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 Detroit Tigers.

Batters

2014 sure seems a long time ago when you look at these offensive projections, doesn’t it? What’s especially troubling when you consider them is that as a whole is there just isn’t all that much upside. It wasn’t so long ago that Miguel Cabrera was hitting at an All-Star level, but the reality is that he’s only played in 168 games over the last two seasons and hit an un-Miggy-like .260/.344/.410. It’s good news of a sort that his back wasn’t one of the injury culprits in 2018, but for a 36-year-old (in April) still just a year removed from having two herniated discs, I may be searching for good news.

Nicholas Castellanos has developed into a very good hitter, but like his predecessor, J.D. Martinez, he’s one who really shouldn’t play the field. It was a good idea to give Castellanos a chance in the outfield, but it turns out he’s not much better as an outfielder than he was as a third baseman. If the Tigers want to win a few more games in 2019, I’d just stick him at designated hitter. That is, assuming he’s not traded in the next few weeks as he hopes. Castellanos is likely the only player on the roster who ought to be a trade target; Cabrera’s contract makes him unmovable without eating an obscene amount of cash and the Tigers shouldn’t deal Jeimer Candelario.

Otherwise, the amount of offensive talent, with the exception of Castellanos and Candelario, is almost shockingly scant. With Jose Iglesias not counting since he’s a free agent, minor-league defensive wizard Jake Rogers projects as the fourth-most valuable Tiger given a whole season of play. It’s unusual for a replacement-level offensive player to project so well. ZiPS projected the Marlins and Orioles to have, respectively, nine and 10 position players in their organizations worth 0.6 WAR or better, a murderers’ row compared to Detroit’s four.

ZiPS could, of course, be wrong. The Steamer projections are far more positive. If you’re a fan of the Tigers, that’s the system you’re hoping will be right this year, at least when it comes to the starting lineup.

Pitchers

This is a bit of a flip from the batters, in that ZiPS likes the pitching more than Steamer does. Now, the top-end projections in the rotation don’t even sniff at All-Star level, but there’s a lot more of interest here than there is with the hitters. ZiPS projects a rebound season from Michael Fulmer, but one in which he looks like a solid No. 2 starter rather than the ace the Tigers believed they had after his 3.06 ERA, AL Rookie of the Year debut in 2016. Rating Fulmer’s abilities too highly is what made Detroit so reluctant to trade him absent an enormous return, and I still believe they’ll come to regret it. Don’t get me wrong, Fulmer still has trade value, but as a good-not-great pitcher who still hasn’t proven to be much of a workhorse, the Tigers would get less now than they would have after 2016 or 2017.

There’s a bit of a trap here for Detroit. With Matt Moore, Tyson Ross, and Jordan Zimmermann under contract, to go along with Fulmer and Matt Boyd, the Tigers could very well start the season without any of the mildly interesting prospects and hangers-ons they have haunting Comerica Park roaming the field. I’m not even talking about the organization’s top four or five pitching prospects, which seem to be some combination of Casey Mize, Franklin Perez, Matt Manning, Beau Burrows, and Alex Faedo (stay-tuned to Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen for more on this than this brief little writeup). I’m talking about Daniel Norris; the Tigers really need to figure out whether or not he is a bust rather than let another rebuilding team do so. I’m talking about exploring Blaine Hardy’s potential as a starter more. Matt Hall isn’t a top prospect, but his curve keeps getting batters out as he moves up the ladder and he was excellent in 10 starts for Triple-A Toledo. Even an extended look at a non-prospect like Spencer Turnbull strikes me as more productive than the current rotation plan; there’s little flip potential in Moore, Ross and Zimmermann.

You don’t find Corey Klubers or Dallas Keuchels without taking chances on lesser prospects and non-prospects. Being able to get an extended look at these kinds of players is one of the advantages a rebuilding team has over contenders.

Bench and Prospects

The general hope is that the pitching will largely take care of itself. There’s a lot of truth to this; if two of the five pitching prospects named in the last section are good major leaguers, the Tigers are a long way towards becoming contenders again. The chances of building an offense from the minor leagues, on the other hand, look quite low, even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that Christin Stewart meets Steamer’s significantly higher expectations. Daz Cameron has very high variance in the projections, enough to make him a far better prospect than one would initially think from his fairly ugly 2019 projection, but after that, the quality drops off tremendously. Now, a projection system doesn’t really have much to say — yet — about players with limited professional experience like Kody Clemens or Parker Meadows, but every team has several prospects they can say that about. Detroit needs some real wins from the position players or when the pitching is playoff-ready, they’ll likely have to write some big checks to assemble a lineup to match.

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 Miami Marlins.

