Community Projection Results: Austin Jackson

We had 15 entries, with some people really liking him and others much less optimistic. The results:

131 games, 479 at-bats, 67 runs, 128 hits, 22 doubles, 5 triples, 8 homers, 40 walks, 104 strikeouts, 20 steals, 6 caught stealing, slash line .267/.329/.386. .715 OPS.

Comparing to other projection systems:

Bill James Projection:  .294/.356/.411 in 282 at-bats, 14 steals, .767 OPS.
PECOTA Mean Projection:  .262/.322/.400 in 499 PA, 15 steals, .722 OPS.
CHONE Projection:     .265/.320/.387 in 437 at-bats, 16 steals, .707 OPS
ZIPS Projection:          .247/.298/.341 in 551 at-bats, 16 steals, .639 OPS

As you can see, the Minor League Ball community projection is in the middle of the pack in terms of OPS, but is a bit more optimistic about his stolen base totals. The Community projection looks fairly solid to me, although I am a Jackson fan and I think his medium and longer-term upside is quite considerable.

When Curtis Granderson was 22 years old (as Jackson was last year), he hit .286/.365/.458 in the Florida State League, drawing notice as a solid-but-not-spectacular prospect with terrific makeup, but tools which might or might not develop further. If you take Granderson's FSL numbers at age 22 and convert them to Triple-A/Scranton equivalents, you get something like .260/.329/.407. Granderson showed more isolated power, but his other skills were weaker than what Jackson did last year in Triple-A at the same age. Sabermetrically, anyway,  at the same stage of his career, Granderson was not as good of a prospect as Jackson is right now. We saw how Curtis turned out: I think Austin could end up being similar.