Projecting Big Papi

Prior to Thursday night's game, the folks at Bodog posted some odds on how David Ortiz will fare the rest of the year. Most notably:

Ortiz, as you likely know, has hit one home run thus far this season, on Wednesday night against the Blue Jays.  Assuming he averages 3.34 PAs per Boston game the rest of the year -- which is what the projections I'll get to in a minute said at the beginning of the year --puts him at one HR every 22 PAs, according the the Bodog line.

Here's what four popular projection systems said about Ortiz's PA/HR prior to the season, along with what they say now if you use the standard method (in this case, 92% projection, 8% 2009 stats) to revise their predictions:

I would've expected both the magnitude of Ortiz's struggles and the publicity they've received to cause the Bodog line to be a good deal more pessimistic than the projections at this point, just because of the human element of it. But it turns out that the difference isn't all that big. PECOTA, which wasn't very high on Ortiz to begin with, is actually lower on Ortiz than Bodog. Marcel is within a PA of Bodog's inferred expectation, while CHONE and ZiPS are slightly higher on his future prospects.

It also would've been interesting, just in terms of the psychology of both the public and the oddsmakers, to compare the line prior to Wednesday night's homer to the line on Thursday afternoon. It seemed to me that a lot of people were relieved after he homered, and felt like now he'd get going. Of course, in the bigger picture, one HR through May 20th isn't anything to write home about. But I'd guess that the one HR on Wednesday night changed the line by significantly more than a single homer.