After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Tampa Bay Rays. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters Tampa Bay center fielder Kevin Kiermaier hasn’t merely recorded more wins than every other 31st-round selection from the 2010 draft, but he appears also to have recorded more wins than all but six players — including (and, it would seem, limited to) Adam Eaton, Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, Manny Machado, Chris Sale, and Andrelton Simmons — from that same draft class. What else he’s done is to distinguish himself as the prohibitive star of your 2016 Rays. Taken out of Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, Kiermaier has now produced a 9.5 WAR in fewer than two full seasons’ worth of plate appearances. His projection for the 2016 campaign (521 PA, 4.2 zWAR) calls for roughly a repeat of the same.
After Kiermaier, the 2016 iteration of the club appears to be an exercise in uninspiring competence. Desmond Jennings is roughly average. Logan Forsythe and Brad Miller are roughly average. Whoever’s platooning in right field is likely to provide a roughly average platoon. The club’s weaknesses are at designated hitter and first base. Neither Logan Morrison (445 PA, 0.0 zWAR) nor James Loney (498 PA, 0.0 zWAR) appear well-equipped to benefit the team at either position.
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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters Only three batters last year recorded both 300-plus plate appearances and also a .300 isolated-power figure: Chris Davis (670 PA, .300 ISO), Bryce Harper (654 PA, .319 ISO), and Giancarlo Stanton (318 PA, .341 ISO). That’s merely one of the many possible ways to state an obvious thing — namely, that the Marlins’ right fielder is among the most impressive power hitters in the league. What else that set of criteria reveals, however, is that Stanton was limited by injury. Because if the plate-appearance threshold were raised to 319, his name would disappear.
In his five years as a regular, Stanton has averaged 512 plate appearances per season. Not the worst case scenario, certainly, but not ideal — and the results have been fantastic, regardless. If his projection (499 PA, 4.9 zWAR) seems a bit light relative to his prodigious talents, however, it’s the result of a somewhat modest plate-appearance forecast.
Examining Miami’s field players as a whole, one finds a group well equipped to produce wins at an average rate in 2016, with Dee Gordon (606 PA, 2.6 zWAR), Martin Prado (578 PA, 2.6 zWAR), and Christian Yelich (596 PA, 3.2 zWAR) all complementing Stanton. First base, meanwhile, appears to be the most immediate area of concern: even in a platoon, Justin Bour (501 PA, 1.1 zWAR) and Chris Johnson (443 PA, 0.2 zWAR) might exhibit some difficulty in separating themselves from replacement level.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Milwaukee Brewers. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters It represents an instance of damning with faint praise to observe that, in 2015, Milwaukee batters outproduced Bryce Harper by roughly a win. On the one hand, that’s better than not outproducing Bryce Harper. On the other, the phrase “Milwaukee batters” denotes a group of professional ballplayers, while “Bryce Harper” is just one person by himself. In light of how baseball works, a group of players should basically always outperform a single guy.
A brief inspection of the projections for Milwaukee suggests that, while the 2016 campaign is unlikely to yield wild success, there’s also less of a chance that the entire club will find itself contending with a 22-year-old outfielder for supremacy of the WAR leaderboards. Apart from whatever value he provides from pitch-framing, catcher Jonathan Lucroy (481 PA, 3.3 zWAR) is forecast to supply enough offensive and (more traditional) defensive value to record an above-average line, while Ryan Braun (582 PA, 2.7 zWAR) and relative newcomer Domingo Santana (570 PA, 2.5 zWAR) receive solid-average projections. Again, it’s not an overwhelming collection of talent. Between the deep depth, however, and the possibility of some useful platoons, the Brewers have a chance of skewing towards the direction of average.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters For how much of an outlier it is, Mike Trout’s projection (688 PA, 9.3 zWAR) represents probably one of the easiest to calculate on the back of an envelope. In each of his first four seasons, he’s produced about five or six wins above average by way of his bat, added another half-win or so by means of base running, and recorded slightly above-average defensive numbers. Add in a little more than two wins’ worth of replacement value and the result is an 8.0-9.0 WAR forecast. Whatever influence there might be from regression is likely offset by a combination of Trout’s youth and the nearly 3,000 plate-appearance sample over which he’s established this level of play. The calculus is a strange combination of simple and impossible, not unlike Trout himself.
