2015 ZiPS Projections – New York Yankees

After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / Oakland / San Diego / San Francisco / St. Louis / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Washington.

Batters
There are a number of players on this Yankees club projected not to produce wins at a rate commensurate with their salaries. The current market offers something like $6-8 million per win. Per ZiPS, Alex Rodriguez will receive about $18 million per one of those; Mark Teixeira, about the same; Carlos Beltran, about $25 million. In each case, durability is an issue beyond just declining skills. Regard: none is projected to record as many as 500 plate appearances.

A relative bargain within the context of the Yankee lineup is Chase Headley, who signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the team in December but is projected by ZiPS to play like someone roughly twice as good as that. This isn’t particularly surprising. As Dave Cameron noted earlier in the offseason, Headley’s profile — defensively above-average at third base with strong plate discipline but merely average power — hasn’t ever appealed greatly to the market. New York would appear to be the beneficiaries of this.

Pitchers
It’s generally the case with these ZiPS projections that, the closer a club’s relief ace appears to the top of the wins-projection list, the worse that is for the fate of the pitching staff as a whole. One oughtn’t discount the quality of Dellin Betances‘ 2014 season nor the talent which conspired to produce it. That he receives the second-highest win projection, however, among all Yankee pitchers speaks to trouble within the starting rotation.

As is the case with Beltran and Teixeira above, durability appears to be a concern for this staff — and is responsible for (at least) some of the muted forecasts. Michael Pineda, for example, profiles as an above-average pitcher on a per-inning basis. Unsurprisingly, however, ZiPS isn’t optimistic about Pineda’s odds of turning in a full complement of innings. CC Sabathia’s WAR forecast, to a lesser (but non-negligible) degree, is also deflated by a conservative innings projection.

Bench/Prospects
Absent from the depth-chart image below but likely to play a competent bench tole is Chris Young (409 PA, 1.5 WAR). After him, a small cadre of actual prospects — Aaron Judge, J.R. Murphy, Jose Pirela, Rob Refsnyder, and Gary Sanchez — all receive WAR projections between 0.8 and 1.1 WAR. Among rookie-eligible pitchers, Luis Severino (117.1 IP, 1.0 WAR) features the most encouraging projection. He was rated first overall among Yankees prospects by Kiley McDaniel last week.

Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Yankees, 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 3.93 ERA and the NL having a 3.75 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.