TOWER GROVE - Each winter, right about the time that baseball seems its furthest away and folks start dusting off the Rogers Hornsby window quote for their Facebook statuses, into the void swoop the annual projections.

One of the most dog-eared of the offseason tomes that offer statistical guesstimates for the coming year is the Bill James Handbook. This year's volume has Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto on the cover, but it's another first baseman that dominates the projections, if you look close enough. We'll get to that in a moment.

Projecting future production is a foolish, though fun, errand.

It has also gained importance.

As Bill James writes in the introduction to the projection section of this year's Handbook: "As Fantasy Baseball is now America's fourth-largest business, this section of the book could be considered business consulting. Got a hot tip for you, boss: This Albert Pujols, he's pretty good." He's right. Projecting stats in this fashion is most useful for the roto-set.

But he's also correct in calling it a business consultation. Baseball has a distinct Wall Street feel, because what else is signing a free agent like Matt Holliday or price-locking a rising star like Carlos Gonzalez besides trading on futures? If you have a crystal-ball formula that gives you insight into the future price of oil or IBM stock, it's that an investing edge? The St. Louis Cardinals, no doubt, felt they had a good handle on what Lance Berkman was going to do for their team in 2011 before spending $8 million on his IPO.

Projections have a place beyond fantasy.

They're downright financial.

Each year, James and his Handbook colleagues grade their projections as a way to improve their formulas. Obviously, playing time/injury can sabotage any projection from year to year. And, sure, guessing plays a part. Last winter, the Handbook suggested that J.D. Drew would hit 22 home runs, and he did hit exactly 22 home runs. He also stole three bases, as projected. Genius. The better use of the projections is to identify a rough range or what can be/should be expected from that player. Baseball Prospectus does this by identifying projections like test scores. There's a 90th percentile projection, a 70th percentile projection, a 20th percentile projection, etc. It's a bell curve, with the most likely production being there in the middle.

One that the Bill James Handbook nailed last year was Holliday, weeks before he signed his seven-year, $120-million deal, a contract that the Cardinals offered because they could project him to do what he did in 2010.

Projected 2010
155 games, 605 AB, 105 R, 191 H, 43 2B, 3 3B, 27 HR, 109 RBI, 66 BB, 112 K, 14 SB, .316 BA, .531 SLG

Actual 2010
158 games, 596 AB, 95 R, 186 H, 45 2B, 1 3B, 28 HR, 103 RBI, 69 BB, 93 K, 9 SB, .312 BA, .532 SLG

The Handbook calls Holliday's projection its second-best of the year, behind the one for Raj Davis. (They said he'd steal 50 bases; he did.)

In the 2011 Handbook, there are plenty of projections to catch a Cardinals' fan's eye. Berkman, for example, is targeted for a .275/.393/.486 line with 22 home runs and 79 RBIs. That would be a bounce-back year for the switch-hitter and designated right fielder. Allen Craig is projected to have a .796 OPS and six homers in 152 at-bats this coming year. Seemed a little on the light side until the Cardinals signed Berkman. Holliday is set to do what he does (.313/.390/.537) and Colby Rasmus isn't expected to run much (10 steals in 15 tries) or match last year's power (19 homers).

The projections love third baseman David Freese:

.295/.353/.452 ... .805 OPS

16 HR, 85 RBIs, 83 runs created, 32 2B

Where I'm going with all this - other than giving you a peek between the covers of this year's Handbook - is back to first base.

There probably isn't an elite player as easy to project as the Cardinals first baseman and three-time MVP. He simply is a relentless metronome of offense, and among the many ways to measure his uncanny production is to illustrate how rarely it strays from his career average. Baseball-Reference.com calculates a player's average season over the course of a 162-game schedule, and as Sports Illustrated senior writer Joe Posnanski recently pointed out on his Twitter feed, there are less than 10 players who have had one season that is the equivalent to Pujols' average year.

Take that a step forward and consider how small the variances are from year to year for Pujols, and how his extremes, just aren't that extreme. Wish I had a better way to illustrate this, but until someone wiser than me puts power to point, here is the range:

Batting Average
career .331 ... low: minus-19 (.312, 2010) ... high: plus-28 (.359, 2003)

OBP
career: .426 ... low: minus-32 (.394, 2002) ... high: plus-36 (.462, 2008)

SLG
career: .624 ... low: minus-63 (.624, 2002) ... high: plus-47 (.671, 2006)

OPS
career: 1.050 ... low: minus-95 (.955, 2002) ... high: plus-64 (1.114, 2008)

Home Runs
career: 42 ... low: minus-10 (32, 2007) ... high: plus-7 (49, 2006)

Runs
career: 123 ... low: minus-24 (99, 2007) ... high: plus-14 (137, 2003)

RBIs
career: 128 ... low: minus-25 (128, 2007) ... high: plus-9 (137, 2006)

If you simply take the median from the low and high totals, you have a rather elementary and representative "projection" for Pujols' 2011. You can even do it without a calculator. Seriously. Give it a try. I'll wait.

This is what you get:

.336 BA, .428 OBP, .616 SLG, 1.034 OPS*
41 HR, 118 runs, 120 RBIs

* I know, I know. It doesn't equal the OBP+SLG. But go with me here.

Not too shabby and probably pretty close.

Who needs fancy formulas?

Pujols is good enough to make us all Sabermetricians.

Now, here's where this matters most. One of the reasons why Pujols is viewed as beyond the market when it comes to his next contract - be it an extension with the Cardinals or through free agency - is the incredible sameness of his seasons. His MVP-caliber production is not only projectable, it's routine. He is a known quantity. He's a government bond, immune to market fluctuation.

Which brings us back to the Handbook's projections.

In the current edition of the Bill James Handbook there are projections for 445 players. Only one is projected to have an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of better than 1.000. That's Pujols, and his projected 1.061 OPS. The rest of his projected line for 2011 looks pretty similar to the one we put together above without the use of a calculator: hit .327, slug .625, drive in 126 runs, score 120 of them and crack 43 homers. Just another year at the office.

What struck me about these projections wasn't the numbers themselves, but the numbers around them. Votto is projected to have a .990 OPS and hit 33 homers. Joe Mauer is projected to hit .338. Ryan Howard is pegged for 133 RBIs. That's when it became clear. The Handbook not only projects Pujols for another Pujols year, but, if you read the other projections, it pegs him for ...

... a Triple Crown run.

Pujols' 43 projected home runs are tied for the NL "lead" with Howard. His 126 RBIs are seven shy of Howard's MLB "lead", and we all know how RBIs fluctuate depending on situation and lineup and such. Pujols' .327 batting average is the NL "lead" for the projections, second to Mauer's in MLB.

The Handbook projects that Pujols will have the best batting average in the NL, the most homers and the second-most RBIs. Going back to 1969 in the National League, the same player has not won those two Triple Crown jewels in the same season.

"A lot of players, it turns out, are pretty consistent," James writes before digging into the projections. "It's just more notable for Albert because he is consistent and a beast."

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