After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

The team’s offense is solid, with the minor leaguers and the addition of Yasiel Puig, but it’s possible to get a little too excited. Even with career seasons from Scooter Gennett, Eugenio Suarez, and Jose Peraza (so far), the team only finished eight in the National League in runs scored and wRC+ last season.

What’s extremely interesting to me is figuring out which possible permutation of the starting lineup they actually go with in the end, because there are quite a few points of uncertainty, mainly in the outfield. There’s tantalizing upside with a healthy Jesse Winker and Nick Senzel available, the latter of whom has a great deal of positional flexibility.

But there are also some dangers. Matt Kemp may very likely be the least-valuable position player on the 25-man roster this spring, and certainly the worse option in the outfield. While Kemp’s offensive resurgence was helpful to the Dodgers at a time when few other players were either healthy or actually hitting, he was dreadful in the second-half of 2018 and his defense started regressing toward his typical terrible numbers with the glove. This depth chart assumes the Reds mainly use Kemp as a bat off the bench and a designated hitter in AL road games, but that’s not actually a guarantee that Cincinnati will be willing to bench a 2018 All-Star.

It’s a little strange, but the Reds non-tendered Billy Hamilton when they have open the exact spot at which he’d be most useful. Senzel’s been talked about as a center field option and Scott Schebler was surprisingly adequate there, but Hamilton would be a good backup for a team that’s hoping to be a serious wild card contender. If Kemp gets too much playing time in left, having a good defensive centerfielder would be doubly useful, lest the other team hit a lot of doubles into the gap of a Kemp/Schebler outfield.

Pitchers

The team’s rebuild has been hampered by two factors. The first was the timing of their various veteran trades, with the Reds having a knack for refusing to trade veterans at the height of their value and eventually getting less for them later on. This was most notable in the trades of Todd Frazier, Jay Bruce, and Adam Duvall. It remains weird that the Reds got a lot more for Alfredo Simon and Dan Straily than those three put together.

The other factor that has bedeviled Cincinnati’s rebuild is the inability to develop pitching from the fairly impressive group of arms that they acquired in recent years. The Reds had hoped to have at least a few solid, mid-rotation arms from the list of Anthony DeSclafani, Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed, Keury Mella, Tyler Mahle, Amir Garrett, Sal Romano, and Robert Stephenson by this point. While the book’s not closed on this group, the team still don’t have a single healthy, dependable, mid-rotation-or-better starting pitcher.

With the offense looking like it could support a team with a winning record, it’s understandable that the Reds would feel a bit of impatience. There’s no guarantee Gennett will be in Cincinnati past this season and Votto’s age points to an inevitable decline in the not-too-distant future. If you can acquire three legitimate major league starters without giving up any of the organization’s crown jewels, why not? Senzel and Winker remain Reds as do Taylor Trammell, Hunter Greene, and Jonathan India.

My only question is whether it is enough. Dallas Keuchel would look nice at the top of the rotation; maybe you decide not to hang on to all said crown jewels if you can bring in a Corey Kluber with them. Tucker Barnhart isn’t a bad player, and catcher isn’t a major issue with the team, so if you’re going to give up at least one of the team’s top prospects, I’d rather do it for another pitcher rather than J.T. Realmuto, as terrific as he is.

Bench and Prospects

As noted, the Reds have had more than their fair share of pitching prospects not work out, but the system still has bright spots. Nick Senzel has survived into the high minors, as has Jesse Winker, and ZiPS is confident in both players long-term, even if the Reds haven’t quite figured out exactly where they’re going to play Senzel. I wouldn’t be unduly upset about Taylor Trammell’s 2019 projection; he’s not ready for the majors yet. And ZiPS already likes Tony Santillan better than any of the fringier starting pitchers the Reds currently have immured in the purgatory between Triple-A and the major leagues that they created with their winter pitching additions.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart 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 at site.

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 2019. 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 I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

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 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.

