Armando Marsans may be the most complicated projection to date.
He’s certainly not the best player we’ve looked at, nor is his career particularly odd in its shape. What makes Marsans a challenge are the 7 years he spent in the majors, from 1911-1918 with stings both in the NL and AL and in the short-lived Federal League.
Handling those years raises issues core to the entire project of i9s. There are a lot of paths forward, with 2 extreme points: we could insist, look, he played in the majors; therefore for those years, his historical record needs to be exactly what it was, and the challenge is to construct the rest of his career so it is consistent with that (this would also imply a prejudice against much else in his career–if he was “only” good enough to play those 7 years, those are the only 7 years he should appear). Or, we could throw his historical record out the window and say, look, his MLB opportunity came while overcoming great prejudice, while being encouraged to act in all sorts of ways to hide his heritage, while being the target of various vitriol; as such, it’s an indicator, but it’s not the end-all, be-all of his ability.
We land somewhere in the middle, perhaps slightly weighted to the latter.
As such, Marsans’ MLB record is deeply considered in these projections, and his skillset is clearly and consistently on display. As an example, any projection that transformed Marsans into a power hitter would be laughable: while he may show fractionally more power in his NeL record, he only managed 2 homeruns facing MLB pitching. Similarly, his ability to control the strike zone and draw walks is present not only in his NeL record, but also in his 1911-1917 performance.
So here’s where we end up.
Marsans debuts as a 19 year old and immediately establishes himself as a (near) fulltime player, mostly in the OF. He’s … fine. He’s not a great hitter, but he’s not bad; he’s a pretty useful outfielder, especially in RF, but he’s not outstanding with the glove.
So, solid. Good enough to overall have a career as a league average player, but never really a star. He’ll show up in the top quarter of the league in a few stats occasionally (SB a few years, maybe walks a year or two, strikeouts in 1916). He should be a mostly full time starter from 1908 to 1913, and very useful piece before that. After that, it’s a slow decline where we don’t see Marsans playing more than 100 games from 1917 on.
Marsans played all three OF positions, with most of his time in LF in his NeL career, along with almost as many games at 1B. He was average defensively at best, with good range but a below average arm in the OF and very average numbers over at first. No real value there, but he also, at least until the very end of his career, wouldn’t really hurt you with the glove.
I feel like I’m pretty conservative with regards to Marsans. I could be convinced he hit for 15 more points of BA–and if he did that, I think he plays in 20 more games a season, and has a couple borderline all-star efforts in there. And maybe he deserves that. But a voice in my head keeps coming back to him just lacking the depth of offensive skills to really warrant that additional usage in the projections.
| Name | Armando Marsans |
| ID / Status | marsan001arm / Draft |
| Pos | OF |
| DOB / i9s Career | 10/03/1885 / 1904 - 1922 |
| Birthplace | Matanzas, (Cuba) |
| Height / Weight | 5'10" / 157 |
| B / T | R / R |
Batting Projections
| Year | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1904 | 460 | 122 | 14 | 6 | 0 | 30 | 42 | 16 | 7 | 0.265 | 0.310 | 0.322 | 9.999 |
| 1905 | 583 | 157 | 17 | 8 | 1 | 40 | 51 | 46 | 8 | 0.269 | 0.316 | 0.331 | 0.647 |
| 1906 | 435 | 89 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 37 | 42 | 15 | 6 | 0.205 | 0.267 | 0.241 | 0.508 |
| 1907 | 478 | 110 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 31 | 50 | 15 | 6 | 0.230 | 0.277 | 0.282 | 0.559 |
| 1908 | 510 | 111 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 56 | 48 | 36 | 6 | 0.218 | 0.295 | 0.269 | 0.564 |
| 1909 | 445 | 93 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 34 | 42 | 20 | 6 | 0.209 | 0.265 | 0.247 | 0.512 |
| 1910 | 494 | 126 | 20 | 8 | 2 | 61 | 52 | 55 | 9 | 0.255 | 0.337 | 0.340 | 0.677 |
| 1911 | 503 | 127 | 14 | 8 | 0 | 75 | 63 | 24 | 10 | 0.252 | 0.349 | 0.312 | 0.662 |
| 1912 | 608 | 181 | 24 | 5 | 1 | 61 | 81 | 38 | 12 | 0.298 | 0.362 | 0.359 | 0.720 |
| 1913 | 517 | 130 | 18 | 6 | 0 | 42 | 57 | 48 | 9 | 0.251 | 0.308 | 0.309 | 0.617 |
| 1914 | 425 | 96 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 60 | 47 | 45 | 6 | 0.223 | 0.322 | 0.273 | 0.595 |
| 1915 | 427 | 93 | 19 | 6 | 1 | 52 | 45 | 18 | 8 | 0.218 | 0.303 | 0.297 | 0.600 |
| 1916 | 521 | 128 | 16 | 6 | 1 | 64 | 72 | 20 | 7 | 0.246 | 0.328 | 0.305 | 0.633 |
| 1917 | 432 | 101 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 42 | 48 | 13 | 5 | 0.234 | 0.302 | 0.282 | 0.584 |
| 1918 | 343 | 82 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 29 | 29 | 5 | 4 | 0.239 | 0.298 | 0.283 | 0.581 |
| 1919 | 291 | 75 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 24 | 24 | 5 | 4 | 0.258 | 0.314 | 0.299 | 0.613 |
| 1920 | 208 | 52 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 27 | 24 | 3 | 4 | 0.250 | 0.336 | 0.288 | 0.625 |
| 1921 | 94 | 22 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 14 | 1 | 1 | 0.234 | 0.287 | 0.266 | 0.553 |