2007 Team Predictions - New York Mets

Should exceed their projection
1. Carlos Beltran. His down year in 2005 had a lot to do with a lingering quad injury that he tried to play through, and I think that may skew his projection. I don't expect him to necessarily his MVP-quality numbers from 2006, but I think his projection will be a bit low.

2. Tom Glavine. For years I've been expecting the end of Glavine's effectiveness, but it's clear at this point that he's able to post good ERAs despite not-as-good peripherals. I think projection systems tend to underrate these types of players, because you can't reliably determine that players can outperform their peripherals until you have a number of seasons of data. Glavine has a long enough track record to make it clear that he has that skill (I believe it comes from how he pitchers with the bases empty vs. with runners on base).

3. El Duque. I don't think he'll be any great shakes (and his projection probably isn't all that good), but I wouldn't give him the standard aging curve because he's a bit of a freak.

4. Oliver Perez. The enigma of the team, perhaps of any team. His problem the past couple of seasons hasn't been that his stuff has remained good but his performance hasn't - his stuff itself is very erratic. His mechanics got all wacky and he lost quite a bit of velocity. He started getting some of that velocity back at the end of last season, and Rick Peterson will continue to have a positive impact. That won't necessarily turn him into a good pitcher, but it should improve his otherwise-terrible numbers a bit.

Should hit their projection
1 and 2. Jose Reyes and David Wright. I can think of some minor reasons why they would exceed their projection (Reyes suffered in the past from having to temporarily switch to 2B in the Kaz Matsui days for example), but I'm biased, so I'll leave those out.

3. Jose Valentin. I like the guy (and did even before he was a Met), but I don't have any reason to think that he'll repeat his 2006 numbers. He's a nice fielder, though - he always had very good range at SS, but was error prone. At second base, he seems to have retained his good range, but those shorter throws are helping his error totals.

4. Paul LoDuca - can't think of a reason to adjust him either way.

5. Moises Alou - should be productive when healthy, just as he's been the past few years.

6. Lastings Milledge - on tools alone, I'd bump him up, but question about his attitude will make me leave him here.

7. Chan Ho Park. He sucks, but I'm sure his projection will, too.

8. Billy Wagner. WYSIWYG.

9. Pedro Martinez. Who the hell knows? Obviously the amount of innings pitched they'll project will be way off.

Won't hit their projection
1. Mike Pelfrey - great fastball, so he gets bonus points on the scouting side for having one great pitch. But his dominance in the minors was mostly due to the fastball, and not to secondary pitches. Until he develops better secondary pitches, his dominance of minor leaguers doesn't necessarily imply his stuff will translate to the big leagues. With the help of Rick Peterson, I hope that will happen this year, but until he proves he has more than one above average pitch, he won't pitch as well in the majors as his minor league numbers would indicate.

2. Carlos Delgado - still has some lingering injury issues from last season.

3. Shawn Green - stats aside, he just looks slow. Hopefully he's on a short leash.

4. John Maine - great in the playoffs and had a very good season last year. But he had above average numbers with only average stuff. I hope I'm wrong.