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

Batters

The lineup feels a lot like one fielded by the St. Louis Cardinals. There are no bonafide superstar projections on the offense (Robinson Cano‘s projections don’t look like they used to, though ZiPS thinks he’ll still be a good player) but there’s a surprising amount of depth, providing a number of solid options for those times when stuff hits the fan. That approach is a smart way for a team in contention to construct its roster, given that teams with serious playoff aspirations should be more risk-averse than middling or rebuilding teams are; depth is certainly a preferable strategy to hoping injuries somehow pass you by. There’s one thing St. Louis has that the New York Mets have lacked, however: a track record of actually doing a good job shuffling their offensive talent around. The Cardinals very rarely bury players, but the Mets have been known to do all sorts of weird things, such as going into seasons without an obvious starting job for Michael Conforto, signing Jose Reyes and then playing him way too often, prioritizing Jay Bruce’s playing time, and needing some bad luck on the injury front to actually give Brandon Nimmo a full-time job coming off a .379 on-base percentage in 69 games in 2017. Whether you want to blame their managers or ownership, the Mets have made some real head-scratching decisions.

And so while are a lot of options here, the Mets will have to prove that they can deploy their talent effectively. Jeff McNeil doesn’t have an obvious starting role, so the team has to demonstrate that they want to find at-bats for him, not just give them to him grudgingly as they did in 2018, only after the obviously worse options played very obviously worse. Once Peter Alonso is down in the minors just long enough to get another year of cost control for the Mets … errr … I mean once Peter Alonso is finished polishing his game coincidentally in just enough games to delay his free agency for a year, getting him playing time should be the priority over the more expensive Todd Frazier. Yoenis Cespedes‘ heel surgeries will likely keep the Mets from having to make any tricky outfield decisions (his ZiPS projection is mostly theoretical) for a while, but that won’t last forever.

Pitchers

I like Jed Lowrie, but if you could buy baseball players from a catalog, I’d be calling customer service and telling the agent “Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with him, and he works fine and everything, but do you have him in pitcher?” The front four looks very solid, but the team has given every indication that Jason Vargas will take the fifth starter job if no other options are acquired this winter. Remember what I said about how contending teams should be risk-averse? Vargas is an extremely risky pitcher, and even though it hasn’t been so long since he pretended to be Greg Maddux for a few months in early 2017, I’d really like the team to do better here, given the noise they’ve made about contending and the very real improvements in other parts of the roster.

Edwin Diaz is a significant addition, and it’s surprising how cheaply they were able to add Diaz and Cano to the roster, both in terms of money and prospects. Of all the ZiPS teams to go up on FanGraphs so far, Diaz has the highest projected WAR of any relief pitcher and the lowest ERA, by three-tenths of a run. And that’s not just because I’ve run bad teams; Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, Andrew Miller, and Brad Hand have already gone live. Signing Luis Avilan to just a minor league contract with a non-roster invitation to spring training may go down as one of the best low-key deals of the winter, and the back end of the bullpen is better than many think.

Bench and Prospects

Perhaps my favorite projection for the Mets this year is the league-average projection for minor league reliever Stephen Villines, who I suspect would attract the interest of my friend/mortal enemy/ex-FanGraphs editor Carson Cistulli. He’s not really on the prospect radar much, but he had an interesting first professional season, striking out 54 of 138 batters in the Sally League, 25 of 77 for Hi-A St. Lucie, and then after a final promotion to Double-A Binghamton, striking out 17 of 43 batters. That’s 96 strikeouts against just 13 walks and three homers in 66.2 innings. Now, if he was doing this by blowing batters away with a 95 mph fastball, he’d be on prospects lists. But he doesn’t — he’s a soft-tosser who gets by on changing speeds and a slow slider. But he’s also a sidearmer, with a motion that looks like he wants to throw submarine but gives up halfway and just whips it around, kinda like Terry Leach’s delivery (I’m dating myself). We’ve seen sidearmers/submariners survive with slower stuff than you’d expect was sustainable — guys like Chad Bradford and Mike Myers come to mind — so while Villines could blow up in a bad way against Triple-A hitters, I’m intrigued.

ZiPS already gives Andres Gimenez a win per 600 PA in 2019 and projects enough growth from him to make for an interesting decision for the Mets at shortstop in a few years. ZiPS has come off its love for Dominic Smith, but still thinks Dilson Herrera would at least be a good role player if he can stay healthy. Believe it or not, Herrera is still just 24 (he turns 25 in March) even though it feels like he’s been around forever. There’s really no room for him on the Mets the way the team is currently constructed, but he could still resurface elsewhere and have some type of major league career — people wrote off Jose Peraza at way too young an age, too.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart 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 at site.

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 2019. 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 I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

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 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.

