Upon realizing today that LL/USSM have dropped the community projections, I figured I'd try to take up an abridged version of what they have been doing.  It was discontinued because they are busy people and its really just a fun thing and not really anything quantitative. 

I also agree it takes way too much time to do it in full justice so I'm going to try an scaled back version that will be easier to keep track of.  Instead of asking you to project a ton of categories, I'm gonna make it easy for you.  I will put up a poll that will simply ask you how valuable a player will be this year.  I'll break it down into increments and you can place your vote.

If you need an idea of how WAR works please go to fangraphs.  When projecting value please take into account the player's offensive value, defensive value, position and playing time.  I'm assuming most of the readers here have had this mantra beaten into their heads enough but if you need background on it Dave wrote some great "how to" articles that are posted under the glossary at fangraphs.

I will give a simple example of projecting a player.  Take Randy Winn for example assuming he plays a full season:

Offensive Value = 0 - 5 runs

Defensive Value = 5 - 15 runs

Replacement Value = 22 runs

Positional Adjustment  = -7.5 runs (RF/LF)

Total Value = 27 runs = 2.7 WAR (because 10 runs = 1 WAR)

In a little change from what fangraphs does, we will include SB/CS in the offensive value.  It shouldn't make much of a difference but if you think a player is a really good base stealer feel free to add a few fractions of a win on your projection.  Keep in mind that even the best base stealers rarely get more than ~0.5 WAR or so for their efforts.

Anyway, on to the poll.  I won't discuss my opinions on the players here in an attempt to avoid biasing your vote but feel free to discuss what you think he will do in the upcoming year.

We are starting off with Ichiro because he is awesome and if you are going to start talking about the Mariners, he's the guy you always start with.  I'll probably do a new guy every few days and try to cover the main guys on the team.