The White Sox lost a good chunk of the best parts of their starting lineup to the injured list in 2022. Indeed, it was one of the main reasons the team fell to a .500 record after winning 93 games the year prior. So when Eloy Jiménez was placed on the 10-day IL with a strained hamstring just five games into the 2023 season, it was an unwelcome reminder of both the team’s problems last year and their limited depth in the present.
Jiménez, who was one of the two main prospects acquired from the Cubs in the 2017 José Quintana trade (Dylan Cease was the other), has spent a great deal of time on the shelf since 2020. After an encouraging 138 wRC+ in the COVID-shortened season, he tore a pectoral tendon during spring training in 2021. It required surgery and kept him out until the end of July; last season’s early injury, a torn hamstring tendon, also required surgery. Still, Jiménez was able to come back more quickly than the year before, and his .305/.372/.523 line after returning was one of the team’s highlights over the second half of the season.
Fortunately, this injury does not appear to be on the same level as either of the other two. The strained hamstring, resulting from running the bases in a game against the Giants, is not the same one that required surgery last spring. There has been no talk of surgery, and the team seems relatively optimistic, floating two to three weeks as the timeframe for his return. Jake Burger was called up from Triple-A Charlotte to take Jiménez’s place on the roster. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, we we wrap up my yearly breakouts/bust series with the pitchers I’m pessimistic about in 2023 to some degree. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year… or how foolish.
All in all, this doesn’t look too bad. Karinchak was about at his typical levels, but the rest of the list didn’t generally provide much excitement. Syndergaard was the most valuable of the group, but hardly as the God of Thunder, and a league-average season was certainly a disappointment compared to what we remembered of him. Flaherty may have the been saddest bust on the list, as he was more or less a mess.
From the comments in the hitterarticles, there’s still some lingering confusion on what I mean by a breakout or bust. When I pick a player to break out or bust, I’m basing this relative to the general expectations as I perceive them, not relative to the previous season’s performance. For example, Joey Gallo is a bust not because I think he’ll be worse than last season, but because I think he’ll be worse than those baked-in expectations; there has been a lot of speculation that the shift will save him, and I don’t think that’s true. You see this on the financial markets quite a bit, when the market reacts negatively to good news that’s not as good as what was already priced into the valuations, and vice-versa. Also remember that this isn’t necessarily me versus ZiPS; sometimes ZiPS agrees with me, and sometimes it angrily disagrees, or at least it would if I didn’t have the power to delete it from existence.
Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, and may the baseball fates have mercy on my soul. As this piece was completed over the first few days of the season, all eight players were finalized before the season started. A few of these players did have awful 2023 debuts, but that’s just “luck” on my part.
Alcantara is still likely to be one of the better pitchers in the league, and ZiPS certainly likes him, placing him among the leaders in WAR. But ZiPS is explicitly not trying to take into account rule changes, and I think Alcantara is one of the pitchers with the most significant chances to be affected by them. That’s a common theme among several of my bust picks this year, simply because this year, it’s something that causes additional uncertainty.
In this case, Alcantara, by far, had more groundballs hit into shifts than any pitcher in baseball in 2022, with 166; only seven other pitchers were above 100. I still think he’ll be a really good pitcher, but I expect his platoon splits will rise farther than ZiPS does, and before remaining confident he’s in ultra-elite territory, I want to make sure that the changeups that lefties facing Alcantara drive into the ground aren’t sneaking through at high rates.
