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Again, don't let the stats blind or bias you. Everyone who is serious about projecting players knows it's an inexact science. In their best years, the various systems struggle to project even 1/5 of the players to within 10 percent accuracy. A very nice summary of various systems and their pitfalls was written by Dan Schlewitz in Ken Ross' book, A Mathematician at the Ballpark.

I do respect the hard work these professionals put into their projections. Their willingness to be so precise in their forecasts provides us all with a great starting point for preseason conversations and analysis.

So, many thanks to those we cite below. The father of the sabermetric movement, Bill James, is represented as published in The Bill James Handbook. We use the PECOTA system of Nate Silver as published in the Baseball Prospectus annual; that system was partially inspired by James' "player similarity scores" but is more rigidly modeled. And Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections come courtesy of BaseballThinkFactory.com, which consistently lives up to its name. ZiPS looks at similar skills more than players in calculating projections.

We'll work our way down the projected rotation and also note key relievers.

Chien-Ming Wang - James: 204 innings, 89 K's, 3.75 ERA; PECOTA: 178/95/4.37; ZiPS: 200/87/3.91. Wang is one of the most fascinating players of the era. He's thrived with K-rates very low even by historical standards (there are about a 35 percent more strikeouts today than there were 30 years ago). Interestingly, Wang's K rate spiked last year to acceptable levels (stripped even of his high ground-ball rate): five per nine innings in the second half (4.3 in the first half). If he holds his second-half gains, he'll strike out about 110 hitters in 200 innings. Given that he throws 94 mph at times, the odds of this don't seem too long. Ironically, his average fastball velocity declined last year, proving again that movement is far more important. Wang doesn't really have secondary pitches, throwing 75 percent fastballs, more than any starter in baseball other than Dennis Cook. According to James, Wang's OPS allowed on fastballs (.692) was eight-best in the league. Hitters can't generate a good slugging percentage when killing worms: (58 percent grounders vs. Wang). For these reasons, but mostly for the improving K-rate, I think PECOTA is way off here and expect he'll slightly beat even James' projection.

Andy Pettitte - James: 205/156/3.79; PECOTA: 176/117/4.22; ZiPS: 213/141/4.06. Is Baseball Prospectus right in projecting such a decline in K rate? Well, as I often write, the circus eventually leaves town for everyone. It's not going to be clowns and cotton candy for Pettitte much longer (especially without Brian McNamee working the snack bar). Pettitte did go down to about 5.6 K's per nine last year and will be 36 in June. But the K's spiked to 7.0 per nine innings in the second half of '07. Even with those extra whiffs, the ERA and ratio were significantly worse because teams went from hitting a league-average .300 on balls in play to .350 (" ... just past a diving Jeter"). If Pettitte pitches 200 innings, I think he comes closest to James. But I think there is a very good chance he won't. When guys get hurt there usually are about 30 or 40 terrible innings before they fess up and surrender to the MRI.

Mike Mussina - James: 154/124/3.74; PECOTA: 149/101/4.54; ZiPS: 171/112/4.74. I'm very bearish on Mussina at age 39. I think his ERA is around 5.00 in June, when Joba Chamberlain gets unleashed as a starter. More on that below. Was the K decline a random event or did he really fall off the cliff after making gains there in 2006? At his age, we must assume the latter. The velocity readings confirm this. And there was even the further decline in the second half of '07. Mussina's 2007 stat profile contains everything you look for from a guy who is shot. The odds are long that it's all a coincidence.

Phil Hughes - James: too young to project; PECOTA: 152/129/4.42; ZiPS: 141/106/3.70. Remember when Hughes was the best pitching prospect in baseball? Now most scouts I talk to say his ceiling is "No. 2 starter." That's not exactly an insult in scouting parlance, let's be clear. But that is a clear step down from the 2007 scouting forecasts. What happened? He hurt his hamstring and then his ankle and never ironed out his mechanics to get back some lost velocity. Again, scouts tell me that mid-90s fastball talk was hyperbolic jive. But I see solid-plus velocity and the ability to spot the fastball. And his curve is top notch, too, though the change-up seems to have replaced it as the complementary pitch of choice. Hughes' change is in the developmental stage, but it shows promise.

Ian Kennedy - James: too young; PECOTA: 141/120/4.24; ZiPS: 148/94/4.38. I can't understand PECOTA thinking that Kennedy is going to track better than Hughes. Was every scout last year wrong? I think ZiPS has these guys about right, except for the innings. Barring injury, both will pitch more. How do you baby a starter into 150 innings? This only happens if the next guy goes into the rotation with Mussina to make it a six-man deal.

Joba Chamberlain - James: pass; PECOTA: 145/162/3.39; ZiPS: 134/121/4.43. Wow. That's a stark contrast. ZiPS doesn't expect his walk rate to rise appreciably (still almost 4:1 in favor of K's). Dock Chamberlain the 30 percent or so that starters get when they move into relief and Joba still comes in at about a K-per inning. PECOTA then seems overstated (K-wise), but remember that Chamberlain will get some part of the season in relief. I think ZiPS is harsh given the peripherals in that projection. But I do expect regression to the mean and for Hughes to be the better starter in 2008.

Mariano Rivera - James: 76/69/2.76; PECOTA: 60/51/2.69; ZiPS: 75/66/2.40. Notice how the strikeout rate spiked for Rivera in 2007. Of course, that trend proved deceptive for Mussina last year. Could Rivera experience a similar collapse at a similar age? Nah. Even if Rivera's K ate declined 30 percent to between 6 and 7 Ks per 9, he'd have a shot to pitch like he did in 2006, which was, in many ways, better than in 2007. At some point, he'll fade, I guess. But close your eyes now and try to picture Rivera getting hammered consistently. Can't do it, right? The brain feels like some natural order has been violated. Rivera will be great, again. The rest of the 'pen? The less said about it, the better. But I'm sure we'll be saying plenty come April.