The Fans Are Most Optimistic About Yoan Moncada

As of this moment, the writers at FanGraphs responsible for curating this site’s depth charts have allocated some type of playing time to 586 position players across the league’s 30 teams, from Freddie Freeman, Miguel Sano, and Carlos Santana at 665 plate appearances each down to Victor Caratini and Pedro Severino at just six a piece.

Of the 586 players who appear on those depth charts, 264 have received a sufficient quantity of fan ballots to earn a published projection. The fan assessments tend almost uniformly to skew optimistic. In the case of the 264 aforementioned players, for instance, the depth-chart projections (a combination of Steamer and ZiPS) call for an average of 2.1 WAR per every 600 plate appearances. The fans, meanwhile, call for 2.7 WAR per 600 plate appearances. That’s roughly a half-win difference for every player prorated to a full season.

Even though optimism is generally the rule in these matters, it comes in degrees. Nearly 20 players, for instance, receive a prorated fan projection that’s precisely a half-win better than the corresponding depth-chart projection. Over 170 players — i.e. about 65% of the entire sample — earn a fan-based projection that’s between 0.0 to 1.0 wins better than the figure produced by the the combination of Steamer and ZiPS.

The purpose of this brief post, however, is to consider briefly the players about whom the crowd is most optimistic. To identify that group, I prorated both the fan and depth-chart projections to 600 plate appearances and subtracted the latter result from the former. Here are the players who receive the top fan projections relative to their depth-chart numbers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one finds that most of the players here — all of them, really, with the exception of Luis Valbuena — have little major-league experience. That makes sense on two accounts. First, it’s logical that the projection systems would be conservative with this population. All things being equal, a player who lacks past success in the majors is unlikely to produce future success in the majors. On the other hand, if there’s a type of player about whom the public might possess information for which the numbers don’t account, it’s a prospect.

Whatever the case, the optimism regarding White Sox prospect Yoan Moncada is unmistakable. The gap between his 3.9-win differential and second-place Keon Broxton’s 2.3 figure is equal to the gap between Broxton and 120th-place Nelson Cruz.

So it’s resolved: the people are optimistic about Moncada. What form does that optimism take, though? To get a sense of the disparity in value between the depth-chart and fan projections, consider the numbers side by side.

The relevant lines are those marked Depth — which is a combination of Steamer and Zips — and Fan. The fans call for a slightly higher walk rate than the depth-chart projections and slightly lower strikeout rate. That’s sufficient to increase Moncada’s batting forecast by a small amount, but not from the 85 wRC+ figure projected by the depth charts and 116 wRC+ by the people. The largest contribution factors are batting average on balls in play and isolated slugging.

Readers call for Moncada to produce a BABIP figure about 28 points greater than the combined projection systems. In a sense, what readers are saying is that .338 represents Moncada’s true-talent level. That’s certainly a possible outcome, but it’s aggressive as far as projections are concerned. Over the last three season, 117 batters have compiled about 1,500 plate appearances — a sample that’s large enough to begin drawing some kind of conclusion about a player’s true-talent batted-ball results. Of those 117 batters, only 15 have produced a .338 BABIP or better. About 13%, in others words. Or roughly the top-eighth of the batters in the sample.

Is that a reasonable outcome for Moncada? Like anything, it’s a question of probabilities. Writing about Moncada, Eric Longenhagen characterized Moncada’s bat speed as “plus plus.” That could certainly lend itself to a higher BABIP. Regardless, the point remains: if Moncada is to exceed his depth-chart projections, it will depend, in part, on his ability to convert balls in play to hits.

Extra-base power will also be essential. The depth charts call for a .138 ISO; the fans, a .187 mark. A difference of about 50 points. Of the same 117 batters cited above, 45 of them have recorded a .187 ISO or better over the last three seasons. That’s nearly 40% of the population of major-league regulars over the last three years, in other words. There’s some selection bias here, of course: these players have been permitted to compile so many plate appearances because they’ve performed well.

What do the reports indicate? Once again, Longenhagen is optimistic. He characterizes Moncada’s power as “plus” — and draws attention elsewhere to Moncada’s clear physical strength. It is worth nothing, however, that Longenhagen is mostly concerned with future value when addressing the White Sox prospect’s tools. The present values are more modest, according to Longenhagen. Which isn’t a surprise.

An examination of the various projection systems reveals other discrepancies: baserunning value, position, fielding runs. In each case, the fans are more optimistic than the systems. But the difference here is founded mostly on what will come of Moncada’s batted balls. If the projection systems are correct, Moncada likely only profiles as a bench player at the moment. If the fans are correct, he’s basically already an All-Star.