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

Batters

Let’s start with the good news first: Kansas City’s offense has several very interesting offensive players in the high minors. Then there’s the bad news: Kansas City’s offense has several very interesting offensive players in the high minors. That Bobby Witt Jr. projects well is not a surprise, but Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, and Vinnie Pasquantino all crushed the feckless assortment of minor league pitchers they faced, and you have to feel much better about the long-term outlook of all three in the majors. How does this quartet of young players transition from terrorizing minor leaguers and start threatening major league ones? That’s a trickier question, given the contours of the roster.

One risk facing the Royals is that Witt plays third base, with Nicky Lopez remaining the shortstop. This would the same mistake that the Orioles made some years ago with Manny Machado and J.J. Hardy; for a handful of runs, the team would needlessly be lowering the ceiling on a franchise player. Baltimore had the excuse of being a good team in a tough division, in which absolutely maximizing wins had a great deal of value. Not giving Witt every opportunity to be a foundational talent at shortstop so that the Royals can be a .480 team instead of a .478 one doesn’t feel like it has the same upside. In five years, he could be their Carlos Correa. In five years, the Rockies will be paying Lopez $10 million a year to put up 1.1 WAR and block the latest iteration of Brendan Rodgers or Ryan McMahon. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

Which team in baseball has the best middle infield? I imagine most fans would likely say the Rangers (Corey Seager and Marcus Semien) or the Padres (Fernando Tatis Jr. and mostly Jake Cronenworth). The Rays are another possible answer, though. Wander Franco’s very quickly become a star, and Brandon Lowe is my pick for the most underrated second baseman in the game. I talked quite a lot about Franco’s outlook when he he signed his big ol’ contract extension, so I won’t rehash that here. Confusingly, Lowe wasn’t even one of the American League’s four Silver Slugger finalists at second base in 2021, as his .863 OPS apparently wasn’t up to the standards of DJ LeMahieu (.711 OPS, about half his games not at second). I would be surprised if the best middle infield came from a team other than these three. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

It feels a little weird to be optimistic about the Mets after the season they just had (or perhaps because the Mets are one of the world’s most powerful pessimism-inducing entities). But when I look at the offense, there’s just not that much to complain about. None of Starling Marte, Mark Canha, or Eduardo Escobar are superstars — though Marte comes close at times — but signing that trio really improved how the lineup looks going into 2022. The team has a credible backup at most positions and even some upper minors depth (Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and, if you believe Steamer rather than ZiPS, Khalil Lee) they can use if the need arises. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

The departures of Mark Canha and Starling Marte are a real setback for Oakland, but the lineup’s core remains intact. This starts with bullishness on the Matts.

Five-win projections from a first baseman are kind of rare in ZiPS — I started building WAR projections into ZiPS in 2014, and this will be only the sixth time it’s happened — but Matt Olson is at the likely height of his powers. As terrific as he was in 2021, with a .271/.341/.540 line and 5.0 WAR, ZiPS isn’t projecting a dropoff, thanks both to regression and because it thinks he was somewhat unlucky in BABIP the last two years relative to his hit data. Vladito versus Olson for supremacy in the AL should be a fun battle the next few years, though the former is likely to vanquish the latter for good in a few years given their respective ages.

ZiPS isn’t projecting Matt Chapman to set any new personal bests, as his offense has fallen off enough that he’s probably left his 2018–19 MVP-ish peak for good. Getting back to the four-win threshold would still make him All-Star level, though. Chapman seems to come up in trade talks reasonably regularly, but I’m not sure the A’s actually move him this year unless the playoff race is an uphill battle in July.
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12:01

Dan Szymborski: Probably DJ as ZiPS is pretty bullish on Kiké

12:01

Dan Szymborski: Oh, and hello, and welcome to 2022!

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Cheating to try and see the projection early!

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

Batters

If you start with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, it’s hard for your offense to do too poorly without major malpractice. And no malpractice is present here, as George Springer projects to (hopefully) have a healthier season while the Jays’ confusing, Cerberus-like catching situation should be adequate whatever configuration they go with. Teoscar Hernández projects to regress a bit BABIP-wise, but his power still makes him a comfortable plug-and-play cleanup hitter, though I’d personally prefer that he hit third since that’s the lineup spot that leads off the fewest innings. ZiPS doesn’t see Cavan Biggio being as much of a chip off the old block as Bichette or Guerrero, but it does expect a great deal of improvement from his sub-replacement 2021 season.

