Rusty's Player Projections: Cody Ross

(October 31, 2010 - Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images North America)

Cody Ross has experienced an interesting career thus far.

At 30 years old, Ross has been given few seasons to prove himself a worthy starter.

He started his career with Detroit at a young age of 22 in 2003, where he was given six games to show what he had in him. Then he joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he had played 14 games with them in one season.

In 2006, Ross played eight games with the Dodgers and two games with the Cincinnati Reds before he was traded to a team that needed him: the Florida Marlins, who started him in 91 games.

He played three and a half seasons with the Marlins, with his best season in 2009 where he posted a .270/.321/.469 slash line with 24 home runs and 90 RBI.

Last year, the Giants picked him up off of waivers and he struggled to find a rhythm by hitting .288 with three home runs in 33 games.

When he went to the playoffs, his luck turned right around.

Ross had never gone to the playoffs until 2010, so nobody knew how he would do against some tough pitching in tense situations.

Writing that sentence feels so silly now because Ross clearly knew what he was doing on his way to the Giants World Series victory.

He smashed a .298/.390/.686 line with five home runs (two against Roy Halladay in one game) and 10 RBI in only 15 games. Three out of five of his home runs broke up potential no-hitters from the opposing pitcher.

Ross instantly became a playoff hero for the Giants by clearly winning the NLCS MVP award by hitting .350 with three home runs, three doubles and five RBI in the series.

Today he finds himself with a new contract with the Giants as the well-deserved starting right fielder this spring.

Here is his projection:

.270 Batting Average
.332 On-Base %
.470 Slugging %
23 Home Runs
80 RBI
376,438,980 Smiles

Rusty's Player Projections: Miguel Tejada

Miguel Tejada has had a tremendous career. In 14 seasons with Oakland, Baltimore, Houston and San Diego he has earned himself 6 All-Star appearances, two Silver Slugger awards (highest batting average) and one MVP award.

Last year, his stat line of .269/.312/.381 with 15 home runs and 71 RBI was a poor reflection of how good he has been in years prior. Now that he is a Giant at the age of 36 (37 in May), we are left wondering if his career is getting toward the end, or if he has a few more decent years left.

Most people remember him from his tremendous years in Oakland where he started his career. In a span of 3 years (2000-2002) he had hit over 30 home runs, 100 RBI and 30 doubles while only missing a total of 2 games.

That stat brings up a good reason why Tejada is the right choice for the Giants Shortstop position this season: he is an iron man. In his long 14-year career he has only missed more than four games a season 3 times. Tejada is rarely kept off the field due to injuries, which for Giants fans is something we can all be happy about.

In the Giants history, The shortstop position has been filled with players who are injured almost too frequently. The past four shortstops, for example, are: Juan Uribe (2 years, 54 games missed), Edgar Renteria (2 years, 124 games missed), Omar Visquel (4 years, 106 games missed) and Deivi Cruz (1.5 years, 84 games missed).

Another positive trend Tejada has made throughout his career is hitting a ridiculous amount of doubles. He is currently 93rd all-time in doubles hit, 13th out of all active players. He has hit over 30 doubles a season ten times, over 40 doubles four times, and his career high is 50. Now that he will be playing at AT&T Park, "Triples Alley" would be a perfect target for him for drive in some runs.

Some statistics, however, are quite concerning. He has lead the league five times in grounding out into double plays, amassing a total of 261 GIDP in his career. To put that into perspective, he is ranked 2nd in that stat category out of all active players, only behind Ivan Rodriguez with 331.

Some other questionable aspects of Tejada's game is his lack of range on defense, his arm, and his speed, all slowed down by his age. Despite these negative reports, the Giants and Tejada both believe that he will become a very productive player this season.

So here ya go, Tejada's 2011 projection:

.275 Batting Average
.335 On-Base %
.410 Slugging %
17 Home runs
68 RBI
15 GIDP

Rusty's Player Projections: Madison Bumgarner

Madison Bumgarner has had an excelled career.

Drafted out of high school, Bumgarner was picked 10th overall by the Giants back in 2007. He was 18 years old.

He pitched well in the minors in 2008 and 2009. Last year he was called up to the Giants Starting rotation once they saw how bad Todd Wellenmeyer was, making his debut on September 8th, 2010.

From then on, he never looked back. He kept his starting spot for the remainder of the season and even out dueled Barry Zito for the 4th starting spot in the playoffs.

In 18 regular season starts, he posted a 7-6 record with a 3.00 ERA and a 2.2 WAR. To put that into perspective, Tim Lincecum made his debut at age 23 with a 7-5, a 4.00 ERA and a 2.0 WAR. Madison Bumgarner's numbers look promising when you compare them to a two-time Cy Young winner and All-Star.

What's more impressing is that Bumgarner was absolutely lights out in the playoffs. He posted a 2-0 record with a 2.18 ERA including eight shutout innings against the Rangers in Game 4 of the World Series.

He made guys like Vlad Guerrero, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz look like slow swinging high school players while he was at the prime age of 21.

So here is my prediction for Mr. Bumgarner:

14-7 Record
194 Innings Pitched
2.96 ERA
165 Strikeouts

Make you're own predictions in the comments below:

Rusty's Player Projections: Aubrey Huff

I love this.

10 seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers. Zero playoff appearances, two 4th place finishes and six 5th place losing seasons.

This was Aubrey Huff's Major League Baseball career until 2010. 

