Last week, I looked at players the projection systems agree on and homes for remaining top free agents using ZiPS. To complete this troika of pieces reviewing some of the ZiPS projections, I’ve asked ZiPS for the players whose medium-term outlook has changed the most from last year’s projections to this year’s. There are a lot of ways to do it, but I went with the simple method of looking at 2024-2027 projections at this time last year and the 2024-2027 projections right now.

Let’s jump right into the projections.

I’m actually a little surprised that someone beat Ronald Acuña Jr. here. I liked Colorado’s pickup of Nolan Jones a lot – and nobody would claim I wear purple-and-black colored glasses – but he turned out even better than I or the projection system expected. Jones was a high-power, high-BABIP talent in the minors, both characteristics that served him well in Coors. Nobody’s confusing him with Kevin Kiermaier, but he turned out to be more competent defensively in the outfield than most expected, a not insignificant thing in a park with a very large outfield. Note that ZiPS doesn’t exclusively use Statcast’s OAA/RAA in its defensive estimations; it uses a mix that is mostly so, but still contains a bit of DRS and a dash of UZR. A .400 BABIP would be difficult to “keep” under any circumstances, so regression is expected, but Jones’ career is still on a lot more solid ground than a year ago.

The reason for the suspicions on Acuña are unsurprising and not a secret: He was recovering from a serious ACL injury and had a fairly run-of-the-mill return in 2022. I don’t necessarily think ZiPS was wrong to make this projection given the risk, though I’ll note that it “hated” him to the tune of having the seventh-best four-year WAR projection for a position player. Well, 2023 happened, and I doubt I have to explain the qualities of that campaign for him. He’s back on the previous track on dueling with Juan Soto and Julio Rodríguez for best X-year projections.

None of the projection systems think Evan Carter will hit for as much average as he did during his first taste of the big leagues, but they all think he’s an above-average starter in the majors right now. There was promise in his profile entering 2023, but a lot more uncertainty because for as young as he was, he was still a relatively low-power prospect with a lot of walk value – not always a huge plus for a prospect becuase of the risk of Jeremy Hermida Syndrome – and hadn’t yet played above High-A ball. The majors turned out not to be so far away.

I said last year at this time that ZiPS needed another year to be sure about Masyn Winn, and that’s precisely what happened. Colt Keith, with a full healthy season after a shoulder injury, put himself into the top tier of prospects and earned an extension from the Tigers before he played a game. Chas McCormick is one of the oldest players on the list, and even if it took a long time until Dusty Baker noticed his improvement, the Astros were aware of it. Patrick Bailey turned out to be a truly dynamite defensive player in the majors.

The Henry Davis bump feels a little odd, but ZiPS was really down on him until his minor league performance in 2023, which featured a spicy 178 wRC+ at Double-A and Triple-A. Jake Burger did enough to upgrade him from a useful role player into a short-term league-average starter. Jordan Lawlar’s very short debut in the majors wasn’t impressive, but a 20-year-old shortstop with a 127 wRC+ in the high minors is someone on the verge of being in phenom territory, especially because he can actually play the position; he’s not a Danny Tartabull slugger shoehorned into a position he can’t play.

Robert Hassell III missed most of the Arizona Fall League in 2022 with a broken hamate bone, and things got even worse when the calendar flipped; he hit .221/.324/.321 across two levels in 2023. Just to contextualize how troubling a line that is, ZiPS gets a translation of .201/.275/.274 for the year. It doesn’t end him as a prospect, but it isn’t encouraging to see such a lack of production from one of the two outfield prospects the Nationals received in the Soto trade. On the bright side for Washington, the other outfielder it picked up for Soto, James Wood, was the No. 2 prospect in all of baseball in our updated 2023 rankings and had a four WAR improvement in this exercise.

This wasn’t a great season for Royals hitting prospects. The trio of MJ Melendez, Nick Pratto, and Vinnie Pasquantino were expected to provide some reinforcements to a punchless outlet, but two of the three (Melendez and Pratto) made this list. Even Pasquantino ranked 56th, but that’s more due to his missing more than three months with a shoulder injury that required season-ending surgery; he’s performed considerably better than the other two in the majors. Melendez now finds himself with a limited path to a long career. His bat regressed massively, a major issue now that the Royals are using him as a DH and in the outfield instead of as a catcher because they didn’t trust his glove behind the plate. He now needs to either convince the Royals he can handle catching (and actually be able to do so) or make a huge step forward with the bat, both easier said than done. Pratto was promoted in late April and had a big May, but he basically stopped hitting after that, eventually getting demoted the minors. He didn’t hit there, either.

