Brewers: Are 2021 Outfield Stat Projections “Fair” or “Foul?”

Lorenzo Cain

Projection: .265/.343/.381 6 HR 23 RBI 38 R

Ruling: Foul

This one looked to be heading fair but a fan reached over into the field of play and made it foul. I don’t have too much of a gripe with this projection besides a couple categories.

First off, I do agree with the amount of at-bats that Lorenzo Cain could be looking at this year. He’s getting up there in age and is entering the year with a quad injury so the Brewers are planning on working him back slowly. Also, throw in the addition of Bradley Jr. and Cain’s plate appearances are more than cut in half compared to his 162-game average over his career of 666.

The first disagreement I have with this projection is the runs batted in number of 23. Given that Kolten Wong will likely either hit first or second in the lineup with Cain potentially taking a while to get going at the plate due to the injury, I am inclined to believe that he will be hitting lower in the lineup, thus giving him more of a chance to drive runners in if the Brewers can be more efficient at getting on base this year. I would say somewhere in the ballpark of 32 RBI’s seems respectable.

The other element is the runs portion of the table. Lorenzo Cain has been a run scoring machine throughout his career and with the projected OBP of .343, I think he’ll have plenty of chances to score runs this year.

A good portion of Cain’s success relies on others producing within the lineup, but I disagree by a small margin with Baseball Reference in this one. We should hope that Cain and the rest of the outfielders all contribute so much that it’s a daily challenge for Craig Counsell to pick which three to put on the lineup card.