After his atrocious season in 2009 with Baltimore and Detroit, the free agency treated him quite poorly. Finally, after months of waiting for the phone to ring, the Giants scraped him off from rock bottom and offered him a $3 million one year contract. 

Keep in mind, the last time he made less that $4 million a season, it was his 3rd season in the M.L.B. back in 2004. 

He joined his new Giants team reborn, refreshed and very optimistic after countless baseball analysts and "experts" doubted him to bounce back. They expected him to be a terrible defender at 1st base, a nightmare around the base paths and a quiet hitter now that he is playing in a "hitter's park" at AT&T. 

So how did he do? He hit his first home run at AT&T park without the ball leaving the park to earn himself his first in-the-park home run. 

Not to bad for an "old" and "slow" past-his-prime veteran. He continued to lead the Giants in most offensive categories such as home runs (26), RBI (86), hits (165), runs (100), at-bats (569), on-base % (.381), walks (83), and OPS (.891). 

He also displayed his above average defense and versatility by only committing 3 errors while playing first base, left field and right field.

Such a successful season for Huff, who also played a big part in his first post season and World Series championship. Thanks to the Giants franchise, Huff has rejuvenated his career and will be with the Giants for another 2 glorious years.

Huff will be a starter this season, that is certain, but where he will start is the question.

New hot prospect Brandon Belt tore up the minors last year advancing from A ball to AAA ball in Fresno. Belt has been invited to spring training, and if he can prove he can hit big league pitching, he will start at first base for the Giants. With this move, that would force Huff to play in right where he spent 34 games playing last season, and 271 games in his career. 

Without further adieu, I present to you "Huff Daddy's" projections:

.291 Batting average

.378 On-base %

.508 Slugging %

27 Home runs

88 RBI

1 unwashed rally thong

Feel free to comment below if you have your own projections.

Rusty's Player Projections: Barry Zito

7 years, 126$ million.

A contract Giants fans once applauded and accepted willingly. Now it's turned into a big heaping pile of regret and stupitity.

Barry Zito has been with the Giants for what seems like a decade. After his spectacular pitching in Oakland to start his career, Sabean and the Giants organization thought he would continue to dominate hitters for at least 7 years after his 2006 season.

Here's a quick comparison of what the Giants got out of Zito for 4 years compared to 7 with Oakland:

	With Oakland	With San Francisco
Wins-Losses	102-63	40-57
ERA	3.55	4.45
Hits per 9 innings	7.7	8.6
Walks per 9 innings	3.5	4.1
ERA+	125	97

Oh by the way, Zito also won a Cy Young Award with Oakland in 2002 and participated in 3 all-Star games with the A's. 

Now we can see how torturous Barry Zito has been to us Giants fans. He simply cannot pitch like he used to, but is there room for optimism?

I am one of the few people who believe so. 

Over the past two years, Zito has found himself pitching very effectively over a stretch of games toward the end of the season. Numbers indicate that he is a much better pitcher in the second half of the season

with a career 77-50 W-L record with a 3.52 ERA. Compare that to his career first half, a 65-70 W-L record and a 4.18 ERA, and you have a pretty definitive case that Zito gets better as the season goes on.

That statistic gives me hope. Maybe one of these years he can come out of spring training hot and continue his decent pitching well into the second half. So, that leads me to Zito's 2011 projection:

13-9 Record

203 Innings pitched

3.89 ERA

158 Strikeouts

5 more "Bar-ry!" chants at AT&T Park

You heard it here first, comment below if you completely disagree, I wont blame you.

Ty's 2011 Player Predictions: Pablo Sandoval

            Pablo Sandoval, also known as the “Kung-Fu Panda”, has his work cut out for him this 2011 season. 

After the Giants World Series win, the Kung-Fu Panda was warned by General Manager Brian Sabean to shed some pounds or he would be playing some minor league baseball again.  At the time, I thought this publicly know statement was a little too and dramatic, but it seems like Brian Sabean hit the nail on the head. 

Pablo Sandoval has impressed the Giants organization, the fans and even a majority of Major League Baseball analysts by shedding somewhere between a reported, “17 to 22 pounds.”

  This new and improved Pablo will be able to get his hips around on the ball quicker than this past season thus producing more power for this otherwise quiet line-up. 

Not only do I predict to see a dramatic increase in his offensive numbers this season, but also defensively.  I expect Pablo, being 17 to 22 pounds lighter, to show a lot more range this season along with more accurate throwing now that he has trimmed himself down. 

           

Last year Pablo put up a .268/.323/.409 (AVG/OBP/SLG) line, which, if not compared to his 2009 season (.330/.387/.556), wouldn’t look as depressing.  Pablo struggled this past season with finding a consistent swing from both sides of the box.  It looked as if he was too out of shape to be on the field 6 out of 7 days of the week. 

In the earlier games, his swing looked compact and controlled, but later on in the season, his swing started to look sloppy and just plain bad.  Also, he struggled to find his power, hitting only 13 homeruns, 34 doubles and 63 RBIs.  

One thing you would always hear broadcasters saying was, “He’s got to go back to the fundamentals.  He is just trying to do too much out there.”  Well that is true, the fundamentals of baseball both offensively and defensively are the first things you forget to do when you get tired out on the field. 

So, drum rolls please, my prediction for the Kung-Fu Panda, Pablo Sandoval for the 2011 Major League Baseball season is…

.322 Batting average

.356 On-Base %

.560 Slugging %

28 Home runs

40 2B

90 RBI

Comment below.

 This piece was written by Contributer Ty.