You might have noticed throughout our 2010 season preview series that we’ve been combining various projection systems at the end of each article. Each system handles projections differently, so we wanted to get an average, just to see if we can weed out some more bias. Yet the same caveat still applies to the averaged projection: it’s just a projection. It’s not saying that this is how Player A will hit in 2010. It’s saying that, based on the methodology, this is the best idea we have of the player’s potential production.

As John Sterling often says, you just can’t predict baseball. There are so many moving parts, so many variables, so many unknowns that predictions simply cannot take them all into account. You can compensate for the unknown, but you can’t factor it into predictions and projections. Thankfully, projection systems aren’t trying to predict anything. Instead, they’re taking the available data and putting it through a process which outputs its best idea of a player’s future performance. But, because of all the factors it cannot consider, these projections are often inaccurate.

Then why have them? Because it’s better than assuming a player will repeat his numbers from the previous season. Few players put up the same numbers year after year. Production fluctuates. Players get unlucky and players go on hot streaks. A pitcher can throw a perfect game and then allow five runs in his next start. Projection systems try to smooth this out, taking all available data and processing it in order to give us an idea of a player’s next-year production.

Projection systems have their biases, too. PECOTA, for example, hammers older players. That does make a degree of sense, because production tends to decline as a player ages. Not every player, though, declines along the same path. So when PECOTA projects a rough year from Jorge Posada, it’s just using the data available as it relates to the player, a 38-year-old catcher. That doesn’t mean Jorge will necessarily decline along the same lines.

All this is to back up Rob Neyer’s disbelief in the projections for a few Yankees’ veterans. There’s an article, written by a notorious pot-stirrer, that basically says, “here are the PECOTA numbers, the Yankees could be in trouble.” It’s pretty benign, really. PECOTA projections have been out since late January, so we’ve all had a change to look over them (or at least those of us with a BP subscription). We know that other projection systems aren’t bullish on the veteran Yankees. Yet I’m with Neyer when he says

I don’t know enough about the guts of PECOTA to rail against it. Instead I’ll just say that I don’t believe that Jeter is going to steal 10 bases this season, and that I don’t believe Mariano Rivera will save only 22 games. I will say, too, that if your system says those things, it’s probably worth checking under the hood just in case one of the belts is running a little loose.

In other words, projection systems use general principles to project individual players. While there’s certainly merit in the exercise, it sometimes can’t nail down the outliers. That might be what’s at play here.

Does baseball need to realign its teams and divisions? Probably not, but that won’t stop interested parties from discussing the possibilities. A few weeks ago Ben addressed Ken Rosenthal’s plan, which includes many teams switching teams and leagues. That might have sounded radical, but it’s not quite at the level of the plan Tom Verducci shares. Unlike Rosenthal’s, this plan, which involves changes on a yearly basis, is actually being considered by baseball officials.

Just how would a floating realignment scheme work?

One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.

For starters, I’m sure only three teams want to break up the AL East. The rest would rather see the Yankees and the Sox in the same division. After all, why would you want one of the two biggest spending teams to separate and possibly move into your division? That could actually make it easier for both the Yankees and the Red Sox to win their divisions, since 1) they’re not fighting for the same division title, and 2) they would no longer play each other 18 times a year. In fact, if one moved to the NL — interleague moves would be permitted under this plan — they wouldn’t play each other except during the interleague period.

At first I thought that the complexity of a floating system was a bug in the system, though after further thought I think it’s a feature. Fans love the off-season. The Yankees won the World Series this year, yet more people visited the site during the Winter Meetings than the World Series. A series of measures to determine yearly realignment could add another level to the off-season. I’m sure we’d all pay close attention as teams vied for optimal places within divisions, thus determining their main competition for the following season.

The flipside is that plenty of teams would try to use the system as a way to punt their rebuilding seasons. In Verducci’s example, the Indians would essentially be running and hiding from the competition, taking their licks from the AL East — or whatever division at the time presents the toughest competition. This not only allows teams to hide away as they rebuild, but it allows better teams to face weaker competition. This is the part of the idea I like least. If floating realignment does become a real possibility, I’d far rather see a system where the best teams get grouped somewhat together, so that they can play each other more often.

While MLB likely won’t implement this plan, it is a much better option than static realignment in order to break up the Yankees and Red Sox. Again, only three teams really care about this issue. The rest probably like having the two in the same division. Static realignment also ignores the possibility — and, in the long term, certainty — that the Sox and Yanks fall from power. The whole thing will be for naught if two teams in another division accumulate the power the Yankees and the Sox currently wield.

Still, floating realignment does have its benefits. I’d like to see a sampling of exactly how teams can change divisions. That will determine its viability. If it allows for strong teams playing strong teams more often, they might be onto something. But if it allows low payroll teams to hide out among the big boys, raking in cash at the gate when those teams come to town, I’m not sure I favor it. Any realignment plan should favor the teams that put out a quality product. To favor the Indians just because they’re rebuilding doesn’t seem like a solid reason to propose a plan like this.

Later today, the Colts and Saints will stand around a coin as it spins through the air to determine who will receive and who will kick to start Super Bowl XLIV. Three and a half hours, the game will be over, and then, we wait. We wait for pitchers and catchers; we wait for position players; we wait for games; we wait for Opening Day.

For baseball fans, the month of February is something akin to torture. When the Super Bowl ends and all that the sports world has to offer are some mid-season NBA and NHL games with the promise of March Madness on the horizon, baseball fans idle away their hours waiting for something to happen. It’s a blissful day when pitchers and catchers report, but it also means a lull in news stories. The rumors are done flying, and team rosters are largely set. During those days, pitcher fielding practice is as compelling for fans as it is for pitchers.

Yet, Super Bowl Sunday for me has always been a ray of hope. It’s last gasp of winter before the promise of spring. We might have to wait for something to happen, but baseball is the next big thing for the sports world. The waiting is almost over.

This year, for the Yankees, Spring Training and the eventual regular season are a bit more exciting. The team, after all, is the cream of the crop, the king of the hill. They won the World Series and are the target of, well, everyone else. The AL has retooled with the Yanks in mind, and the Phillies are raring for a late-October rematch.

As the upcoming season unfolds, we’ll see the same milestones — Opening Day, Yankees-Red Sox games, the All Star Break, the trading deadline. But we’ll see some new ones too. We’ll see the Yankees get their rings, supposedly on April 13. We’ll see Joe Girardi take his team to Los Angeles for a reunion with another Joe who used to helm the club. We’ll see the new-look Mariners, the new-look Red Sox and the new-look Angels come to town. We’ll see old friends in new uniforms and new friends in pinstripes come to town. It is all the promise of a new season.

So today, we sit and wait for football. We’ll cheer on the Saints or the Colts, Drew Brees or Peyton Manning. We’ll watch a good game; we’ll check out the overhyped commercials; we’ll see the football season draw to a close. And then we’ll sit and wait for baseball. We’ll wait for Florida, for Arizona, for the first games of the spring, for the first pitch of the season. We’re almost there, and while this cold settles in to muzzle the East Coast and baseball seems far away, it’s just around the corner. I couldn’t be more ready.