2009 Cubs Most Valuable Player:  Mike Fontenot?

Harry had sent me a spreadsheet awhile back that Sky Kalkman had been working on and recently Sky released that spreadsheet. I wish I could say I’ve done much with it, but I haven’t. Harry had the Cubs projected stats already in there and each time I open the file I’m shocked to see that Mike Fontenot is projected to be worth 5.4 WAR next season. I believe HP was using the CHONE projections for this and Fontenot’s projected wOBA is .340, he’s getting 500 PA, add in positional adjustment, and then his defense and it comes out to 5.4 WAR. Geovany Soto is 2nd on the offense at 3.7 WAR and Bradley is at 3.4 WAR. Among the pitchers, Harden is projected to be worth 4.3 WAR in 150 innings. Compare that to Zambrano’s 4.2 WAR in 210 innings. Rich Harden is good at baseball. Dempster is at 3.6 and Lilly at 3.1. Soriano at 2.4, Ramirez at 2.2, but the file does have Lee at -0.3 so I’m thinking something is wrong there. I’ll look into. Either way, based on these projections, the guy who will replace Saint DeRosa will be the most valuable player on the team.