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Batters

Overall, the Dodgers still project as being among the best teams in baseball, but something feels curiously unsatisfying about the team’s offseason. The team appears to be shuffling the outfield again, but is the Cody Bellinger/A.J. Pollock/Guy in CF While A.J. Pollock is Injured/Maybe Alex Verdugo configuration really any better than the Bellinger/Joc Pederson/Yasiel Puig option — while still having Alex Wood and Kyle Farmer but not the Reds prospects — would have been? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Pollock is a better player than Pederson, but riskier given his health history, and ZiPS has always been slightly underwhelmed by Verdugo. Given the team’s positional flexibility and their theoretical pocketbook, this depth chart could still change considerably over the next month; despite the tea leaves suggesting they’re out on Bryce Harper, I remain less than 100% convinced.

One wonders how much of Los Angeles’ apparent lack of interest in a big name isn’t a matter of feeling miserly, but is simply a reflection of the state of the NL West, which looks a lot less dangerous for the reigning champs than last year. Barring big changes, Arizona’s in a mostly-rebuilding phase, the Giants probably saw their last real opportunity to compete with their current core end last summer, and only part of San Diego’s prospect crop will be reaped this year, though a move for Manny Machado or J.T. Realmuto could accelerate the Padres’ timeline. That just leaves the Rockies, who while improved with Daniel Murphy at first, are unlikely to get quite as much awesomeness from their best players as they received in 2018. Colorado’s the biggest threat to the Dodgers in the division, but they’re also a passive team apparently content with their holes.

ZiPS is sold on Max Muncy, in large part due to his velocity data, the magnitude of his 2018 breakout, and the fact that his translated 2017 performance of .264/.351/.420 was more-than-adequate. That’s enough to effectively counteract his disappointing prior major league performance and meh-minus minor league translations of .218/.317/.346 and .219/.282/.359. In the end, ZiPS sees a lot more downside risk in Muncy’s batting average than his power, power being a difficult trick to fake.

Pitchers
Clayton Kershaw’s projection has to be the best OMG THAT’S HORRIBLE projection that ZiPS has ever spat out. The fact is, he’s missed time due to injury in four of the last five seasons and while no individual injury has been of the severe variety — the sort where ligaments are replaced or shoulders reconstructed — there’s evidence that he’s just not at the same level as he was from 2013-2016. ZiPS is still projecting him to be a star, but you can’t ignore his continued velocity decline and the loss of 20% of his strikeouts. That was enough to drop his yearly top comp from Sandy Koufax to “only” Tom Glavine. A brief aside: Kershaw was actually slightly easier to make contact against in 2018 than the average pitcher, which is really weird.

The bottom-line WAR projections aren’t generally in the stratosphere for the Dodgers, but that’s in large part due to the fact that the pitching staff has a checkered health record and ZiPS is only projecting Kershaw to qualify for the rate stat leaderboard. What the Dodgers don’t have in health they’ve been forced to make up for in depth, and of the pitchers on the 40-man roster, ZiPS projects a shocking 15 to have a league-average ERA or better (when adjusting for park, of course). Just on the major league roster, ZiPS sees both Caleb Ferguson and Ross Stripling as perfectly adequate fallback options if (when?) the rotation starts making DL trips.

I believe that Kenley Jansen is the first player to get a top comp of a prime Mariano Rivera (a few have gotten him as a minor-league starter). Seems kinda poetic given Jansen’s cutter, which ZiPS doesn’t actually know about, though he’s unlikely to retire as the best reliever in major league history. From a comp standpoint, a team shouldn’t be able to complain too much when a quarter of their pitching staff has Hall of Famers — easy ones rather than guys that just happened to be Frankie Frisch’s teammates — as their top comparisons.

Bench and Prospects

ZiPS doesn’t see the Dodger farm system as being as strong as it did in the last few years, but there’s still a lot of future major league value here. ZiPS isn’t on the Alex Verdugo star bandwagon, but at least sees him as an above-average starter in his prime, and the projections for Keibert Ruiz are of a similar level of quality. ZiPS thinks that both Dustin May and Dennis Santana wouldn’t embarrass themselves if dragooned into duty on the major league roster, and even Yadier Alvarez, a pitching prospect who a set of algorithms ought to have issues properly appreciating, gets a projection in the same zip code as league-average. ZiPS thinks that both Will Smith and Gavin Lux will be league-average regulars, but sees a significant quality dropoff after that pair. That’s not including Jeter Downs, who will get a projection for ZiPS Top 100 list, but I avoid giving official seasonal projections for players who’ve only played in the Midwest League outside of rookie ball unless I’m forced to by circumstance.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart 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 at site.