A team composed of all exactly replacement-level players and also Mike Trout would record roughly 57 wins over the course of a season — meaning the Angels, as a group, need to augment Trout’s contribution with about 30 wins of their own in order to qualify for the postseason in some fashion. Kole Calhoun (604 PA, 2.7 zWAR) and the newly acquired Andrelton Simmons (590 PA, 3.7 zWAR) would appear to be useful in that endeavor. Depending on the health of his foot, Albert Pujols (602 PA, 2.7 zWAR) might also be, as well. After those four players, however, finding even an average projection among the club’s hitters is difficult.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Colorado Rockies. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters Colorado batters produced the third-lowest cumulative WAR among their major-league peers last year, falling just short of the 10-win threshold. That’s one relevant point when considering the Rockies’ prospects for 2016. Another? That the club also hasn’t altered the roster in any substantive way this offseason. There are, of course, other means by which a team can improve from one year to the next. The promotion of young players from within the system, for example. Or simply by way of positive regression. But even ZiPS — which, like other projections systems, is largely a regression machine — doesn’t call for much improvement in that way.
Third baseman Nolan Arenado (612 PA, 4.1 zWAR) appears to have developed into a real star, combining a high-contact, high-power offensive profile with above-average defense. Charlie Blackmon (638 PA, 1.8 zWAR) and Carlos Gonzalez (473 PA, 1.8 zWAR) are also roughly average. After that, however, the returns among the starting contingent are decidedly less encouraging. Outfielder Gerardo Parra (584 PA, 1.0 zWAR), whose acquisition rendered Corey Dickerson expendable, is best regarded as a solid bench player, at this point.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland Athletics. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters There’s always the sense, given the organization’s record of innovation and willingness to reconstruct its roster, that the A’s are likely to succeed then most when mediocrity appears to be the only possible outcome. If that sense is correct, then Oakland is likely to succeed very hard in 2016 — because the club, as presently constructed, is not well-acquitted by the projections.
Consider the following table, a version of which appears in the glossary entry for WAR and which provides a rough characterization for various WAR ranges:
By this rough taxonomy, Oakland currently employs only two batters classified as “solid starters” (Josh Reddick, Marcus Semien) and a third (Billy Burns) who profiles as precisely average. That triumvirate represents the exact sort of cost-controlled core a team like Oakland requires to win. Unfortunately, they’re surrounded not by stars, but role players.
It’s difficult, while examining the modest projections here, not also to consider for a moment the distinctly less modest one produced by ZiPS for Josh Donaldson. Last year’s American League MVP is expected to record more than six wins in 2016, at the cost of about $11.5 million. One needn’t be employed — or even have any training — as a rocket scientist to recognize what a benefit Donaldson would be to this club.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters White Sox batters produced the lowest collective WAR among all 30 teams in 2015, combining the worst park-adjusted offense in the majors (-108.1 runs below average overall) with also the worst defense (-60.3 runs below average). The result: a mere three wins above replacement level as a group.
That’s not to say there weren’t encouraging invidual contributions. Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton, for example, produced nearly eight wins between them. On the one hand, that’s a positive. On the other hand, what it reveals is that the rest of the roster provided less value than freely available talent might, in theory, supply. Gordon Beckham, Conor Gillaspie, and Mike Olt — who accounted for roughly two-thirds of the club’s third-base starts — recorded a -1.5 WAR between them. Emilio Bonifacio, Micah Johnson, and Carlos Sanchez — who made all but seven starts at second base — posted a collective -1.3 WAR. Those outputs quite possibly don’t represent the true talents of all those players, but they certainly had an adverse effect on Chicago’s win-loss record.
