2015 Opening Day Staff Survey

Opening Day is here! Can you feel it? Like we always do about this time, it’s time for some predictions. We already laid out our predictions for postseason teams and awards, but I thought we could take it a little further this year. We have lots of unique voices here in the FanGraphs family of blogs, and so we thought we’d ask them a few more questions and see what they had to say.

There were nine questions in all, symbolic of baseball’s usual nine innings of play. We asked some questions that called for some explanation, and some that didn’t. We’ll start with the ones that didn’t. In total, 31 people took the survey, though not everyone answered all of the questions, and some people provided more than one answer for some questions, because not everyone can be decisive and/or has multiple hot takes to give.

On what team do you think Cole Hamels will finish the 2015 season?

• 12 votes: Phillies
• 4: Blue Jays
• 3: Red Sox, Yankees
• 2: Cubs, Padres
• 1: Angels, Dodgers, Rays, White Sox, “not the Phillies”

The majority, including myself, have faith in Ruben Amaro Jr.’s ability to remain stubborn enough to not trade Hamels at the deadline.

Which possible 2016 free agents sign contract extensions during the season?

• 12 votes: Jason Heyward
• 4: Hisashi Iwakuma
• 3: Howie Kendrick
• 5: Ian Desmond
• 2: Johnny Cueto, Alex Gordon, Justin Upton, None
• 1: Jose Bautista, Doug Fister, Chris Iannetta, Austin Jackson, Matt Joyce, Ian Kennedy, Steve Pearce, Rick Porcello, David Price, Jeff Samardzija, Huston Street, Ichiro Suzuki, Ben Zobrist

Brad Johnson, who was one of the two “none” voters, added that he believes all of the major free agents to be will “take a page out of Max Scherzer’s book and buy insurance instead.”

Which team will most overperform their projections? Why?

• 6: White Sox
• 5: Blue Jays
• 4: Marlins
• 3: Giants
• 2: A’s, Cubs, Nationals and Orioles
• 1: Mets, Padres, Rangers, Rays

Here, we begin to ask the eternal question, “why?” For each of these questions, we’ll present a sampling of our authors had to say on each subject.

Paul Sporer, White Sox: “I think they’re markedly better, particularly in the outfield; plus projections don’t capture Rodon’s upside.”
Jeff Sullivan, White Sox: “They can plug current holes with little trouble.”
Alex Chamberlain, Blue Jays: “Stroman isn’t their only great young pitcher.”

Dan Farnsworth believes the Rays have “lots of underappreciated pitching.” Bryan Cole, Zach Sanders and Brad Johnson essentially cited the Marlins’ games against weak NL East sisters Atlanta and Philadelphia, while Miles Wray noted similar reasoning for the Padres against the Dbacks and Rockies. Interestingly, the Rangers got one vote, from Rangers fan John Paschal, aka Azure Texan. He said: “Because I still love them, and you have to believe in something.” Fair enough. (Also, this sounds like a political slogan from “The Simpsons.”

Which team will most underperform their projections? Why?

• 6: Red Sox
• 3: Padres, Rays
• 2: Angels, Brewers, Cubs, Mariners, Nationals, Tigers, Yankees
• 1: Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Phillies, Red Sox, Rockies

On Friday, in our staff predictions piece, the consensus AL East champion was the Red Sox, but clearly not everyone agrees. This reminds me of the Pitchfork year-end reader awards, where the same albums will show up on the “best of” and “most overrated” lists. Says Bryan Cole — “That rotation is terrible.” Chris Mitchell says, “too many old players.” Greg Simons had a similar thought, as he said that injuries to Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval will prove costly. Simons, as well as Alex Chamberlain and David Laurila also shared Cole’s concerns about the starting staff. The most eloquent comment may have come from Paschal, who wrote, “Because pulled hammies, colliding egos and question-mark arms are no way to go through life, son.”

While the Red Sox dominated this question, there were plenty of other selections — 16 teams were listed. And the Red Sox were not the only team where injuries or age were listed as a concern. Eno Sarris and Chad Young (Angels) and August Fagerstrom (Tigers) expressed such concerns. Others specifically listed injuries to a team’s pitching staff: Neil Weinberg and Jeff Sullivan (Yankees), Patrick Dubuque and Zach Sanders (Rays) and Colin Zarzycki (Nationals).