ZiPS wasn’t a fan of Aaron Zavala, a second-round pick by the Rangers in 2021, but after this walk-heavy prospect hit the wall in Double-A (.194/.343/.285), it’s even less so. However, I wouldn’t completely write him off yet, because it’s hard for a projection system to deal with his injury setbacks; a spinal tumor and UCL surgery in consecutive years have presented major obstacles for him. He may be too patient as a hitter, but he also has had such little experience as a pro that he could still develop a more aggressive approach at the plate. Plate discipline is a means to an end, not an end to itself; if he doesn’t learn to punish pitchers when he get his pitch, he won’t make it as he moves up the minor league ladder.

Jake Cronenworth is a good bounceback candidate with the bat, but playing him at first always was going to take away a chunk of his value, especially as he turned out to be a rather unimpressive defensive player there. Addison Barger was a ZiPS favorite entering 2023, but an elbow injury cost him two months of the season and possibly contributed to his giant step backwards in the power department.

Brett Baty still has one of the best projections on this list, but a half-year of some really awful play in the majors ought to sap some of the exuberance about his output.

At the back of the list, Carlos Correa may have pleased the Twins in October, but it was one of his worst seasons as a pro. Because of his strong track record, ZiPS expects him to be much better moving forward than he was in 2023, but it can’t completely ignore such a down year. ZiPS also remains high on Anthony Volpe overall, but he didn’t show as much progress with the bat as ZiPS had hoped, and some of that superstar high-end has been whittled down a bit.

Some may believe that ZiPS isn’t as positive about Kyle Bradish’s 2023 as it should be, but he is the biggest positive mover among pitchers, going from a fringe fifth starter (in the opinion of ZiPS) to at least a legitimate number-two guy behind Corbin Burnes (!!!). I talked a bit about Brock Stewart in Projection Fight Club; he’s had a long injury history, but the anemic plate discipline numbers batters managed against him last season made ZiPS a believer, even with a relatively small sample size.

Eury Pérez amply demonstrated he was ready for the majors, and just in time to add some cover to a rotation that will be without Sandy Alcantara for 2024. Gregory Santos quickly figured out the whole command thing to go along with a fastball that can touch the century mark. I like to imagine I was correct about the Zach Eflin breakout, even if I was a few years early, but I don’t expect anyone to give me credit for that. He was fourth in the AL in WAR among pitchers, after all. Health seems to be the biggest boost here, because Eflin has been good for a while; he has now had four consecutive seasons with a FIP below four.

The Phillies no longer have Eflin, but they do have Cristopher Sánchez, who quickly worked his way into the rotation to give them a boost down the stretch. ZiPS thinks he’s for real. Same goes for Tanner Bibee, who showed he could finish off batters quite competently with both his slider and his changeup. Michael King consolidated his 2022 gains, and it’s completely unsurprising the Padres want to look at him as a starter if they can.

Alek Manoah’s 2023 represented such a turn of fate that William Hogarth could have painted it. After finishing third in the 2022 AL Cy Young race, he was demoted from the majors to the lowest level of the minors last June, returned after a month, and then was optioned again during the second week of August, this time to Triple-A, where he never pitched because of various ailments. No matter how much promise he has flashed in the past, ZiPS can’t ignore such a brutal decline. Carlos Rodón and Luis Severino were both injured and ineffective last year, two of the reasons the Yankees missed the playoffs. Noah Syndergaard demonstrated that it’s unlikely he can transition effectively from the power pitcher he once was into a finesse guy, and ZiPS jumped off the Shintaro Fujinami train, though I still have some hope for him as a full-time reliever. Kyle Wright and Brandon Woodruff both had significant injuries.

Note that the Ohtani decline here is as a pitcher only, and as mad as it makes me, it’s fair given he just had his second Tommy John surgery.

All told, the decliners for pitchers are much less interesting than the gainers or the hitter numbers, simply because elbows and shoulders change the expectations for pitchers more quickly. I think next year, I’ll filter out injured pitchers.

Coming up later this week: the first official ZiPS projected standings of 2024!

Read the rest of this entry »

The first rule of Projection Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Projection Fight Club. Fortunately, the second rule of Projection Fight Club is that you are allowed to write about Projection Fight Club — otherwise, I might get in hot water with our editors for pitching an article I can’t actually produce.

