Accurately evaluating a player's future performance is essential for building a successful franchise. But, how do we arrive at these judgments?

First, do players get "hot" (defined by a hitting streak) more often than we would expect by chance? And second, do players who have hitting streaks of at least 10 games, show improved performance over the next 10 games? If so, we should target these players.

The question, then, is whether we can estimate the "correct" hr/f for a given player. An even more important question is whether we can use that information to predict regression from one season to the next. In two words: yes and yes.

A statistic frequently used to fuel speculation is the number of doubles a player hits - there is often conjecture that a player with a lot of doubles in one year might turn them some of them into HR the next. But does this actually happen with reliable frequency?

A look ahead at what you might see covered in our Playing Time Today column on September 16, 2012...

This week, we present eight young hitters with the potential to be 2012's version of Alex Gordon or Cameron Maybin:

Part two of our series on rookie 2H/1H splits that span two seasons. This week, the pitchers.

Blurring the lines of rookie "seasons" to look for mid-year trends of 2010 callups.

There are many ways to get on base, but none are as dangerous or painful as being hit by a pitch. Bruise Rate, or BRU, measures the rate of HBP per 600 PA—or about one season. Check out the active leaders in BRU.

A new and improved xBA that includes hard-hit balls and the Spd metric.

Many thousands of words have now been written about Toronto's Jose Bautista. No worthwhile forecasting system should have predicted more than 18-24 home runs for him entering 2010. But were there any logical indications that he could have not only beat that forecast, but that he could have more than doubled it?