2021 ZiPS Projections: San Francisco Giants

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

Batters

There have been many unpleasant stories in baseball over the last year, but Mike Yastrzemski’s tale is one of the exceptions. Never really considered a prospect — not even close enough to the fringe for a legendary last name to get him undeserved chances — Yastrzemski had to sweat out his opportunities the old-fashioned way, slowly improving his game in the minors. Hard work can always use a bit of good fortune, and Little Yaz got it when the Orioles traded him to the Giants, a team that has generally needed two or three starting outfielders. The best defensive corner outfielder in the minors in 2017-2018 according to the Gameday-based coordinate system ZiPS uses for minor league defense, he hit enough to earn a starting job in 2019. 2020 saw Yastrzemski get MVP votes, and if there had been an All-Star Game, he likely would have added that accolade as well. There’s a real disagreement between ZiPS and Steamer over just how good he is — ZiPS projects him for a 120 OPS+ while Steamer foresees a more modest 101 wRC+ — but he’s a real major leaguer and one of the few current starters who seems likely to be on the team in a few years.

But what will the Giants look like in a few years? The crystal ball is rather foggy on this point. While San Francisco has been surprisingly competitive the last two seasons, flirting with playoff contention both times, it hasn’t actually been a good team. Ownership not blowing up the entire organization has given the franchise breathing room to improve from the 2017 nadir, but it’s still hard to see a lot of short-term upside. There are more adequate starters in the lineup than a couple of years ago, but the offense remains very, very old. Brandon Belt, Buster Posey, and Brandon Crawford all project to still have their moments, but they’re the past, not the future.

Short of a huge spending spree, the offense’s future rests largely on the team’s much improved but top-heavy farm system. The problem is none of the young hitters are really finished products at this point, even the well-considered Joey Bart. Heliot Ramos is very young and talented, but he’s lost a year and has yet to master Double-A pitchers. Marco Luciano could quickly burst through the upper minors, but it’s likely going to be a few years. Bart’s 2019 performance was likely suppressed by a hand injury, but 2020 didn’t wipe away the worries; even as a young hitter skipping levels and with limited professional experience, you don’t want to see a 23-year-old rookie strike out 41 times against just three walks in 111 plate appearances. Not to be too doom-and-gloom, but he would be far from the first hot young catching prospect to break your heart.

Can the Giants make some big signings and contend for a Wild Card spot? Absolutely. There hasn’t been much buzz connecting the Giants with George Springer or DJ LeMahieu, but if they sign, say, Marcell Ozuna and improve the depth in the rotation, they could win 85 games or so, enough to be interesting. I just don’t think their talent is likely to be deep enough to make this roster a consistent winner until possible reinforcements from the minors.

Pitchers

On my list of projections coming into 2020 that had the potential to come back to haunt me was forecasting Kevin Gausman a better pitcher over the next five years than Madison Bumgarner. But for season one at least, that projection didn’t bite me on the rear as Bumgarner apparently misplaced his velocity on the drive down I-5. It would have been tempting to use Gausman in the bullpen due to his fairly narrow repertoire and his success in that role with the Reds in 2019 after struggling as a starter. But the upside was always reliant on him being in the rotation, and the team needed that upside given its shallowness there. This was a gamble that worked out well as Gausman had a terrific 2020 campaign, besting his career strikeout rate as a starter by 50% and even finding velocity that had been missing for years. Back on a Qualifying Offer that benefits both Gausman and the Giants, I’m comfortable saying I rather have Gausman than Bumgarner at this point, even if their contracts were identical, and their contracts are not.

Gausman had an exciting 2020, but sadly the rest of the pitching staff isn’t nearly as fascinating. Johnny Cueto hasn’t been healthy or good since 2016, and even if he can maintain, say, a 96 ERA+, I’m not banking on him matching the 184 innings he’s projected for in our depth chart. That said, ZiPS is optimistic about Logan Webb, who had a 5.47 ERA in his first “full” season in the majors but was dragged down by a .345 BABIP, which ought to improve significantly going forward. If ZiPS is anything to go by, the Giants ought to be fast-tracking Sean Hjelle; his stuff doesn’t match his towering presence (6-foot-11), but that kind of pitcher can thrive in Oracle Park. I personally think the Giants made a mistake in non-tending Tyler Anderson; it’s not that Anderson’s a top pitcher, but he’s a perfect fit on a club trying to make a low-upside playoff run.

The bullpen’s -0.6 WAR in 2020 was the worst showing by a San Francisco relief corps since the 1996 team that had little more than Rod Beck and Jose Bautista for the late innings. The Giants will be better than that in 2021, but based on their current roster, it will not be a major source of value for the team. Most of the relievers project with an ERA+ better than 100, but all are perilously close to that line, with Reyes Moronta’s 114 being rather weak for the best projection for a team.

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 2021 due to injury, and players who were released in 2020. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Finnish industrial death metal fourth-wave ska J-pop 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 assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2021; if it does not, there will be widespread minor adjustments across the board come April.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter or something.