If you’ve been paying attention to the projections housed here at FanGraphs (this is an odd article to read if you’re haven’t been), you’ve probably seen that our player pages now include ZiPS, Steamer, and THE BAT projections for the 2024 season (ATC projections are also available). You may have compared them a little. Perhaps you’ve even shaken your fist at the heavens for the temerity of allowing these systems to besmirch the good name of your favorite player or team. For me, the most interesting projections are the ones where the various systems disagree the most. After all, we watch heavyweight fights, not heavyweight agreements. Nobody would shell out cash to watch the Universal Amiable Concordance Championship.

Since we now have the different projections available, I thought I’d highlight some of the players who inspire the greatest discord amongst the various systems. I’m not going to guess which system will end up being right — it would be inappropriate for me to write a piece like that with one of the pugilists in the ring — but where possible, I’ll talk a bit about the complications involved with projecting those players, and in the instances where ZiPS stands alone as the biggest outlier, I’ll try to lend some additional insight as to why my system is being so nice or mean. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re all looking for an end to the winter doldrums, but whatever meteorological fortunes Punxsutawney Phil might indicate in a few days, the real start of spring doesn’t come until pitchers and catchers report. The vernal equinox ain’t the boss of me! But before camp opens, some unfinished offseason business remains, with scads of free agents still unsigned. And while many of the biggest names — Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola — have long been off the board, there are still players out there who could have a real effect on their next team’s fate.

Of course, we could just wait and see what happens, but I’m impatient. Since I just finished the ZiPS team-by-team rundowns, let’s use them… for evil. Rather than sit around checking our watches, I asked ZiPS to estimate which team will get the biggest championship boost from each free agent. Now, these suggestions don’t have the force of law or extortion — I’d need to be about 700% smarter and at least 7% more villainous to properly construct a doomsday machine — but let’s just imagine. Just to be clear, these aren’t predictions about what will happen, but rather an indication of which team the projections say has the greatest 2024 incentive to sign each player. And if teams aren’t considering these signings, well, maybe they should? We’ll use our 2024 free agent rankings and forcibly sign some of the players remaining. For each player, I’ll include their percentile projections with their new, possibly unwilling employers. Read the rest of this entry »

The Detroit Tigers locked up one of their top young prospects to a long-term extension over the weekend, signing infielder Colt Keith to a six-year contract worth $28.6 million guaranteed, including a buyout after year six. With three team options totaling an additional $38 million, Keith might not hit free agency until after the 2032 season. Those options can be enriched further, by up to $18 million, depending on Keith’s success at earning MVP votes, Silver Slugger awards, and All-Star appearances. The deal has a maximum value of $82 million over nine years.

One of Detroit’s recent struggles has been its inability to find and develop offensive talent. This wasn’t the case during the team’s run of success in the early 2010s, with future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera as its anchor. But as Cabrera and Victor Martinez aged, and other key contributors, such as Prince Fielder, J.D. Martinez and Austin Jackson, left for other teams, the Tigers’ offensive output dropped to the bottom of the league. Aside from Nick Castellanos, who was traded in 2019, none of the young hitters coming up through the system have panned out.

That said, the Tigers have seen some signs of hope over the last few years. When healthy, Riley Greene has been very good, and while Spencer Torkelson had a rough start to his big league career, he improved significantly in the second half of 2023. Detroit still needs more, though, and that may come in the form of Keith, a fifth-round pick from the COVID-abbreviated 2020 draft. Keith showed promise in 2022, hitting .301/.370/.544 for West Michigan of the High-A Midwest League, but he injured his shoulder badly on a pickoff attempt in June, costing him the rest of the season. He recovered enough to play in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .344/.463/.541 in 80 plate appearances over 19 games.

Despite the short season, he ranked atop Detroit’s prospect list found in our humble home. Splitting 2023 between Double- and Triple-A, Keith stayed healthy and hit a combined .306/.380/.552 with 27 homers and 38 doubles. ZiPS translates that performance into a .268/.328/.454, 20 homer line, well below the level of phenom, but more than respectable for a second base/third base prospect in his first go at the high minors.

With a contract that can stretch for nine years, let’s crank out the long-term ZiPS projection for Keith.

While those are not star-level projections, they are the ones of a player you’d like to keep around through his prime. There are lots of familiar names among Keith’s ZiPS comps, such as Eric Chavez, Hank Blalock, Jedd Gyorko, Castellanos himself, Rafael Devers, Ryan Zimmerman, Travis Fryman, and Joe Crede. No, none of them were Hall of Famers – though it’s plausible that Devers could hit enough homers to prove the exception – but each were solid big leaguers.

One of the largest remaining questions around Keith is what position he’ll play in the majors. He’s played both second and third base, and appears to be below average at both. The probabilistic coordinate method that ZiPS uses graded Keith at about eight runs below average at second base, per 1300 innings, in 2023 and six runs below average at third. My colleague Eric Longenhagen feels that Keith is more likely to stick at second, rather than third.

