2016 ZiPS Projections – Chicago White Sox

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 Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
White Sox batters produced the lowest collective WAR among all 30 teams in 2015, combining the worst park-adjusted offense in the majors (-108.1 runs below average overall) with also the worst defense (-60.3 runs below average). The result: a mere three wins above replacement level as a group.

That’s not to say there weren’t encouraging invidual contributions. Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton, for example, produced nearly eight wins between them. On the one hand, that’s a positive. On the other hand, what it reveals is that the rest of the roster provided less value than freely available talent might, in theory, supply. Gordon Beckham, Conor Gillaspie, and Mike Olt — who accounted for roughly two-thirds of the club’s third-base starts — recorded a -1.5 WAR between them. Emilio Bonifacio, Micah Johnson, and Carlos Sanchez — who made all but seven starts at second base — posted a collective -1.3 WAR. Those outputs quite possibly don’t represent the true talents of all those players, but they certainly had an adverse effect on Chicago’s win-loss record.

The advantage for a club which possesses glaring holes is that addressing those holes with merely serviceable replacements represents a considerable upgrade. If the newly acquired tandem of Todd Frazier (624 PA, 3.7 zWAR) and Brett Lawrie (509 PA, 1.8 zWAR) approximate their projections in 2016, they’ll conspire to produce a roughly eight-win improvement by themselves.

Pitchers
Leo Tolstoy writes in one of his cold Russian novels that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The veracity of that particular comment is debatable. How it’s relevant to the White Sox rotation, though, is because of left-handed ace Chris Sale (195.2 IP, 5.9 zWAR), who is rendered dull almost for his lack of weaknesses. Sale is actually projected to produce the second-best season of his career. He’s accompanied by two other above-average left-handers in Jose Quintana (195.1 IP, 4.1 zWAR) and Carlos Rodon (158.1 IP, 3.2 zWAR).

While a relief ace — and strong bullpen, in general — is of considerable benefit to a club on a postseason run, the advantages are less pronounces for a team that finishes the season 19 games out of first place. In either case, Chicago continues to employ one of the league’s top pitchers on a per-inning basis in David Robertson (60.1 IP, 1.3 zWAR). The remainder of the bullpen bears a strong resemblance to every other, roughly average bullpen.

Bench/Prospects
Shortstop Tim Anderson (504 PA, 0.7 zWAR), who enters his age-23 season, receives the top projection among all rookie-eligible field players who aren’t also 28-year-old catchers. He’s exhibited poor plate discipline almost uniformly in the minors but appears to have demonstrated sufficient production on contact — and defense, naturally — to profile as a solid bench player in the present. With regard to pitchers, there are fewer obvious options. Zach Phillips (41.1 IP, 0.2 zWAR) merits the top forecast among White Sox rookie-eligible pitchers — and also the only such forecast that’s also a positive number and also he’s a LOOGY.

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

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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 2016. 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.