raw stats (H, BB, 2B, HR). I’ve also taken then liberty of entering the first 48 predictions in. If you want to toy with it you can change the prediction and the 2B to HR factor and see the prediction in many circumstances. The 2B to HR factor is just what it says the amount of doubles for each home run.

Hope this makes sense. Here is the linky

by bushe on Mar 11, 2009 1:30 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Man, I'm suprised how many people are really bullish on Kinsler pulling something close to a repeat of last year

I expect him to regress a bit, not badly, but projecting him to go .319/.375/.517 again seems a bit unreasonable to me.

"You can have such a massive impact on a game even when you're not getting ground balls hit at you." - Michael Young

by lonestarJon on Mar 11, 2009 1:56 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I completely agree with this

I feel this entire offense is going to be hit a lot harder than it looks on the surface. Last year had a lot of things go right which I think helped a lot of our young hitters. This year the team lost the arguably its best hitter (Milton Bradley) and have the FOTF moving to 3rd base. This might not hurt his stats but I can’t imagine spending the extra time on fielding and the change is going to help. He’s already regressing at it is. Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton both had career type years. A young and raw Elvis Andrus might be added to the line-up. I can’t imagine this bodes well for the offense.

While this all means a lot less when considering individual numbers (especially ones that aren’t runs/RBI’s), I still think it can have at least a minor effect even on the better hitters. I think the only thing I really expect him to keep putting up is the power numbers. He was a doubles machine in the minors and a doubles machine last year. I think he can retain that +500 slugging while he might see a moderate dip in average/obp.

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by Heebs on Mar 11, 2009 2:29 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

Our offense overall this year depends on Chris Davis, who is currently slumping badly his first spring with a MLB job (disclaimer: spring sample sizes suck) and Nelson Cruz, who’s still a wildcard.

I’m fairly optimistic about them both, but I would agree there is the potential for a big offensive dropoff this season – if there is one, hopefully Max and Smoak will ofset it by 2010, however.

"You can have such a massive impact on a game even when you're not getting ground balls hit at you." - Michael Young

by lonestarJon on Mar 11, 2009 2:42 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

but what about

the Salty surge? You of all people should know he is going to break out this year.

by bushe on Mar 11, 2009 3:53 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I gave him a little regression

but not too much. He is at the age where you would normally expect improvement, as he is still not prime age. So I basicly have him doing almost as well as last year, maybe .010 or so worse across the board.

Get off my lawn.

by DJCahill on Mar 11, 2009 2:38 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think he'll regress a bit just because last year was so good

but have more PAs, so that kinda evens things out.

by WyoRanger on Mar 11, 2009 2:42 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree

I think Kinsler will maintain his power and patience well but I just don’t see him hitting above 300 in a normal year. I just don’t think his swing is that of a 300+ hitter. Not saying he won’t have a few years here and there but I wouldn’t expect it every year.

by bushe on Mar 11, 2009 3:55 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't see why

besides the fact that it was indeed a very good year. why can’t he continue to excel? His OBP has improved every year, average slipped his 2nd year but shot way up in his 3rd year, slugging shot up from the first two years…but if you look at his splits, he has either started fast and finished on a low note or started slowly and come on very strong. Last year, he shot out of the gates like a cannon and only stopped when he was injured. I think if he starts strong again, he will finish with similar numbers. But if he struggles early, he and the team could struggle quite a lot…

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by Walter Sobchak on Mar 11, 2009 5:42 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

slight regression of rate stats

plus better health hopefully equals awesomeness and mvp-type year.

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by t ball on Mar 11, 2009 3:03 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Im expecting a 25 HR season.

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‘(Expletive) Dave Samson,’ then don’t say anything at all.
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by tyd3311 on Mar 11, 2009 3:11 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs