2012 Community Projections Results: Koji Uehara

Koji Uehara is the 2012 example (along with Mike Napoli from the other end of the spectrum) for "Why small samples aren't as meaningful as large samples" player of the year.

When Koji came to Texas at the 2011 trading deadline, he had a terrible September, a really good August and then an playoff performance so bad, he was left off the World Series roster. The feeling was there was about an 80% chance any pitch he threw would be a home run. This lead to much consternation among Rangers fans, and Koji was set to be traded to the Blue Jays until he used a no trade clause to block it.

In 2012, his spring training was so abysmal that many people thought his career was over and he'd be traded or cut within the first month of the season. As the regular season began, Koji was used in mostly low leverage situations and pitched decently, but with the Koji caveat of a few home runs. He settled in by May and posted an 0.77 ERA in 11.2 innings. A mid-season DL trip cost him several weeks, but on his return after one poor appearance, everything locked in and Koji became the full blown strikeout and swing and miss machine he was for Baltimore as a reliever. His last month of the season was exceptional, retiring 30 of the last 31 batters he faced over 11 appearances with 17 strikeouts and the lone non-out as a single.

For the entire season, he only allowed a run in 5 of his 37 appearances and had the odd occurrence of more home runs allowed than walks on the season.

Congratulations to mathewsherill for having the lowest score* with his projection. Here is a spreadsheet with how everyone did.

*Score is the average number of standard deviations away from the actual 2012 value