During his stay in Toledo, Keith began to see more time at second base rather than his native third. He’s a bad defender at both spots but has a much greater chance at becoming passable (read: hidden) at second, where some of Keith’s issues with throwing are masked.

[…]

Keith has bulked up considerably since signing, and the effects of his increased size are evident on defense. Once a fair bet to stay on the middle infield, he is now fighting just to stay at third. He is stiff and bulky, his actions are well below average, and while he shows you a big arm when he gets to wind up and really let it eat, he struggles to throw from odd platforms. It’s feasible a team could live with him playing third base situationally, but it’s not ideal, and Colt is a 30-grade defender right now.

In a perfect world, Keith would stick at one of the two positions, with Jace Jung manning the other. One of the nice things about a rebuild is that teams get the chance to experiment, and the Tigers take advantage of that with Keith. Playing him in left field would be a great deal less exciting, but not a disastrous outcome, with mean projected OPS+ numbers in the high 110s during his prime. Left field Keith profiles similarly to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who as one of the best outfielders available in free agency this offseason managed to snag a three-year deal with the Diamondbacks.

There are risks that come with signing a player with so little professional experience, but those are reflected in the price. Yes, $28.6 million is a lot of cash, but not so much in the context of baseball, and the ZiPS projection for Keith suggests a $38 million offer, taking into consideration the reduced salaries of the cost-controlled years. Similar extensions to Jon Singleton and Scott Kingery didn’t work out particularly well for the teams that made them, namely the Astros and Phillies, but those deals weren’t detrimental, either. The upside for Detroit here is considerable.

Are the Tigers playoff contenders in 2024? Probably not. But they’re not so far away that it would be a black swan event if they made some noise in the AL Central race or threatened to grab the last wild card spot. If they succeed, it will likely be in large part due to players like Keith taking a step forward.

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the final team is the Chicago White Sox.

Batters

In a certain way, this team is a bit more depressing than the Oakland Athletics. No, they’re not trying to peace out of Chicago, but I think the A’s front office is probably more realistic about the team’s immediate chances of winning than the Southsiders are. It’s always hard to gauge exactly what a team truly thinks of their outlook, but I get the impression that the White Sox think they will be at least halfway competitive in 2024. Realistically, though, a lot of things would have to go their way, even in a weak division like the AL Central.

The Pale Hose have a one-dude offense in a sport where that isn’t a thing. Luis Robert Jr. is in his prime right now, probably at his peak form. If the White Sox were actually rebuilding, he’s the guy they could trade to start meaningfully restocking the farm system. Instead, he’ll be a key cog in their quest to win 70 games. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the penultimate team is New York Yankees.

Batters

If I’ve learned anything from two decades of projection work (and people getting mad at that projection work), it’s that fans are way too optimistic about teams when everything goes great and way too pessimistic after things have gone awry.
The 2022 Yankees were a good example of this. After a first half in which they went 58-23, good for a .716 winning percentage and a Pythagorean win percentage that nearly matched, ZiPS only projected the team to go 45-36 the rest of the way. “Knave!” they shouted at me on Twitter. “Vagabond! Miscreant!” OK, maybe they didn’t use those words exactly, but there was bewilderment and more than a touch of anger that I would disrespect the Bronx Bombers so. In the end, the Yankees actually were four wins worse than that projection in the second half.

And just like things are never as amazing as they seem when everything goes your way, the reverse is true, with the Yankees again being a good example. They had their worst season since 1992 in 2023, and based on how they’ve been talked about over the last six months or so, you’d think they were a glorified Triple-A team. But the Yankees weren’t that bad — they went 82-80 in a division without a true doormat team to beat up on. That record was all of seven wins below their preseason projection, a miss that barely merits raising an eyebrow, and certainly doesn’t justify floating Brian Cashman out to sea (or bunting more). Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

The A’s are the most depressing team in baseball, hands down. They actually have some competition if we’re talking about the worst team in baseball, but neither the Colorado Rockies nor the Chicago White Sox feel quite as miserable as the A’s. How often does a player take the opportunity to go all-out on the team’s owner when they announce their retirement? Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Texas Rangers.

Batters

The Rangers led the American League in runs scored in 2023, and most of the players who contributed to that success are set to return to the lineup in 2024. Sure, Corey Seager might not repeat his monster season, but his performance should still land comfortably in star territory, and the Rangers could get a little luckier with his health. Evan Carter isn’t likely to post an OPS around 1.000 again, but that’s balanced by the fact that the team ought to get a lot more than 23 regular season games from him this year. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Colorado Rockies.

