2018 ZiPS Projections – Cincinnati Reds

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
The 2017 campaign wasn’t what anyone would characterize as an “overwhelming success” for Cincinnati. The club finished 26 games under .500. Their BaseRuns record wasn’t much better, either. All in all, it was the sort of season one might expect from a rebuilding club.

A brief inspection of the numbers, however, reveals that the club’s position players were actually pretty good. Due largely to a defensive performance rated highly both by DRS and UZR, the Reds’ batters and fielders recorded the 10th-best WAR in the league. The team’s pitchers, meanwhile, ranked 30th by that measure. The split was the second largest in all the league.

The defense should be a strength once again in 2018. While free agent Zack Cozart (projected for +7 runs at shortstop and 3.0 zWAR overall) is unlikely to return to Cincinnati, both catcher Tucker Barnhart (+9, 2.5) and center fielder Billy Hamilton (+12, 2.3) return to a roster populated mostly by average-or-better fielders.

As for Joey Votto (5.3 zWAR), he isn’t projected to be an elite defender. He is, however, forecast to be the club’s best player — by a couple wins, in this case. Eugenio Suarez (3.5 zWAR) is the team’s other All-Star candidate according to the projections.

Pitchers
As noted, Cincinnati’s pitching staff represented a real weakness for the club in 2017, barely clearing replacement level as a group. While the projections call for some improvement in 2018, there remains little present talent here. Luis Castillo (156.1 IP, 2.9 zWAR) is expected to build on an impressive rookie season, but he’s the only Reds pitcher forecast by Dan Szymborski’s computer to cross the two-win threshold next year. While the rotation features some promise — extracting more than three wins from Tyler Mahle (151.0, 1.6) and Sal Romano (143.1, 1.7), for example, would count as a positive development — there appears to be little indication that they’ll even approach average.

As for the club’s relievers, they both (a) produced only 0.9 WAR as a group in 2017 and (b) were markedly improved over the 2016 edition that became the first modern bullpen to produce a negative WAR. Right-hander Raisel Iglesias (69.1 IP, 74 ERA-) is the star of the current group, but a number of others (Austin Brice, Wandy Peralta, Kevin Shackelford) are forecast to prevent runs at something like an average rate. Overall, the bullpen seems likely to continue creeping in the direction of “acceptably mediocre” and away from “historically bad.”

Bench/Prospects
Despite having recorded just a half-season above High-A, third baseman Nick Senzel (503 PA, 2.1 zWAR) already profiles as a league-average player according to Szymborski’s computer. The No. 2 pick of the 2016 draft has been excellent so far as a professional and ZiPS calls for more of that, forecasting strong quality-of-contact numbers (.330 BABIP, .179 ISO), in particular. Jesse Winker (510, 1.4) had failed to exhibit much power in the minors before producing a .231 isolated-slugging mark this past season in his first 137 plate appearances as a professional. ZiPS doesn’t forecast anything like that for Winker in 2018, but nevertheless projects a league-average bat. Phillip Ervin (474, 0.9) profiles as a fine bench player for the moment.

Among pitchers, Luis Castillo and Sal Romano both exceeded their limits in 2017, rendering Tyler Mahle the top rookie-eligible pitcher in the organization by ZiPS wins. Jose Lopez (131.0, 0.9) and Jackson Stephens (152.0, 0.7) are forecast to record something better than replacement-level production. Jimmy Herget (61.1, 0.5), who was dominant at Double-A and proficient at Triple-A in 2017, receives the best projection among rookie-eligible relievers.

Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Reds, with rounded projected WAR totals for each player. For caveats regarding WAR values see disclaimer at bottom of post. Click to enlarge 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 2017. 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 4.24 ERA and the NL having a 4.18 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.