ZiPS Projection Percentiles – Sandy Alcantara
Percentile
ERA+
ERA
WAR
95%
173
2.36
7.0
90%
156
2.62
6.5
80%
143
2.85
5.7
70%
135
3.02
5.2
60%
130
3.14
4.9
50%
123
3.32
4.5
40%
118
3.45
4.1
30%
113
3.60
3.8
20%
108
3.79
3.3
10%
98
4.18
2.4
5%
89
4.62
1.6
Robbie Ray, Seattle Mariners
I’m a bit worried about Ray’s strikeout rate. While the dip from 2021 to ’22 wasn’t a big one, his peripherals in this department took a giant splat last year, with his swinging-strike rate falling off by 30%. His contact rate was his worst as an established major leaguer, and his called-strike performance also dropped considerably. ZiPS thought his peripherals, which are a leading indicator of strikeout performance, suggested a whopping 37 fewer strikeouts than were actually reflected in the record. And this isn’t a case of ZiPS having a pattern of underrating Ray’s strikeouts; zSO predicted 1,149 strikeouts for him in 2016–21 versus his 1,152 actual strikeouts. The dropoff in first-strike percentage also tends to mean an increase in walks, though Ray should at least be better than his first start this year!
At least, that is, when he returns from his current flexor strain. If that turns out to be more serious than it looks right now, we’ll have to call this an incomplete; it would be manifestly unfair for me to claim victory in a small sample size.
ZiPS already isn’t too bullish on Kluber, so I’m in agreement with the computer in this case. I think what we have here is a perfect storm of risky indicators. He was solid in 2022 but also in a beneficial environment, with the Rays’ defense and the Trop being a good fit for him. He was never a flamethrower, but his limited velocity is getting even worse; he’s lost two mph from 2021, placing him at risk of “going Jered Weaver.” What’s more is that in a year in which there are additional incentives for putting balls in play — already less than ideal for Kluber — Fenway is the best non-Coors park for BABIP, and the Red Sox don’t have a particularly good defense. I think Kluber can still have success as the saavy, groundball veteran in a Chelcie Ross/Eddie Harris sense, but it’s more likely when he has the right support behind him.
While Cueto has never been a pitcher who has relied on high strikeout rates, dipping under six last year was quite worrisome, both in its absolute number and the dropoff from the year before with the Giants. A large part of his success was one of his best seasons for home run rate allowed — especially impressive in Guaranteed Rate Field — but ZiPS thought that even his good exit velocity numbers last year should have yielded an additional seven homers. The fact that Cueto is the second Marlin on this list reflects one of the reasons I’m uneasy about the Pablo López trade: I think the Marlins would have been a lot better off had they tried to meet their offensive needs with money instead of lopping off some of their pitcher surplus. If Cueto struggles (and in his first start on Monday, he did, and also had to leave the game with a trainer), that pitcher surplus becomes more and more iffy.
Kimbrel’s occasional implosions are a lot easier to stomach if he’s striking out 15 batters a game. He wasn’t in 2022, with easily the worst strikeout rate of his career, and that’s with the Dodgers, who seem to have a shocking ability to wring good performance out of practically anyone. Once one of the hardest pitchers in baseball to make contact again, he’s gradually degraded towards league average in this number, which isn’t exactly a formula in which he’ll find success given his penchant for occasionally getting hit very hard. While I wouldn’t overreact to his first appearance with the Phillies, I think he’s a very ordinary reliever who is getting by more on reputation than performance.
Clevinger got two starts in the playoffs last year, but his stint with the Padres has to go down as a major disappointment, one somewhat camouflaged by the decline in offense and being in a pitchers’ park. Losing a couple miles on his fastball may not have been fatal in itself, but it was hit quite hard last year, and none of his pitches were able to put away batters effectively on two strikes. I think he’s more of a reclamation project than a bounceback solution, and I don’t think an allegedly competitive team in a home run friendly park is necessarily the best place for that to happen.
ZiPS isn’t worried about Bassitt, at least in the short term (it has him dropping off fairly quickly in future seasons). But what ZiPS doesn’t know is that his velocity took a big dip in the spring. Last year, he was regularly in the 93–94 mph range with the occasional pitch at 95 or 96; in Florida, it was 90–92. It’s not unusual for a pitcher to dial it back a bit before the season starts, but he wasn’t just applying the brakes more often; all his fastballs were off. Bassitt’s fastest pitch this spring was 93.5 mph, below his average in more than half of his starts last year. If he were averaging 90–92 but still hitting 95–96, I’d be less worried, but I’m skeptical that he simply chose to go through a whole month without ever throwing his fastest fastball. Velocity drops tend to be red flags, so I think there’s additional risk here.
