Your 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers

The PECOTA projections of the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers:

CF Juan Pierre .291/.336/.369
C  Russell Martin .291/.376/.453
RF Matt Kemp .300/.354/.528
3B Andy LaRoche .287/.363/.494
1B James Loney .294/.353/.484
LF Andre Ethier .294/.364/.464
SS Wilson Betemit .259/.329/.440
2B Tony Abreu .278/.323/.417

SP Clayton Kershaw 3.39 ERA
SP Jason Schmidt 4.25 ERA
SP Hong-Chih Kuo 4.28 ERA
SP Scott Elbert 4.41 ERA
SP Chad Billingsley 4.43 ERA

Pretty good for about a 40 million dollar payroll. The Dodgers also have the option to bring back Brad Penny for 9.25 million, which they almost certainly will. This leaves us with about 70 million dollars to replace the players that inevitably won't pan out and get a better shortstop than Betemit (I'm not including shortstop of the future Chin-Lung Hu since I think his inability to hit could cause some problems). Even the weak projection for Tony Abreu is right around a league average second baseman.

Of course, all these projections should be taken with a grain of salt, projection systems get less and less accurate the further into the future you travel, and PECOTA isn't great at projecting players with no major league track record. Not to mention Kershaw's projection is based off 37 innings in rookie ball. Still, this is a very encouraging sign of things to come.