ProjectoTron Looks Forward on the MLB Season

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ProjectoTronI decided to find all the spare electronic parts that I could find around my apartment and build a baseball projections robot. Some of the things I found include: an alarm clock, TI-83, a broken toaster, a VCR, an Apple IIe, a PlayStation, a watch with a calculator on it, and a car phone (with carrying case). Armed with my trusty soldering iron and a wondering imagination, I put together ProjectoTron 3000.

Last night, I put in all the current MLB statistics that were available at the time (stats through 4/2/08) and let it start calculating. I went to work in the morning and it was still calculating. Finally when I got home this evening I was able to see it starting to spit out some odd projections for the season. There are a few that I think I should share with you.

First there is JI

Jim Funny Face ThomeJIM THOME who is .222/.222/.889 is projected to have every hit be a home run. Breaking every single season record with 162 of them. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get injured.

Travis Buck is projected to go .000/.000/.000 and have 284 strikeouts. I certainly hope Oakland would put him out of his misery and job some time before reaching those numbers.

Crazy dancing Redsox closer Jonathan Papelbon’s numbers seem a bit off. ProjectoTron has Papelbon getting 81 Saves this season with 162 Ks. As a Redsox fan, I certainly hope his numbers are that good, but as someone who does not own Papelbon in a fantasy league, I hope his numbers are a little more down to earth.

Michael Bourn of the Houston Astros is projected to have 54 hits this season, probably a bit low depending on playing time. But ProjectoTron says that during that time he will accumulate 162 stolen bases. Rickey Henderson will then call up Rickey Henderson and tell Rickey Henderson that this not Rickey Henderson is the new Rickey Henderson. Don’t ask me how my robotic creation knows who Rickey Henderson is, it don’t really know – Maybe it was reading some of my baseball books while I was at work.

Another crazy set of stats are those of Mets center fielder, Carlos Beltran. ProjectoTron puts all of Beltran’s hits as doubles and he gets the batting title with a .416 average. That’s 162 doubles and because pitchers start noticing this trend, he also gets walked 108 times.

But the funniest number I could find belongs to Brett Myers. Of course he’s projected to start 81 games because ProjectoTron doesn’t understand that if he pitched 1 of 2 games that doesn’t mean he always will. But he is listed as hitting 162 batters this year. I hope he spreads those out as to hit the starting 9 on every other team in the National League.

Thanks ProjectoTron for your stupid math. I wish I programmed ProjectoTron with injury projections so he could tell me if Pedro plays any baseball or if Barry Bonds will show up somewhere crazy. Maybe next year I can add some fuzzy logic by finding some plush animals to connect to ProjectoTron.