ZiPS thought that Freeland should have allowed 12 more homers in 2022 than he actually did, a pretty hefty number. To put this into context, zHR has been part of ZiPS since 2015, and over that period, only Madison Bumgarner in 2018 has “underperformed” by at least 10 homers (10.7). This isn’t a case in which Freeland has a history of beating his peripherals here either; zHR has never missed on him by more than two homers over a season. Add in the decline in his velocity, more flyballs than ever, and a park that’s still somewhat of a pinball machine post-humidor, and I think Freeland is a very risky pitcher.
After all the rumors and money and projections and Carlos Correa signing announcements (and un-announcements), here we are, back at 0-0, with every team having at least some technical level of hope for the 2023 season. Until today’s games start the process of turning projections into history, the season is a blank piece of paper or canvas, a fresh layer of snow without a hint of gray, a home improvement project before the moment you remember you barely know how to assemble an IKEA end table. Now before I get too wistful and start sounding like Paul Harvey or weird AI Vin Scully, let’s get down to business.
Since I am the owner, caretaker, and occasional messer-upper of the ZiPS projection system, that’s the system I used to run the 2023 season a million times. The methodology I’m using here isn’t identical to the one we use in our Projected Standings, meaning there will naturally be some important differences in the results. So how does ZiPS calculate the season? Stored within ZiPS are the first through 99th-percentile projections for each player. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our Depth Charts as a jumping off point. Since these are my curated projections, I make changes based on my personal feelings about who will receive playing time as filtered through arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion (the computational algorithms, that is — no one is dressing up in a tuxedo and playing baccarat like James Bond).
After that is done, ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk that changes the baseline PAs/IPs for each player. Of note is that higher-percentile projections already have more playing time than lower-percentile projections before this step. ZiPS then automatically (and proportionally) “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list to get to a full slate of plate appearances and innings. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year… or how foolish:
First, from the comments in the hitter articles, there’s still some lingering confusion on what I mean by a breakout or bust. When I pick a player to break out or bust, I’m basing this relative to the general expectations as I perceive them, not relative to the previous season’s performance. For example, Joey Gallo is a bust not because I think he’ll be worse than last season, but because I think he’ll be worse than those baked-in expectations; there has been a lot of speculation that the shift will save him, and I don’t think that’s true. You see this on the financial markets quite a bit, when the market reacts negatively to good news that’s not as good as what was already priced into the valuations, and vice-versa. Also remember, that this isn’t necessarily me versus ZiPS; sometimes ZiPS agrees with me, and sometimes it angrily disagrees, or at least it would if I didn’t have the power to delete it from existence.
Back to business. Kikuchi was one of my worst breakout picks ever, and while I was correct that his BABIP and strikeout rates would bounce back from the second half of 2021, I missed his overall command being significantly worse, the slider being an ultra-disaster, and the resulting awful season. Howard ended up in the minors after a horrific opening week, and while he pitched well in the minors, I’m certainly not going to claim any victory based on translations! I’m still not sure what to make about Rodriguez’s season, which featured a ribcage strain and a mysterious stint on the restricted list thanks to persona/family reasons. Graterol pitched well, but he’s still not hitting the strikeout rates I think his stuff could be giving him.
On the plus side, McKenzie was solid, Suarez became one of the better relievers in the league after that first rough patch, and Luzardo did, in fact, have his walks under control. I thought Cease would be a serious Cy Young contender and he was; I’m still fuming that he didn’t make the All-Star Game.
Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, and may the baseball fates have mercy on my soul. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, we wrapped up our analysis of the league’s infielders with third base and shortstop. Today, we shift our attention to the outfield, starting in left.