Batters

The lineup projections didn’t come out as poorly as I expected, though that may just mean I’m a particularly pessimistic individual. J.T. Realmuto is for real, of course, but that pretty little 3.6 WAR in the graphic may well be replaced with a WAR figure starting with a zero by the time the season actually starts. The effort to trade Realmuto has been a fascinating process, now going on for the better part of a year, with the team making noise that it would take a phenomenal offer for them to part with the catcher. Now, it could be interpreted as posturing, given that the team reportedly asked for the stars for the members of their Giancarlo Stanton/Christian Yelich/Marcell Ozuna outfield and settled for a moon pie. But I’m coming around to the idea that if Realmuto actually could be acquired for an ordinary package, he’d already be gone at this point. With the large-market teams continuing to display a real tendency to avoid spending, there may be a less willingness to part with a large pile of top prospects, those being needed to continue this cheap frugal strategy.

ZiPS isn’t yet impressed with Austin Dean, but outside of his modest projection, the only gaping wound — I’m still more optimistic than ZiPS on Brinson, though my cheerful good nature is dissipating — is at first base, where ZiPS projects the Marlins to have a worse first base situation than the Orioles do. Generally speaking, you’d like your first baseman to be above the Chris Davis Line. O’Brien did have a decent cameo appearance with the big league club, but he has a rather pedestrian minor league record and little defensive value. There’s one caveat though: O’Brien really did show far more patience than he ever had before in his brief stint in Miami, which is at least a good sign. He’s always had power and if his approach at the plate continues to be more scientific than his previous method of smashing lab equipment with a meteor hammer while blindfolded, perhaps he can make the computer look foolish.

There’s very little regression projected from Brian Anderson, which is also a positive note. Well, it’s positive if he does it; Anderson is one of the bigger disagreements ZiPS has with Steamer. If he can, it’ll improve the package the Marlins get in a trade when they’re required to pay Anderson something commensurate with his contributions!

One of the strangest rumors so far this offseason was the late buzz that the Marlins were interested in Nick Markakis. Markakis likely would have been a short-term upgrade over Dean, but it’s hard to see what the point would have been. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that fans will come out to see an additional win or two from a bad team, this is the Marlins we’re talking about. After so much ill will richly earned by the organization, they may be at the point where it takes something of a miracle to grow the fanbase; this isn’t a matter of winning 65 game instead of 64. Markakis has been safely returned to Atlanta, a destination that makes far more sense for him; the Marlins have safely returned to their paltry outfield projection.

Pitchers

The biggest positive here is Pablo Lopez, one of four players picked up from the Mariners in the David Phelps trade back in 2017. ZiPS doesn’t project a Luis Severino-esque breakout season for Lopez, but it does have him as a contributing, if fairly ordinary, starting pitcher. Even more, ZiPS has Lopez as the team’s best starting pitcher, and does so with an unusual level of certainty for a minor league pitcher of the non-elite variety.

Lopez is far from guaranteed a rotation spot in spring training, which strikes me as a mistake. If the team is actually serious about a full-on rebuild, rather than simply lurching from fire sale to fire sale to bide time between new ballparks, it’s important to see as much of pitchers like Lopez, Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, and Caleb Smith as possible.

There’s unlikely to be much of a market for Wei-Yin Chen or Dan Straily no matter how long you “showcase” them. There are only so many roster spots and it will be harder to give pitchers like Lopez an extended audition with some of the pressure from below (Nick Neidert, Edward Cabrera, Jorge Guzman, etc.). If the Marlins want to be eternally “thrifty,” then they need to run the roster in such a way where they can find the inexpensive players who will actually make that strategy possible.

Bench and Prospects

It’s galling, but ZiPS isn’t terribly hopeful about the chances of the team getting any core players from the Stanton/Yelich/Ozuna dealing. My colleagues Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen are more optimistic, and Marlins fans have to be pulling for them to make the computer look foolish. What it comes down to is that ZiPS wants to see, at some point, the raw power actually become game power for Isan Diaz, and in the case of Monte Harrison, for him to not strike out 200 times in Double-A. Brinson’s struggles in the majors have been well-documented, and you don’t want me to tell you what projection percentile Magneuris Sierra has to meet in order to match the dizzying heights of Tom Goodwin.

Overall, the minor league system is still in the below-average range, but it’s certainly improved from the desolate days of recent yore, when a mannequin dressed up as Nolan Ryan might have made the team’s top 20 list.

If I apply human feelings to ZiPS, I think it would like to see Miguel Rojas get a chance at being a stopgap shortstop for someone. It would have to happen fairly quickly, as he’ll turn 30 next month, but with 2.4 WAR in 834 PA over the last two seasons, a projection in the same time zone as two wins for 2019, and the ability to play multiple positions well, he could be a solid fill-in for someone in an emergency. I mean, a major league team* actually voluntarily played Alcides Escobar in 2018.

*Legally, the 2018 Royals were part of major league baseball.

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 Seattle Mariners.