Batters

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the Colorado Rockies will almost certainly be one of the worst teams in baseball in 2024, a prime candidate to get the top pick in next year’s draft lottery. There’s just no way around that conclusion, as the Rockies don’t have the same young depth or big league-quality role players that the Baltimore Orioles had on hand to make their initial burst in 2022 possible.

Still, the team has at least shown signs of life in their decision-making processes over the year or so. Gone — as far as I’m aware — is the ownership talk of winning 94 games. And young players are seeing the field. There were times Ezequiel Tovar struggled mightily at the plate during his rookie season, especially in the first month, but for once, the team avoided panicking and blocking a top prospect with the Chris Owings/José Iglesias-type veterans who hang around Triple-A looking for a big league job. And while it took the franchise a month to get him onto the roster, the Rockies looked for excuses to play Nolan Jones rather than searching for reasons not to. That paid off, with Jones enjoying an excellent rookie season that saw him improve more in the outfield than most expected. A lot of Colorado’s marginal prospects in their 20s struggled, but at least they played. None of Elehuris Montero, Alan Trejo, or Michael Toglia did all that well, but their playing time demonstrated a (possible) change in organizational thinking, as players like them have been marginalized in the past. Think back to Tom Murphy or Mike Tauchman during their time with the Rockies — the team could not have seemed less interested in seeing what they had.

Brenton Doyle rightly won a Gold Glove award, and the defense is probably mostly real; the ZiPS probability-based method for minor league performance had him at 11 runs better than average in 2022 despite this method being intentionally conservative because of its uncertainty. (For those curious, the highest-ranked outfielders in 2023 were Jorge Barrosa and Ceddanne Rafaela.) Doyle’s bat leaves much to be desired, but there’s a real argument to be made that given the size of the Coors outfield, this is a spot where the team should be willing to swap offense for defense.

ZiPS doesn’t expect Jones to regress too much in 2024 — the Sophomore Slump is a myth, but regression toward the mean is not — and projects considerable growth from Tovar, who was extremely young in his debut. ZiPS also expects a typical season from Ryan McMahon, and while it appears that Brendan Rodgers no longer has star upside, he’s a roughly league-average player when healthy.

That isn’t to say that this team has completely avoided mistakes. The Rockies actually made some trades near the deadline, which they almost never did in the past, but if they were ever going to get anything for Elias Díaz, it would have been last July. Coco Montes deserved a longer look, and I think he’d be an interesting pickup for someone (though he did pass through waivers in September).

As for the rest of the lineup… well, things don’t look great. At this point, neither Kris Bryant nor Charlie Blackmon project particularly well. This team is going to have one of the worst offenses in baseball again, and any long-term turnaround is going to require greater creativity than simply waiting for Zac Veen and Drew Romo, both of whom had disappointing 2023 seasons for a variety of reasons, to come and save the day.

Pitchers

Losing Germán Márquez and Antonio Senzatela to Tommy John makes this group look even worse than it is, but let’s be honest: their arm trouble isn’t what’s keeping the Rockies from being playoff relevant in 2024. Márquez seems the more likely to appear towards the end of the season, having had his procedure a couple months earlier than Senzatela in 2023. Of the pickups the team has made to eat some innings, Dakota Hudson is a groundball pitcher in front of what should be a solidly above-average infield defense, while Cal Quantrill typically isn’t crushable when he struggles. Along with Austin Gomber and Ryan Feltner, they’re basically here so that the games will end and the bullpen doesn’t have to throw 1,100 innings.

As for the bullpen… yeah. ZiPS likes Justin Lawrence, Jake Bird, and Jalen Beeks to be around average, with the rest of the relief corps — including any possible interesting minor leaguers — set to be off that standard. But again, like the Orioles from 2019-2021, the 2024 record isn’t the point. Instead of paying too much for relievers who were good two or three years ago, the Rockies should try to accumulate any halfway interesting young thrower under 25, even if they don’t have a clue, and see who has an epiphany. This is a method only lousy teams have the luxury to adopt.

Right now, ZiPS has Colorado in the 64-68 win range, depending on the assumptions you make about who will play, where, and when. The problem with the Rockies hasn’t just been that they’ve been a bad team, but that they’ve been a bad team with no idea of how bad teams become good ones. Being a bad team with a vision would be a tremendous upgrade over the club that frittered away the prime years of some good young talent during the disastrous Jeff Bridich era. And I’m not one who tends toward optimism with this franchise!

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023. Percentiles are based on the projected PA or TBF.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by 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 that 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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.