Here is a sampling of some other responses:

Dave Cameron, Brewers: “No depth to step-in after the mid-summer sell-off begins.”
Jonah Pernstein, Padres: “I don’t trust anyone on that team to perform outside of Cashner and Upton.”
Dan Farnsworth, Padres: “Defense matters too.”
Owen Watson, Tigers: “It all falls apart.”
Brett Talley, Cubs: “Not convinced we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves there.”
Paul Sporer, Cubs: “They’ll be frisky, but friskiness usually putters out after 4-5 months.”

Who is your breakout player of the season? Why?

• 6: Mookie Betts
• 3: Rougned Odor
• 2: Anthony Gose, Jung-Ho Kang, Taijuan Walker
• 1: Brett Anderson, Chase Anderson, Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Carrasco, Ian Desmond, Adam Eaton, Johnny Giavotella, Bryce Harper, Starling Marte, Carlos Martinez, Marcus Semien, Jorge Soler, Giancarlo Stanton, Michael Wacha, Christian Yelich

Further continuing the confounding nature of Red Sox predictions this year, the staff thinks that Mookie Betts will be this season’s breakout player. If you are a regular reader, that probably won’t surprise you. It might also not surprise you to know that everyone has their own idea of what “breakout” means, as we some fairly well established players for this question.

Here are some other comments:

Chris Mitchell: “Marcus Semien. Not only did he kill it in the minors, but he got progressively better as the year wore on. He also hit well in his September call up.”
Bryan Cole: “Xander Bogaerts. It was one year and he’s still 22.”
David Laurila: “Anthony Gose. The tools are there and it’s time for the light bulb to illuminate.”
Patrick Dubuque: “Chase Anderson is this year’s Keuchel.”
Carson Cistulli: “He won’t have a *huge* season, but I think Johnny Giavotella will become a totally competent major-league regular. Not unlike Joe Panik last year.”
August Fagerstom: “Rougned Odor. 20 year-old middle infielders who are league-avg hitters are fun. Power shows up for 20 HR.”

What player do you think collapses this season? Why?

• 3: Justin Verlander, Adam Wainwright
• 2: Miguel Cabrera, Adam Jones
• 1: Adrian Beltre, Ian Desmond, Carlos Gonzalez, Matt Holliday, Matt Kemp, Nick Markakis, Devin Mesoraco, Brandon Moss, Joe Nathan, David Ortiz, Brandon Phillips, Jimmy Rollins, CC Sabathia, Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, Pablo Sandoval, Chris Tillman, Mark Trumbo, both Chris Youngs, entire Padres team

Injuries, overuse and age were themes here, but some had other reasons. Here’s a sampling:

Dave Cameron: “Adam Wainwright. Seems on the verge of a big step backwards.”
Neil Weinberg: “Ian Desmond. He’s losing ability to make contact up in the zone.”
Chris Mitchell: “I think this is the year age finally catches up with Adrian Beltre.”
Miles Wray: “Brandon Moss — because, yeah, the A’s usually know something we don’t.”
Alex Chamberlain: “CC Sabathia alongside Verlander and their combined 4,256,361 innings.”
Jeff Sullivan: “Unfortunately, Adam Wainwright, due to everything.”
Patrick Dubuque: “Both Chris Youngs, simultaneously.”
Dan Farnsworth: “Mark Trumbo – still hasn’t made necessary swing changes.”
August Fagerstrom: “Adam Jones. Poor discipline reaches new heights, leads to sub-.300 OBP and power drop.”
Paul Sporer: “Pablo Sandoval: First year in a new spot can be tough.”
Brett Talley: “Devin Mesoraco. Batting average going in the tank.”

