2013 Community Projections Results: Nelson Cruz

2012 was sort of an aberration year for Nellie Cruz. He hit about like he normally does in AVG and OBP, but his SLG was down to .460 showing an unusual lack of power. The power came back in 2013, but the Sword of Damocles eventually fell and he was suspended for 50 games. Other than that, he had a very Nellie Cruz year with solid power, a .260ish average and .330ish OBP.

While we're here, let's also talk about Alex Rios who put up a .280 / .315 / .457 slash while with the Rangers that combined with 16 SB and pretty good defense made him worth 1.1 fWAR and 1.0 bWAR. Translated over a full season, that's 3+ WAR, or about what you'd expect from Alex Rios. In two thirds of a season, Nelson Cruz put up 1.5 fWAR and 2.0 bWAR, so even though they did in different ways, they provided roughly the same value by those imperfect metrics.

From a projection standpoint, LSB was very close in expecting Nellie Cruz to have a Nellie Cruz year coupled with likely missing time due to either injury or suspension.

Congratulations to gossamer (long time community projection dude) 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 2013 value