2016 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: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
No club outperformed its Base Runs record by a greater amount in 2015 than St. Louis. The numbers suggest that, at a fundamental level, the Cardinals played like an 89-win team. In reality, they won 100 games. This is neither good or bad in itself. It’s just, if the club below seems more likely to record 89 victories than 100 of them, then that’s not actually a sign of decline, but rather equilibrium.

The depth-chart graphic below lacks some of the nuance that Mike Matheny et al. are likely to employ in terms of fielding a team on a day-to-day basis. For example, Matt Adams (357 PA, 0.9 zWAR) appears quite likely to share starts at first base with Brandon Moss (492 PA, 1.2 zWAR), while the newly acquired Jedd Gyorko (522 PA, 1.6 zWAR) is a candidate to work in a platoon with second baseman Kolten Wong (571 PA, 2.4 zWAR).

The appearance of Matt Carpenter (628 PA, 3.8 zWAR) atop the Cards’ batter projections facilitates the opportunity not only to appreciate his career, but also to remember his No. 1 comparable, Corey Koskie. Despite exceeding his rookie limits as a 26-year-old, Koskie averaged 4.1 WAR per 600 plate appearances over the course of a career that was ultimately ended by concussion-related problems. Provided Jim Souhan isn’t purposely misleading everyone, it appears as though Koskie has found some manner of peace as a Planet Fitness franchisee and advocate for bringing greater joy to youth sports.

Pitchers
One quality that all successful teams seem to share is a starting rotation. That St. Louis has one, too, would appear to represent a step in the right direction. While lacking a proper ace — right-hander Adam Wainwright’s projection (156.0 IP, 3.6 zWAR) is modest relative to some other No. 1 starters — the rotation does feature more depth than one finds elsewhere. Deploying Jaime Garcia (92.2 IP, 1.8 zWAR) as the club’s fifth starter is a manifestation of that. The presence both of Tim Cooney (130.2 IP, 1.3 zWAR) and Tyler Lyons (135.2 IP, 1.4 zWAR) is, too.

The 2015 edition of the Cardinals’ bullpen produced a collective mark of 4.5 WAR, placing them just inside the league’s top-10 relief corps. Accounting for 75% of those wins were Trevor Rosenthal (74.2 IP, 1.5 zWAR) and Kevin Siegrist (63.0 IP, 0.9 zWAR), who account for roughly two-third of the wins expected from the club’s top-five relievers. Newcomer Seung-hwan Oh (62.2 IP, 0.5 zWAR) receives a fine, if not overwhelming projection.

Bench/Prospects
Outfielder Tommy Pham (334 PA, 1.7 zWAR) was impressive last year as a 27-year-old rookie. Dan Szymborski’s computer indicates he’s likely to be quite productive once again on a rate basis. Infielder Greg Garcia (463 PA, 1.7 zWAR) also exceeded his rookie limits last year and also profiles as a roughly average major leaguer. Shortstop Aledmys Diaz (514 PA, 1.4 zWAR) and outfielder Charlie Tilson (598 PA, 1.2 zWAR) are both rookie-eligible players who’re projected to produce more than a win. Among pitchers, the aforementioned Cooney and Lyons are candidates to provide league-average innings in a starting capacity. Right-hander Zach Petrick (133.1 IP, 1.0 zWAR) receives a similarly promising projection, but won’t be able to test its accuracy this year: in December, the Cardinals sold his rights to the Yokohama Bay Stars in Japan.

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