Pie and (Corey) Patterson: A Plethora of Prognosticators' Projections

While it's no Arizona-Phil-from-two-days-ago-live-scouting-update , John Sickles has a post up at his website concerning Felix Pie. For the most part, it's a vanilla run through Pie's minor league credentials, but a couple of things came up from the post that are worth re-emphasizing.

First, Sickles is the latest to shoot down the Pie/Patterson comparisons. As he notes,

Since July 2006 he [Pie] has been a monster for Iowa, and I see no point in sending him back there. Triple-A pitchers have nothing left to teach him. The best line Patterson ever managed at Iowa was .253/.308/.387. This is not the same thing at all.

Let's get a bit more specific with this.

Patterson, as a 20 year old in AA West Tennessee, had 444 ABs for a line of .261/.338/.491/.829

Pie, as a 20 year old in in AA West Tennessee, had 240 ABs for a line of .304/.349/.554/.903

Patterson, as a 21 year old in AAA Iowa, had 367 ABs for a line of .253/.308/.387/.695

Pie, as a 21 year old in AAA Iowa, had 559 ABs for a line of .283/.341/.451/.792

(Also, Pie followed up with a dominant half-season as a 22 year old, while Corey at the same point was struggling in his first full season in the majors.) It's a pretty clear difference in minor league production there, at the same ages and levels.

Second, Sickles sumarizes the different projection systems (and projecting persons) and the numbers they predict for Pie in 2008:

Ron Shandler: .285/.334/.461/.795, 18 steals in 456 AB
Bill James: 283/.333/.456/.789, 23 steals in 553 AB
ZIPS: .269/.321/.429/.750, 20 steals in 539 AB
John Sickles: .266/.320/.433/.753, 16 steals in 500 AB

Going to Pie's fan-graphs page, I learn that he also has these additional projections:

CHONE: .272/.326/.433/.760, 22 steals in 496 AB
Marcel: .256/.322/.402/.724, 8 steals in 266 AB

Just for fun, what are Patterson's predictions for this year?

Bill James: .269/.311/.421/.733, 29 SB in 439 AB
ZIPS: .257/.295/.402/.697, 32 SB in 495 AB
CHONE: .261/.305./.402/.707, 30 SB in 468 AB
Marcel: .261/.304/.400/.704, 31 SB in 460 AB

Expressed slightly differently: of 6 different gurus and projection formulas I can find for Pie's 2008 season, only the lowest one, the Marcel system, is lower than the highest projection that I can find for Patterson, James's prediction.