What storyline are you most looking forward to this season?
There were a couple of themes here. The Cubs (five votes), the AL Central (three), Jung-Ho Kang in the majors for the first time (two) and Alex Rodriguez in the majors for the first time in a year (three). Oh, and the deployment of StatCast (two, more on that below). Here are some other responses:

Brett Talley: “The Mets or Marlins having the big season everyone expects from the Cubs.”
Patrick Dubuque: “For no reason, MLB declares war on the pickoff move.”
Carson Cistulli: “Young and fringy players with starting roles: Jace Peterson, Marcus Semien, Devon Travis. Maybe Refsnyder, eventually.”
Eno Sarris: “The Athletics aren’t that bad!”
Dave Cameron: “Breaking in young pitching prospects as relievers.”
Colin Zarzycki: “Can the Pirates dominate the NL Central?”

What storyline are you least looking forward to this season?
While a few people said they were most looking forward to Alex Rodriguez, even more said they weren’t looking forward to him, or to the stories that will surround him. So, it’s comforting to know that he is still a polarizing figure. Many others had procedural/off-field concerns such as pace of play (two votes), game length (three), Tommy John surgeries/injuries to exciting players (four), talk of/machinations toward an international draft (two), service time, talk of a work stoppage, Rob Manfred’s “over-aggressive tweaking of nearly everything” and minor league unionization (one each).

More related to actual baseball games was the coming dread of Cole Hamels and/or Phillies trade rumors (four) and the Cardinals’ fan base (two). David Laurila is already tired of Red Sox-Yankees overkill, I’m dreading all the stories about how the Rays will move on without Joe Maddon and Dan Farnsworth is not looking forward to stories about John Mallee as the new Cubs hitting coach.

What do you think we will learn first from StatCast?
We saved perhaps the best question for last. Naturally, a few people had comments specifically about the data itself.

Dave Cameron: “Implementing new technology on this scale is really quite difficult and fraught with peril.”
Sean Dolinar: “How unhappy I’ll be about not seeing the raw data.”
Bryan Cole: “How hard it is to manage terabytes of data, but also whether “well-hit average” actually means anything.”
David G. Temple: “That we have no idea how to process or analyze the data effectively.”
Dan Farnsworth: “What the hell their metrics actually mean.”

Others had comments specifically about outfield play or specific outfielders, some of which it should be noted were at odds with each other.

Chris Mitchell: “The range of outfielders’ route efficiencies isn’t as large as we think.”
Craig Edwards: “Outfielders run more than we think.”
Dustin Nosler: “Some outfielders previously thought of as ‘good defenders’ won’t be after StatCast.”
Jeff Sullivan: “There’s not much league-wide separation in OF route efficiency.”
Colin Zarzycki: “Outfielders generally run more inefficient (i.e. not right to where the ball lands) routes than we think.”
Eno Sarris: “Yoenis Cespedes runs bad routes.”
Greg Simons: “StatCast’s previously undisclosed x-ray technology reveals Matt Holliday literally has an anchor in the back of his pants.”
Seth Keichline: “Matt Holliday runs worse routes than Cespedes.”

Still others had comments about positioning and/or route running.

Neil Weinberg: “How much positioning influences our current metrics.”
John Paschal: “We’ll better appreciate the beauty of a good route and the poetry of running the bases.”
Owen Watson: “Speed makes up for a lot of mistakes related to positioning/decision making.”
Alex Chamberlain: “Who takes the most efficient routes.”
Chad Young: “That positioning means more to defense than anything else.”
August Fagerstrom: “That optimal positioning (see: Lagares, Juan/Peralta, Jhonny) is more important than we think.”

And the rest can be filed under baserunning and/or other. The last comment is especially true and important.

David Wiers: “How much baserunning affects run scoring.”
Brett Talley: “We’ve been underrating baserunning.”
Miles Wray: “Excited to see which fielders we think of as pedestrian actually prove to be elite.”
David Laurila: “Adeiny Hechavarria is actually a pretty good defender.”
Jonah Pemstein: “What percentage of Andrelton Simmons is machine.”
Patrick Dubuque: “We’ll be able to rank the worst dives of the season, which’ll be great.”
Carson Cistulli: “Maybe why/how Jhonny Peralta is good.”
Nathaniel Grow: “The importance of getting a quick break on the ball/having a quick first step.”
Paul Sporer: “Who is better/worse than current perception.”
Brad Johnson: “That Jeff Sullivan will have even more endless GIF fodder.”