Bill James Projection for Chipper Jones’ 2012

This is Bill James. We’re going to be examining Mr. James’ projections for most of the everyday Braves’ on the 2012 club. Today we’ll take a look at Chipper Jones. All projection data gathered from the fine folks at FanGraphs.

Bill James 2012 Chipper Jones Projection:

110 Games Played, 356 AB, 99 hits, 21 doubles, 1 triples, 14 HR, 53 runs, 56 RBI, 57 BB, 63 K, 2 SB, .278 AVG, .378/.461/.839

Many out there had Chipper Jones written off as retired that Tuesday night he tore his knee up in Houston back in August of 2010. Instead of hanging them up, Chipper did what a lot of Hall of Famers seem to be more consistent at doing. He limped his way into 126 ballgames and over 500 plate appearances. He hit a respectable .275 with 18 home runs and a slash line of .344/470/.814 that won’t get anyone fired, killed or rushed into early retirement.

That slash line represents the most important of data that we’ll look at in terms of seeing what kind of season that James sees coming forth for the Braves leader in this his 19th season in the big leagues (yes, we’re counting that 1993 where he got just a cup of coffee).

Basically, James sees the veteran Jones plugging along at a slightly better clip than he did last season; but only projects him at 110 games played and under 400 at-bats for the season. If this is the season Jones rides off into the sunset, he will have no Indian summer, but rather a pedestrian but yeoman’s push towards Cooperstown.

While we wouldn’t rule out Chipper playing in a 20th season in 2013; if James believes the same things we do, he feels that 2012 will be his final performance in what has been a remarkable big league career.