The advantage for a club which possesses glaring holes is that addressing those holes with merely serviceable replacements represents a considerable upgrade. If the newly acquired tandem of Todd Frazier (624 PA, 3.7 zWAR) and Brett Lawrie (509 PA, 1.8 zWAR) approximate their projections in 2016, they’ll conspire to produce a roughly eight-win improvement by themselves.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Washington Nationals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.
Batters This set of ZiPS projections for the Nationals represents the 23rd post in this offseason series. A brief examination of the 22 previous installments reveals that no field player has received as robust a forecast yet as Bryce Harper (579 PA, 6.9 zWAR) does here. The other top contenders? Josh Donaldson (6.6 zWAR), Buster Posey (6.3), and Andrew McCutchen (6.0). Conspicuous by his absence from that brief list, of course, is Mike Trout. As for when Szymborski intends to release the Angels’ projections, one can only speculate as to that heartless monster’s plans.
Apart from their outfield wunderkind, the Nationals’ collection of batters is rather ordinary. Third baseman Anthony Rendon (512 PA, 3.3 zWAR) has the benefit both of youth and also a six-win season in his recent past. Otherwise, no starting field player receives a projection that reaches even the two-win threshold, the recently acquired Daniel Murphy (606 PA, 1.9 zWAR) representing the best of the remaining six.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Francisco Giants. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.
Batters When preparing the depth-chart graphics such as one finds below, it’s not always possible to fully represent the manner in which every player is likely to be deployed over the course of a season. In case of the Giants, for example, Buster Posey (606 PA, 6.3 zWAR) is a candidate to receive a number of starts at first base. Yet it’s also probably not inaccurate to characterize Brandon Belt (485 PA, 2.5 zWAR) as the team’s starting first baseman. To include Posey’s name at first wouldn’t have been wrong, at all. But it would have also required seconds — or perhaps even an entire minute — of more work. That’s a minute which the author could have utilized to the end of Googling his name on the internet and further crushing himself under the weight of his own vanity.
Posey isn’t merely the best player on the Giants, but also nearly the whole league. Angel Pagan (473 PA, 0.4 zWAR) definitely isn’t the worst player in the league, but he does appear — per Dan Szymborski’s computer, at least — he does appear to represent the club’s worst projected starter. If anyone cares, Jarrett Parker (515 PA, 1.1 zWAR) is also an outfielder and, despite a forecasted strikeout rate of 39.4%, receives a more encouraging prognosis than Pagan.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the St. Louis Cardinals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.
Batters No club outperformed its Base Runs record by a greater amount in 2015 than St. Louis. The numbers suggest that, at a fundamental level, the Cardinals played like an 89-win team. In reality, they won 100 games. This is neither good or bad in itself. It’s just, if the club below seems more likely to record 89 victories than 100 of them, then that’s not actually a sign of decline, but rather equilibrium.
The depth-chart graphic below lacks some of the nuance that Mike Matheny et al. are likely to employ in terms of fielding a team on a day-to-day basis. For example, Matt Adams (357 PA, 0.9 zWAR) appears quite likely to share starts at first base with Brandon Moss (492 PA, 1.2 zWAR), while the newly acquired Jedd Gyorko (522 PA, 1.6 zWAR) is a candidate to work in a platoon with second baseman Kolten Wong (571 PA, 2.4 zWAR).
The appearance of Matt Carpenter (628 PA, 3.8 zWAR) atop the Cards’ batter projections facilitates the opportunity not only to appreciate his career, but also to remember his No. 1 comparable, Corey Koskie. Despite exceeding his rookie limits as a 26-year-old, Koskie averaged 4.1 WAR per 600 plate appearances over the course of a career that was ultimately ended by concussion-related problems. Provided Jim Souhan isn’t purposely misleading everyone, it appears as though Koskie has found some manner of peace as a Planet Fitness franchisee and advocate for bringing greater joy to youth sports.