The Baseball Prospectus projections are a bit of a sticky situation on the South Side, namely because BP dogged the Sox in 2005 — pegging them to finish fourth in the AL Central. They were World Series champs that year. Kenny Williams cares not for your silly projections.

But, BP was also dead-on in 2007 as they predicted a 72-90 record for the Sox. This is exactly how they finished. And, all things told, these projections are usually pretty dang good. At least as far as predictions are considered. This stuff can never be 100 percent accurate.

Nate Silver and His Merry Gang of Sabermaticians have just realeased their 2009 projections, and here’s what we have for the Sox:

Yeesh. However, it certainly shouldn’t take much for the Sox to go from last to second, considering only five wins separate them from the Twins. They could be under .500 and still finish in second place. Small victories. As you can see here as well, BP is also projecting the Sox to score 48 less runs this season.

But I thought smallball was going to help the team!

The Cubs meanwhile, are sitting rather nice:

Not only do they have them as far and away the NL Central winner, but the Cubs are also projected to be the top offense in all of the majors with 865 runs scored.

These are things I could have surmised, but seeing them published somewhere breaks my little Sox fan heart just a little bit. Sigh.