There are still places where the Jays can make improvements. Santiago Espinal was a nice little surprise and hit very well in the majors in 2021, but the projections are unimpressed with a minor league record that screams complementary talent. Kevin Smith projects to hit for power but with a low BA/OBP, and he’ll probably struggle to be valuable at third unless he turns out to be extremely adept at playing the hot corner. Another spare outfielder would also be helpful; ZiPS isn’t crazy about Randal Grichuk as the main fallback option. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

There’s no lying: 2021 was a tough year for the Padres, at least the last six weeks or so. As late as August 10, they were firmly in control of a playoff spot and, at 67–49, on pace for a 94-win season. The rest of the year was as brutal a run as I can remember for any team, certainly for one that had legitimate playoff hopes beforehand. Over the last 46 games of the season, San Diego went 12–34, the worst in baseball, even worse than the Orioles, who were nearly at the level of dragooning fans into throwing mop-up innings. Before the Friars, only one team, the 1986 Orioles, ever finished the season this poorly while winning at least 70 games. That was a team I remember well, being an eight-year-old in Baltimore at the time; it basically sent Earl Weaver back to retirement at a relatively young 56.

The good news is that the best reasons for liking the Padres before 2021 remain on the team. Fernando Tatis Jr. has the best projection for any player on a team run so far, by a two-win cushion, though this is partially thanks to ZiPS having anxiety about Mike Trout’s injury record in recent seasons and will change when the ZiPS for the Nats go public, but he is the foundation of this team, even if he eventually has to move to another position because of shoulder problems. Manny Machado is still in his 20s, Jake Cronenworth had a star-level season, and ZiPS thinks Trent Grisham will have a better 2022.

The bad news is that outside of Tatis, Cronenworth and Joe Musgrove, there are precious few Padres to feel clearly more confident about this time around, and they don’t have enough wiggle room to justify scraping by with holes at three of the four corner positions. San Diego appeared, late in the season, to realize finally that the Eric Hosmer situation wasn’t going to work itself out magically but still hasn’t committed to doing anything significant at first other than “insert coin to try again” like it’s 1993 and it just lost to M. Bison in Street Fighter II. That Nomar Mazara might be part of the left field mess if the season started today is not something a fan should be excited about. Wil Myers reverting to non-2020 form leaves right field as another weak spot, though it may be tough for the Padres to do anything here while also fixing first and left. And ZiPS sees no in-house saviors on the short-term horizon; ask me next year about Robert Hassell III.
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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees.

Batters

The offense is a relatively stable group, especially with the addition of Joey Gallo for a season, but some of the shine has come off the team’s upside here. Giancarlo Stanton was healthy and solid in 2021, but the year largely served to narrow his range of outcomes in ZiPS rather than change its trajectory; a year older and farther away, ZiPS sees it as less likely that another 2017 is lurking in there somewhere. It’s also less likely that DJ LeMahieu turns in another elite season, and center field is in a tough spot given how much of the depth chart is tied up in the frequently-injured Aaron Hicks. We can’t skip over Gleyber Torres, either; for a player who hit 38 homers as a 22-year-old shortstop just two years ago, his career is in a precarious position now. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

By winning 92 games, the Red Sox comfortably exceeded most expectations for the team in 2021. How do they do it again? There’s a path available, though not all the elements are in the organization right now.

The part Boston already has sorted is the offensive players who did the most to push the team to fourth in the American League in runs scored. Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, and Enrique Hernández are back, and there’s no reason to expect any kind of decline from the first two, while Hernández isn’t remotely in the steep decline phase yet. Alex Verdugo, J.D. Martinez, and the catcher tandem are projected to give roughly league-average performances, hardly surprising results. There may be some grumbling about JDM’s projection, but even if ZiPS can mostly overlook his mess of a 2020 — wouldn’t it be nice if we could all forget that year? — it can’t forget that he’s also a 34-year-old designated hitter. Yes, David Ortiz aged incredibly well (and ZiPS was weirdly optimistic he would), but most players of the type do not. Martinez shouldn’t be a problem in 2022, but the day when that will become likely is coming. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Batters

What can you say about the Dodgers? Most of the lineup from last year is returning, and most of that lineup is very, very good. That a 106-win season can feel slightly disappointing comes down to how the San Francisco Giants played rather than how the Dodgers did. The projected lineup ranges from average to MVP-worthy, with no apparent holes.

Thanks to the trade that brought Trea Turner to LA, the question of what to do at shortstop over the long haul was put off for another year. The Dodgers didn’t really seem to make any kind of a big push to bring back Corey Seager, but that’s a testament to just how awesome Turner is. There are only two shortstops in baseball I’d rather have on a long-term contract: Fernando Tatis Jr., and Wander Franco. Suffice it to say, the Dodgers do not — and will not — have access to either of those two young stars. Even in the worst-case scenario, though, a Turner departure after 2022 would result in the team temporarily having a Chris Taylor–Gavin Lux middle infield. That’s still likely a roughly average pair, not a major disaster. Read the rest of this entry »