Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox / Yankees.

Batters
With regard to the projections below, an entirely reasonable person might ask: “To what extent does ZiPS account for catcher Yasmani Grandal’s 50-game suspension that he was given for a performance-enhancing substance in November — in light, particularly, of how Grandal is given the second-highest WAR projection among all Padres batters?” To which question the author is compelled to answer: “Not at all, unfortunately.” In point of fact, Grandal’s suspension likely calls for his WAR projection to be approximately two-thirded — which the author promises is a verb you can use in business memos or term papers or whatever.

Of note is the very elegant right-field platoon that persists in San Diego. A ninth-round pick out of Princeton and 19th-round pick out of something called Wheaton College, Will Venable and Chris Denorfia, respectively, continue to produce at something demonstrably better than replacement-level.

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Ben and Sam preview the Royals’ season with Craig Brown, and Pete talks to Kansas City Star columnist Sam Mellinger (at 26:26).

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Episode 302
In defiance of all reason, managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes 110% of all baseball in this edition of FanGraphs Audio, looking specifically at some questions of late concerning WAR, but also everything else in re baseball plus 10%.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 34 min play time.)

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Earlier Tuesday, word got around that the St. Louis Cardinals had called an afternoon press conference. Word got around because the Cardinals spread it. Immediately, there was some speculation that the Cardinals had made an acquisition. There was also speculation that the Cardinals were going to announce a long-term contract extension for a player or coach. But then there were whispers that the news conference would have to do with Chris Carpenter’s future, and many began to expect a retirement announcement. Carpenter has not retired, but retirement doesn’t appear to be far off.

Carpenter’s coming off major surgery, and he started throwing early on this offseason to test his body. Recently, he informed the Cardinals that he’s feeling similar symptoms to the ones he experienced a year ago. He’s going to get himself examined, but the Cardinals all but wrote him off for 2013, and they repeatedly referred to Carpenter in the past tense. This is not a Chris Carpenter retirement article, but you can consider it just one step below.

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The Steamer projections courtesy of steamerprojections.com are now available in the projections section and in the player pages.

The Steamer projections on FanGraphs use the playing time projections from the FAN projections.

Huge thanks to Jared Cross, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom; the team behind the Steamer projections.

Update: FIP, HR, and BABIP columns should now be corrected. There was some bad data cached.

One of the most often cited criticisms of WAR is that replacement level is essentially an arbitrary construct, making the entire model just an act of theoretical speculation. The idea of replacement level is to essentially set a baseline for expected performance from a team that invested the absolute minimum in putting together a Major League roster. This replacement level team wouldn’t have a farm system, so that they didn’t have to spend money on draft picks, coaches, equipment, or facilities. They would rely entirely on league minimum veterans to build out their roster, thus allowing us to see how approximately many wins a team could expect if they did the absolute bare minimum in terms of organizational investment.

That team doesn’t exist, obviously, as even organizations that completely tear down their big league roster work to rebuild through accumulation of young talent, and no team actually spends the league minimum on its Major League payroll. Thus, the criticism that the entire exercise is a thought experiment, not applicable to the Major Leagues and incapable of serving as a baseline against which Major League players should be judged.

However, that argument misses out on the fact that MLB teams give us a pretty great list of replacement level players every winter, thanks to the processes of minor league free agency and the waiver system.

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Play the player-profile game again tomorrow — in this case, at 1:00pm ET. We’re giving away a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).

As Eno Sarris announced yesterday, FanGraphs+ is once again available to the sexy, teeming masses.

In celebration — and to the end of nearly relentless promotion — we’re playing the player-profile game I introduced in these pages a few offseasons ago.

The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.

First reader to guess correctly (in the comments section below) gets a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ — approximately a $1000 value!

Today’s entry comes to us courtesy of Mr. David Wiers.

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There was the Reggie Bar, named for and endorsed by Reggie Jackson. There was Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle in a prominent ad for Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Drink. Stan Musial was on the back of the Wheaties box and paired with Ted Williams in ads for Chesterfield cigarettes. Roger Clemens was in a Zest soap commercial and Rafael Palmeiro talked about erectile dysfunction for Viagra. Okay, maybe that last one isn’t the one to highlight.

But why aren’t there big major league stars on today’s Wheaties boxes?

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