Where are Jason Kipnis' numbers headed?

I have spent most of my life loving to look at numbers, and no numbers make me as happy as baseball numbers. I like looking at numbers from the past, numbers from the present, and numbers from the future. For years some of my favorite numbers from the future have been the ones calculated by Bill James' Favorite Toy, a relatively simple system that uses a player's age and previous performance to project the player's career numbers and chance of hitting various career milestones. Recently I've been running through what the Favorite Toy has to say about various members of the Indians.

(It's not the most scientific tool, but I think it's fun.)

Previous entries:

• Michael Brantley
• Nick Swisher

Today I want to look at a player whose future seemed a lot rosier twelve months ago, when he was coming off a great season and seemed headed for many more. Injuries contributed to a very disappointing 2014 though, and now it feels harder to know what sort of career he's going to have.

Jason Kipnis

Here are Kip's current Favorite Toy projections in a number of categories:

• 1,509 hits (1,443)
• 303 doubles (283 doubles)
• 126 home runs (152)
• 284 stolen bases (276)
• 678 RBI (743)
• 808 runs (801)

It should be noted that the Favorite Toy looks at career totals but also puts weight on the previous three seasons. Kipnis appeared in only 36 games in 2011, so his Favorite Toy projections from a year ago (the numbers in parentheses) are lower than his 2012 and 2013 figures would lead one to expect. Point being, his future projections don't look that much worse than they did a year ago, but that's because he was only getting credit for ~25% of one of the three seasons a year ago.

Here are Kipnis' current chances of hitting various round numbers:

• 1,000 hits: 97%
• 1,500 hits: 51%
• 2,000 hits: 18%
• 200 doubles: 97%
• 300 doubles: 52%
• 400 doubles: 19%
• 100 home runs: 97%
• 150 home runs: 28%
• 200 home runs: 3%
• 200 stolen bases: 97%
• 300 stolen bases: 43%
• 400 stolen bases: 13%
• 600 RBI: 71%
• 800 RBI: 29%
• 1,000 RBI: 8%
• 600 runs: 97%
• 800 runs: 52%
• 1,000 runs: 24%

Here's to hoping Kipnis' future projections and chances of reaching those numbers rebound dramatically in 2015.