2020 ZiPS Projections: New York Yankees

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees.

Batters

That ZiPS gives the Yankees such a robust projection is hardly surprising. This is a team, after all, that won 103 games in 2019 despite missing most of their starting lineup, their ace pitcher, and a top reliever for large chunks of the season.

It’s unlikely the Yankees are going to win 110 games in this year. While the team did an excellent job furnishing Plans B through Z, players like Mike Tauchman and Gio Urshela likely performed at what might be thought to be the reasonable high-end of their expectations. Both project to be valuable in 2020, but not quite as spicy as they were in last season. Tauchman’s defensive projection remains quite aggressive, as the probability-based measure that ZiPS uses for minor league defense was a fan of Tock’s fielding, projecting him at around 10 runs a year as a center fielder in the minors. If only the Rockies could find a player like that!

Sadly, the uncertainty surrounding his long-term health has dipped Stanton’s career home run projection under 600, though there’s still plenty of time for him to remedy that. If you read the Yankees entry in our Elegy for ’19 series, you’re already quite familiar with the level of bananas in Gleyber Torres’ long-term projections. (If you haven’t, you can still click that link!)

If you’re looking for something to be pessimistic about, here is at least some downside on the roster. The Yankees made a certain Very Big Signing to add to their rotation, and as a result, they haven’t been as aggressive at manning the fallback positions as they were last winter. The middle infield and center field in particular don’t have a lot of depth right now. Center will improve once Aaron Hicks returns, but if last year’s situation with Luis Severino isn’t enough of a reminder, betting on when exactly a player will come back from a significant injury is a dangerous game.

You will note that Troy Tulowitzki and Jacoby Ellsbury are listed in the projections. This is a good place to insert a reminder that players are listed with their most recent teams, and that I project retired players for one last season. So keep this in mind further down when you see CC Sabathia and Danny Farquhar!

Pitchers

Once in a while, a young pitcher who hasn’t fully broken out will get Greg Maddux as their top comp. That’s when I have to remind readers that the comparison is to pre-Cy Young Greg Maddux, not to GREG MADDUX. Gerrit Cole, however, is the exception, with GREG MADDUX sitting at the top of his comp list.

Stylistically, they’re very different pitchers, and Maddux never threw a bunch of 98 mph fastballs. But don’t get fooled by the drastic, league-wide increase in strikeouts, or memories of Maddux getting by on 85 mph fastballs at the end of his career. In his prime, he was a strikeout pitcher, and from 1991 to 1998, he finished in the top 10 for strikeouts every year except 1996, with only 1997 out of the top five. Maddux currently ranks 10th all-time in strikeouts. There are few better compliments than being compared to prime Greg Maddux.

ZiPS expects a full recovery from Luis Severino, though it is conservative in its innings expectations for him and James Paxton. Like the offense, there is some risk here. If everything goes according to plan, the projections expect everyone, even J.A. Happ, to be at least league-average. But Severino and Paxton have injury histories, Sabathia is gone as a backup option, and Domingo Germán is serving an 81-game suspension under the league’s domestic violence policy.

The bullpen remains a top-tier unit, though the projections aren’t quite as aggressive as in past years. Dellin Betances and David Robertson are gone and Adam Warren, while returned to New York, is on a two-year minor-league contract as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. That the Yankee relief corps remains this robust even with the losses suggests just how good they were at their peak. It’s still a top-five pen, but it no longer goes eight deep, with three or four additional average relievers hanging around at Triple-A.

Add everything together and the Yankees will likely start the season with a projection north of 100 wins. Century-mark projections are quite rare, so don’t anger the baseball gods by getting greedy and declaring that the Bombers will beat their ZiPS by 10 wins.

Prospects

Jasson Dominguez is yet to be relevant to the projections, but ZiPS likes Deivi Garcia enough for them both. There are some obvious concerns over whether Garcia is built to throw 150 innings a year, but from a performance standpoint, he blew through the minors in 2019 and acquitted himself well in Triple-A for a pitcher who won’t be old enough to drink legally until May. His command still isn’t perfect and he probably needs a consolidation year, but he throws decently hard and isn’t afraid to go after hitters. Even if he ends up in the bullpen, he ought to have significant value there.

After Garcia, the pickings get thinner. Injuries no doubt play a factor, but ZiPS is over Estevan Florial in light of the .237/.297/.383 line he posted after returning in June from a broken wrist. If you’re looking for a glimmer of hope that Florial will beat his projection, note that he improved as the summer went on and he was more comfortable. Florial finished with a .796 OPS in August and he’s still only 23.

One fringe prospect to keep an eye on is Brooks Kriske. He’s been unhittable since missing 2017 and part of 2018 with a Tommy John, and between High-A Tampa and Double-A Trenton, he struck out 80 batters in 60.2 innings against 28 walks and only three homers allowed. His fastball gets into the upper-90s and he added a splitter this year that resulted in him having a better strikeout rate against lefties than righties. ZiPS projects him to be a league-average reliever throughout his prime, a very positive prognostication for an unheralded relief prospect with a short professional career.

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.