2015 ZiPS Projections – St. Louis Cardinals

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 St. Louis Cardinals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Chicago AL / Colorado / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Oakland / San Francisco / Tampa Bay / Washington.

Batters
Cardinal batters produced the best strikeout rate and second-best defensive-runs figure in the National League last year. The club’s ZiPS projections suggest that they might approximate those sorts of results in 2015. Neither Matt Adams nor Mark Reynolds will be much help in that regard, but the rest of the team’s starters are all above-average by one, if not both, of those measures.

Nor will Jason Heyward change the club’s dynamic at all in this regard. He’s projected to save 18 runs in right field (which equates to about 10-11 runs above average overall after the positional adjustment) while recording walk and strikeout rates both better than league average. Less publicized acquisitions by the club — like of Dean Anna (14.9% K and -1 run at shortstop) and Ty Kelly (16.2% K and -1 run at second base) — also offer strong contact rates and average to above-average defensive skills.

Pitchers
The Cardinals rotation this April will, it appears, very much resemble the one deployed by the club last September. John Lackey, Lance Lynn, Shelby Miller, Michael Wacha, and Adam Wainwright recorded 24 of the team’s 26 starts during that month. Miller, largely on account of how he’s been traded to Atlanta, won’t be available to the Cardinals. The other four, however, are expected to occupy he top-four slots in the rotation, with Carlos Martinez filling the fifth role. ZiPS projects each of them to produce league-average numbers or better.

Closer Trevor Rosenthal walked batters at exactly twice the rate in 2014 as he had in 2012-13 combined — this, while also striking out fewer batters. Not a great confluence of events, that, but also not one that spells imminent doom, according to ZiPS, which projects Rosenthal to regress positively by both metrics. New acquisitions Matt Belisle and Jordan Walden, meanwhile, are forecast to produce the fourth- and third-best FIPs among all Cardinals pitchers — behind only Rosenthal and Wainwright.

Bench/Prospects
The Cardinals feature not only a deep rotation — insofar, that is, as their fifth starter is projected to produce two wins — but also substantial depth behind that rotation. Tim Cooney, Marco Gonzales, Tyler Lyons, and Zachary Petrick are all forecast to record at least a win — or the major-league equivalent of a win — in 2015. Among field players, Randal Grichuk is expected to occupy a bench role for the parent club. He’s exhibited above-average power, but a lack of plate discipline (he’s projected to post 4.0% and 21.4% walk and strikeout rates, respectively) limits his ceiling for now.

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