2014 ZiPS Projections – Tampa Bay Rays

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 Tampa Bay Rays. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / San Diego / Seattle / St. Louis.

Batters
Certain clubs over the past 20 or so years have featured celebrated pairs of teammates: Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire*, for example, who played together on the late-80s Oakland clubs or David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez on the mid-aught Boston ones or, more recently, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder with Detroit. It’s entirely possible, however, that the combination of Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist is more formidable than any of those in terms of all-around production. Defensively, based on their ZiPS projections, each is at least as valuable afield as a league-average shortstop (and a bit more than that, in Longoria’s case).

With regard to the precise location of certain players on the depth-chart graphic below, one is compelled to acknowledge that, as in recent seasons, manager Joe Maddon is likely both to utilize platoons more than is suggested by that same graphic and also probably to use the DH slot for the sake of flexibility rather than as a lineup spot merely for, say, Matt Joyce alone. It would be interesting to see outfielder and right-handed-batting Brandon Guyer receive a substantive number of at-bats after several decent offensive seasons at Triple-A.

Pitchers
For reasons that are pretty obvious, Seattle has been rumored to have interest in left-hander David Price, whose contract demands Tampa Bay might have some difficulty meeting in the near future. To get a sense of the Rays relative depth, however, consider this possibly spurious claim: were they to deal Price to Seattle, Tampa Bay’s rotation would have a total projected zWAR of only about two fewer wins than the latter club’s rotation to begin the 2014 season (about 13 vs. 11, assuming Jake Odorizzi claimed the fifth-starter spot).

With the acquisition this offseason of Heath Bell (in the three-team deal, incidentally, that also produced for them Ryan Hanigan), Tampa Bay now offers beaucoup de options for high-leverage innings in its bullpen, which also features Jake McGee and Juan Oviedo, the latter of whom re-signed this offseason with a Rays club for whom he has yet to record an inning, owing to injury.

Bench/Prospects
ZiPS — or, at least, the computer math which informs ZiPS — isn’t particularly optimistic about the capacity for any of Tampa Bay’s prospects to make a substantial impact in 2014. Among field players, Hak-Ju Lee possesses perhaps the most interesting combination of present ability and youth; however, he missed almost the entirety of the 2013 season with a knee injury. Ryan Brett, meanwhile, is probably not considered the jewel of the minor-league system, and yet he also has received rather an encouraging projection for his age. Alex Colome (25), Jake Odorizzi (24), Enny Romero (23) all recorded major-league appearances in 2014, although none is likely to prevent runs at a league-average rate yet, according to ZiPS.

Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Rays, 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

***

Batters, Rates and Averages

***

Batters, Assorted Other

***

Pitchers, Counting Stats

***

Pitchers, Rates and Averages

***

Pitchers, Assorted Other

***

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.