2014 ZiPS Projections – San Diego Padres

After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Minnesota / Philadelphia / St. Louis.

Batters
San Diego’s leader by WAR in 2013 was Chris Denorfia, with a 3.9 mark — for which reason it feels odd to view him as part-time/platoon-type player entering 2014. Yet, that’s how the author has classified him in the depth-chart graphic below and how ZiPS seemingly regards him, as well — insofar, that is, as it doesn’t foresee the outfielder duplicating his career-best season, at all.

Of some difficulty with regard to understanding the 2014 iteration of the Padres is estimating precisely how playing time will work out between the team’s two catchers. ZiPS’ computer math suggests that Yasmani Grandal is probably the second- or third-best player on the whole club. That said, he underwent surgery on his ACL in August that could require up to a year of recovery. Fortunately for San Diego, Nick Hundley himself isn’t a particularly significant downgrade. Still, that’s a lot of talent to possess at one position while others could certainly afford to be upgraded.

Pitchers
It’s absolutely a credit to left-hander Eric Stults that, after pitching in part of six major-league seasons, he recorded his first 200-inning season — and, simultaneously, his first 100-inning season — at age 33. It’s less of a credit to the Padres rotation, probably, though, that left-hander Eric Stults — who notably recorded his first 200-inning season at age 33 — was the club’s pitching WAR leader in 2013. Promising moments from both Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross — plus the signing of Josh Johnson — suggest that there’s some reason for optimism here, but the margin for error is pretty small.

One of the club’s bullpen fixtures, Luke Gregerson, departed in a trade to Oakland recently for outfielder Seth Smith — whose projection is absent from those included below, the author has literally just noticed while typing these words. Otherwise, the relief corps is largely unchanged since the end of 2013, including closer Huston Street other serviceable pieces like Brad Boxberger, Dale Thayer, Nick Vincent.

Bench/Prospects
The Padres system certainly isn’t without talent. Catcher Austin Hedges remains one of the more promising prospects in all of baseball. Right-hander Matthew Wisler, as well, exhibited above-average stuff en route to an excellent year at Double-A in just his age-20 season. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of premium talent ready to produce at the major leagues. In part, this is due to injuries which have stalled the development of Casey Kelly, Rymer Liriano, and Joe Wieland — all of whom could reasonably have had some kind of role with the 2013 club.

Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Padres, with rounded projected WAR totals for each player. For caveats regarding WAR values see disclaimer at bottom of post. Click to embiggen image.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site and author’s own haphazard reasoning.

Batters, Counting Stats

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Batters, Rates and Averages

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Batters, Assorted Other

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Pitchers, Counting Stats

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Pitchers, Rates and Averages

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Pitchers, Assorted Other

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Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2014. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams unless Dan has made a mistake. This is very possible as a lot of minor-league signings are generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS is projecting based on the AL having a 4.04 ERA and the NL having a 3.81 ERA.

Players that are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information and a computer isn’t what should be projecting the injury status of, for example, a pitcher with Tommy John surgery.

Regarding ERA+ vs. ERA- (and FIP+ vs. FIP-) and the differences therein: as Patriot notes here, they are not simply mirror images of each other. Writes Patriot: “ERA+ does not tell you that a pitcher’s ERA was X% less or more than the league’s ERA. It tells you that the league’s ERA was X% less or more than the pitcher’s ERA.”

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, Szymborski will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on depth chart to produce projected team WAR.