John Sickels posed a series of “True or False” questions that I thought were interesting and decided to take a shot at answering them. The first one is: “True or False, Torii Hunter will have a disappointing offensive season for the Angels, hitting something like .256/.325/.475″

Answering a question like this must start with some baseline forecast and then whether that forecast is reliable or not. Since I tend to use Baseball HQ and Baseball Prospectus lets start there.

Baseball HQ: They have Hunter with a .283/.337/.484 line and a very solid reliability score of 79. Looking at Hunter’s skill set, he is very consistent with essentially the same CT, BB, OBA, BA and xBA over the last four years. While he may drop back a bit from last year, he is in a good hitter’s park with consistent skills and Sickels’ hitting line would not be a “disappointment” based on the skills set Hunter possesses. The question presupposes a line that is well within the expected variation for this historical skills set.

Baseball Prospectus has a similar projection, giving him a .283/.338/.459 line as his 50% PECOTA projection. They give him a 46% chance of improving, which essentially means he is a 50-50 bet to get better off of last year.

The only way one can view it as a disappointment is in the batting average category, which essentially boils down to one hit a week. However, his xBA in the last three years has been well above the .256 mark Sickels projects. So in this respect I think there is no reason other than a “gut” feeling (or as I would call it “soft” evidence) to think he will hit in the .250s.

So the answer to Sickels’ question is that it is FALSE; because the line he proposes is well within what would be the standard statistical variation for a player with his skills, even in the BA department, though I think he will still hit close to .280. How can that be a “disappointment?”