The sabermetric era has resulted in hard times for left field as a position. Teams are more willing than ever to give their best young talent every opportunity to stick at tougher defensive positions, which narrows the pipeline to corner outfield jobs. One-dimensional hitters have gone out of style and big home run totals alone don’t result in hefty contracts on the easy side of the defensive spectrum. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, with barely half the number of teams, there were regularly six or seven active left fielders who were future Hall of Famers. Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Frank Robinson, and Carl Yastrzemski all qualified for the batting title as left fielders in 1963. In contrast, there are basically two superstar left fielders today: Juan Soto and Yordan Alvarez, and the latter doesn’t even exclusively play the position. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s positional power rankings. As a quick refresher, all 30 teams are ranked based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts. Our staff then endeavors to provide you with some illuminating commentary to put those rankings in context. We begin this year’s series at catcher.
As usual, we begin our annual positional power rankings examining the position that’s the most clouded in mystery, the one where our best baseball praxis still leaves us with the most unanswered questions. Catchers remain unique in their significant and meaningful interaction with pitchers and the art of pitching. We’ve come a long way in evaluating much of the job of catching, with pitch framing statistics the most recent and one of the most valuable developments (at least until the inevitable day when balls and strikes have their locations called by a brigade of cameras and computers), but there are still things we can’t yet quantify. Still, that skills might be hard to capture with numbers doesn’t necessarily mean they’re nonexistent, just that they’re difficult to measure. Even if baseball didn’t collect a single statistic, teams would still need to consider how and why and whether player X helps them win games more than player Y, while fans would still argue over who is better than who. Our framework for evaluating catchers may be imperfect, but there’s still a lot we can say about those who don the tools of ignorance, and we get a little better at it every year. Read the rest of this entry »
Nick: Jeff Zimmerman raised some concerns about Jordan Walker’s swing and miss. What’s your level of concern about it? K rates in the minor leagues seem fine but I’m trying to figure out what we should realistically expect from him.
12:05
Dan Szymborski: I’m not super concerned, his strikeout rates aren’t really a problem in the minors, and for a prospect, I think passivity is even more dangerous than aggressiveness
12:05
Dan Szymborski: It’s an argument I had with people who were angry that Kris Bryant got like a three WAR projection his rookie season
12:05
Dan Szymborski: It was all “but minor league strikeout rate”
12:05
Dan Szymborski: But when a guy has a 1.000 OPS or something, they’re *incentivized* to be aggressive.
We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since those are beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers generally try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:
Thank goodness I had a weaker year than average overall, as I included a few of my favorite players in the mix! Being right for breakouts is a lot of fun, but being right on the busts is a bit depressing, a definite sign that I’ve mellowed as I enter middle age. Trout’s contact rate didn’t bounce back, and his BABIP crashed by well over 100 points, but his newfound grounder proclivity disappeared, and the power boost more than compensated for an OBP nearly 50 points below his career average. Riley’s BABIP also predictably fell, but he hit the ball harder and became a more well-rounded hitter, crushing most pitches instead of predominantly fastballs. Most of the rest came in at the middle-third of the ZiPS projections, which is a victory for the computer rather than me — all that is except for Schwindel, who didn’t just regress toward the mean; he lapped it.
Now, let’s turn to this year’s picks, as I throw myself upon the tender mercies of fortune. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:
First, the bad news. Kelenic and Adell were both just awful, and I would definitely call 2022 a giant miss for both players as they enter their post-prospect period. I suspect there’s more hope to still be had for Kelenic than Adell, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself prescient about either. Kepler’s breakout didn’t happen at all, and his power all but disappeared. Anderson I’ll call an incomplete because of injury, and while Higashioka did match his entire previous career in WAR, that was largely due to defense, which I can hardly claim credit for predicting. Hiura did hit far better than he had recently, but he also didn’t exactly get a ton of playing time with the Brewers, who appeared to have lost interest in him. There were a few triumphs, however: Kwan and Lux both had excellent seasons, especially the former. Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Szymborski