Batters

Jerry Dipoto’s may be a one-man Hot Stove League, but at least based on the roster as of now — everybody could be traded by March — Seattle seems to still be in something of a no man’s land when it comes to rebuild. The Mariners aren’t actually bad, but it’s hard to envision them being that relevant in the AL West. There are a lot of older players here, but not many who really have all that much flip-potential. Sure, you can play some combination of Ryon Healy and Jay Bruce at first, or shift Edwin Encarnacion to first and make Bruce the full-time DH, or play Tim Beckham more than J.P. Crawford, but to what end?

ZiPS is still rooting for a Kyle Seager comeback, but I’m a little less sanguine at this point. On the plus side, it thinks Mitch Haniger is for real and sees at least some value in Dan Vogelbach, even if the Mariners don’t seem to. And yes, I know Ichiro is pretty much just coming back for the M’s and A’s games in Japan, but ZiPS doesn’t know those circumstances. 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 more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

Well, at least expectations have been tempered quite a bit. After all, this is a team that finished last in the American League in runs scored with Manny Machado for half a season, and even if Jonathan Schoop was disappointing and Adam Jones is in steep decline, they at least combined for an OPS above .700, which is … something. 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 more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Batters

Yeah, there’s a Paul Goldschmidt on the roster now, but the thing that jumps out at me the most is just how deep the Cardinals’ bench is. You essentially have a spare league-averageish right fielder (ZiPS sees Dexter Fowler bouncing back to a degree) and an above-average spare infielder in Jedd Gyorko, so long as you don’t get the idea that he should be playing shortstop. ZiPS gives 10 two-WAR projections to St. Louis. Quite obviously, the Cardinals won’t actually have that many two-win players, simply because there aren’t enough at-bats for all of them to hit that threshold. Even among the fringe minor leaguers — like Rangel Ravelo, who ZiPS never really cared much for with the A’s or White Sox — there are a lot of players who, while not actually projected to be viable starters, wouldn’t be disastrous fill-in candidates.

As a thought exercise, imagine that St. Louis’s starting lineup comes down with some violent illness that involves projectile vomit (gross) and 180 days of bed rest. Such maladies would leave St. Louis with a lineup looking like this:

Even in this absolutely absurd scenario — with this many players injured so severely, and the Cards content to stand pat, and not make any moves to compensate — the lineup still projects to be worth 14 WAR given assumed full-season playing time. That’s more or less what Kansas City’s projected starters are pegged for if everyone’s healthy (I’m picking on the Royals simply because I just wrote them up and had them handy; I could have chosen other dreadful teams as well). Using the WAR Add ’em Up technique that you should never, ever use, the outbreak lineup would still leave the Cardinals with an 80-win team.

Pitchers

Here you can see the consequences of the Paul Goldschmidt trade in terms of the team’s pitching depth. Luke Weaver wasn’t a star, but he was also an extra arm at the back-end of the rotation, one that will be needed because Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, Michael Wacha, and Adam Wainwright have all missed significant time recently due to injury (and with Waino, there’s a quality concern). That isn’t to say the Cardinals shouldn’t have made the Goldschmidt trade – he’s a giant short-term addition to the offense and the domino effect gives the team additional depth. It simply means that St. Louis ought to address their pitching issue over the rest of the offseason. Now, they don’t need to convince the Mets to trade them Jacob deGrom; a move of that magnitude isn’t necessary, though it would certainly be nice. But a No. 3 or 4 starter who can eat some innings would be good. J.A. Happ or a returning Lance Lynn would have been ideal for this, but Gio Gonzalez remains available. It’s weird to think about, but Mike Leake actually would be quite useful right now.

With the team apparently not spending money on Manny Machado or Bryce Harper (though I guess that still isn’t certain), they ought to be going after Dallas Keuchel. Yes, there’s a risk of over-engineering your rotation and ending up with too many starting pitchers, but has that ever truly been a problem for any team in baseball history? The Astros figured out what to do with their extra starters just last year. Serious, contending teams ought to be more open to depth of this kind and avoid getting too hung up on efficiency.

Bench and Prospects

Dagnabit, I already talked about the bench quite a bit up top, so I kind of broke the rules that I’m in no way obligated to follow, so nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, Carson!

The top of the minors has a lot of players who look like they will be useful role players, but outside of possibly Alex Reyes, who would fall out of the prospect list with just an additional out, the system’s largely missing that zing, zazz, zork, kapowza, the mazuma in the bank. Kiley and Eric only give eight players in the farm system a future value above 40 and ZiPS doesn’t offer a ton of disagreement. ZiPS does like Elehuris Montero’s power potential (so does McDongenhagen), but his defense is a worry, and based on what rudimentary minor league data is available, ZiPS is a bit concerned as well. If he is a -6 right now, it may be enough to require a move off of third by the time he’s 25, meaning he’ll need another bump in his offense to avoid becoming a tweener.

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.