There's only so much 2011 projection data out there right now. There will be no CHONE this year, Marcel should be out soon, and complete ZiPS projections are out after Marcel. Right now, there's only CAIRO (based off Marcel), Bill James (kind of optimistic), and FanGraphs fan projections to really look at.

I took all three of these systems and did my best to combine them. I think CAIRO had the Sox pegged at 85 wins, but after I looked at their projections, some of the things didn't make sense (like Beckham getting only 460 PAs). Bill James is usually very optimistic and the fan projections are optimistic too. However, when you combine a pessimistic system with two somewhat optimistic ones, you should come out with something in the middle right? Keep in mind Bill James and fan projections weren't available for all players, so I had to do without one or the other at times.

I did not adjust any of the rate numbers except for players who were not projected. I only adjusted playing time, plate appearances, innings pitched, etc. Those had to make sense. For example, what good are these projections if starters don't combine for 162 games started? For guys without projections (like Infante), I had to look at their minor league numbers and pretty much guesstimate. In the end, Infante had minimal value, so it's not a huge deal. I also had to guesstimate Morel's defense. There's literally no trustworthy data out there to indicate the kind of fielder he really is. So I made him slightly above average based on what I've read and heard about his glove. These numbers are park adjusted using Baseball-Reference's park factor for U.S. Cellular Field. League average wOBA is set at .325, which is a 3 year average with 2010 having the most weight. League Runs/Game is set at 4.49, also a 3 year average with 2010 having the most influence.

The Sox' total WAR ends up at 40.8. The base is usually  48 wins for a team full of replacement players. So these projections have the Sox at 89 wins. It's nothing to worry about though. It's still early and the projections I used for these definitely aren't the best around.