BASEBALL
	4.22.03 - Early Season Individual Suprises This baseball season has started off with quite a few suprises, especially the hot start of the Kansas City Royals, and the slow starts of some respected veteran pitchers like Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, and Greg Maddux.  It is still very early in the season, though, so most of these suprises should be taken with a grain of salt.  That, however, doesn't change the fact that it is entertaining to look at players statistics early in the season and project their season ending stats.  Here are a couple of extreme examples: Mike Matheny Matheny is the catcher for St. Louis and has been known throughout his career as an excellent defensive catcher, but a below-average offensive player.  This season, however, Matheny has started the season swinging a hot bat.  Here is Matheny's pace through 17 games this season: .358 average, 10 HR, 114 RBI, 228 Hits, .863 OPS Those are outstanding production numbers, although a bit lacking in the power department, still good enough to make Matheny an all star at catcher.  These numbers are even more amazing when compared to Matheny's career numbers.  His per-162 game average over his career looks like this: .238, 7 HR, 52 RBI, 111 Hits, .625 OPS Here are Matheny's career best single season numbers: .261, 8 HR, 47 RBI, 109 Hits, .679 OPS Matheny attributes his new-found success to a new attitude and approach to hitting.  If this new approach allows him to sustain this remarkable improvement in production, the Cardinals will feel like they've won the lottery with Matheny. Brent Mayne Continuing with another catcher from Missouri, whose last name begins with an M...  Kansas City's Brent Mayne has had a little more hitting success in his career than has Matheny, but his improvement this year is no less remarkable.  Here are his projected stats after appearing in 12 of Kansas City's first 17 games: .405, 29 HR, 95 RBI, 162 Hits, 1.149 OPS Yes, that's right, Brent Mayne is on pace to be the first hitter to bat over .400 since Ted Williams (of course, so are several other players in the MLB at this point in the season).  While not on pace to drive in as many runs as Matheny, Mayne has shown the power thus far in the season that Matheny has not.   Here, though, are Mayne's per-162 games career statistics: .270, 5 HR, 54 RBI, 124 Hits, .697 OPS And Mayne's career best: .301, 6 HR, 64 RBI, 101 Hits, .808 OPS Of course, you have to consider that Mayne set all of his career highs in the one full season he spent in Colorado.  Otherwise, his career stats are very similar to Matheny's. Jeff Suppan How about a pitcher, you say?  O.k., here's Jeff Suppan, formerly of the Royals, now of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Pitchers are one bad start away from completely destroying their pace statistics, especially early in the year (Suppan starts today against San Francisco, so his pace could be a couple of Barry Bonds at bats away from league worst), but it is fun to look at them anyway.  Here are Suppan's projected numbers after three starts: 27-0, 1.40 ERA, 108 Ks It would be fair to say that the Pirates would consider Suppan a $1 Million free agent success if he ended the season with those stats.  Here is Suppan's average season statistics: 6-7, 4.96 ERA, 69 Ks And here are his best season stats: 10-9, 4.37 ERA, 128 Ks That his projected strikeouts don't even surpass his best year for strikeouts doesn't bode well for Mr. Suppan. So what does all this tell us?  Absolutely nothing.  It is possible that all three of these guys are in for career years where their statistics far surpass their overall career statistics, but more likely, each of these three guys will return to form at some point this season.  I will check back in on these three as the season progresses and we can watch either their continued suprising season, or their fall back to Earth.
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