Signing Pedro Martinez was the first significant move that Omar Minaya made after he took over as GM three years ago. It was a four-year, $52 million deal that many suggested was a year and a few million bucks too much to give to a guy coming off a 3.90 ERA in 2003. The Mets were hoping for a difference-maker, the likes of which Martinez had been for so many years in Boston. In his first year as a Met, Martinez was just that, finishing near the top of the NL in almost every important pitching category.

He battled injuries in 2006, making just 23 starts and finishing with a sub-standard 4.48 ERA. He missed almost all of 2007 recovering from shoulder surgery, but made five starts at the end of the season, showing signs of the dominance of his first season in Queens.

Question marks abound as 2008 looms, and with nothing to do but sit on our thumbs until pitchers and catchers report in five weeks, let's have a bit of fun. A number of other SBN blogs hold community projections for some of their teams' more prominent players, so I'd like to take a crack at doing something similar with the Mets.

We'll start with Sir Pedro, projecting his 2008 performance in the following categories:

1. Games started
2. Innings pitched
3. Hits
4. Walks
5. Strikeouts
6. Homeruns allowed
7. Wins
8. Losses
9. ERA

GS,IP,H,BB,K,HR,W,L,ERA

You can even copy the line above, paste it into your comment, and then simply replace the categories with your projections. For example:

20,140,130,45,135,16,10,6,3.50

Posting in this manner will make it far easier for me to copy into Excel to tabulate. I'll post other pitchers and hitters in the coming weeks, and will tally our projections at the end.

And... go!