With the regular season about two weeks away, and recent updates/adjustments to the player projections provided by both ZiPS and Steamer, this seems like a good time to throw all of them together, for reference. We don't know who will be on the 25-man roster when all is said and done, but I've taken the available projections for the players that have at least a decent chance of making the 25-man rosters and extrapolated them to full-season performance lengths. This puts all the players on an even playing field, without forcing you to do the mental math to figure out whether Player A or Player B is more valuable, given that they are projected to garner differing amounts of PAs over the course of the season.
In addition to ZiPS and Steamer, I'm adding a third column: Ivan's Wild-Ass Guesses (IWAG). While I didn't actually guess for any of the values in this column, the math I'm using to project future performance is horribly rudimentary, and I wouldn't really say it's even a projection, and really more of just a crazy, eyes-closed-but-hopefully-facing-a-dartboard guess. I think there are some places where I might be closer to what ends up happening than ZiPS or Steamer, and some places where I'm clearly way off due to quirks in my lame methodology. In any case, hopefully this acts as a fun conversation starter if nothing else.
Must Reads
Before everything else, a few notes on what exactly I'm presenting, and WAR. For hitters, the tables below show wRC+, an aggregate measure referred to as "Def," and WAR. wRC+ is conceptually simple to understand: 100 is league average (based on all non-pitchers), and the difference between a player's wRC+ and 100 is how many percent better or worse than league average the player's offensive performance clocks in as. Def is equivalent to the value listed as part of the Fangraphs dashboard: it takes into account both the player's defense above average (on a runs basis), as well as the positional adjustment. Note that this is a little tricky, especially for players who may move between two positions with different weights (e.g., an OF that may play some CF and some LF). Catchers, infielders other than first basemen, and center fielders have higher Def values by default. For hitters, WAR is fairly straightforward, but it's important to remember that it is very much a counting stat, where 2.0 WAR is more or less league average for a position. 2 WAR may seem like a lofty goal, especially given the Braves' current roster, but it's not very hard to get there for decent players getting a lot of playtime. For example, here are a couple of players worth 2.0 WAR in 2014, on a 600 PA basis:
- Matt Adams (offensive-minded 2 WAR): .288/.321/.457 (116 wRC+), slightly above-average defense at a low-skill position; and
- Brad Miller (defensive-minded 2 WAR): .221/.288/.365 (86 wRC+), average defense at a high-skill position.
Basically, it's not hard to grab 2 WAR so long as you're pretty good at something. You don't need to be a complete player, you just need to give your team consistent value. With platoons getting more popular, plus injuries and the like, many players don't hit 2 WAR, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of how much they would've gotten had they played enough to accumulate 600 PAs. To maybe put it in perspective, Phil Gosselin seemed kind of like organizational filler last year with his overly unimpressive hitting, but even he would've accumulated nearly 1 WAR at that rate given 600 PAs, largely on the back of extrapolating a pretty good defensive performance (in a very small sample size) at short and second. (Obviously, there's no guarantee Gosselin would've kept up that defensive performance, but if he had, he could've attained about 0.9 WAR even despite hitting similarly to the 2014 version of BJ Upton.)
For pitchers, I'm presenting ERA (which hopefully everyone is familiar with), FIP (a number that aims to be similar to ERA in terms of runs allowed, on average, per nine innings pitched, but based solely on a pitcher's strikeouts, walks, and homers allowed), and FIP-based WAR. WAR for pitchers is a bit more of a complicated proposition since it relies heavily on park factors and (somewhat less heavily) on pitchers affecting their own run environments. But again, as I'm presenting projected WAR for pitchers over 200 innings pitched, it doesn't take much to get there. An FIP of 4.00ish over 200 innings will get you there in a fairly neutral park - check out Kyle Lohse's or Jake Peavy's 2014 campaigns as examples of this.
In any case, enough prattling; I'm sure everyone's scrolling down to see the tables anyway.
Catchers
ZiPS thinks Bethancourt will be very solid on the back of good defense and "I can live with that offense." Steamer and I are somewhat less sanguine, and I don't feel comfortable from what I've seen so far to say that the defensive stuff evaluated by the current metrics is going to make C-Beth considerably above average, especially with the issues he showed at times last season. Meanwhile, Pierzynski is more or less what he is, and I think he'll be a fairly capable backup.
Infielders
Freddie Freeman is largely the known quantity here, so I think the above figures are probably not that surprising for him, across the board. ZiPS and Steamer agree that Andrelton Simmons' offensive performance is somewhere between his career-best 2012 and his futility-fueled 2014; I think he'll be a tad worse. With Simba, though, it's largely about defense, and while the two actual projection systems are understandably skeptical that he'll outdo himself, I think he's got some room to grow defensively and could put up even more eye-boggling numbers there. In any case, if you're expecting Simmons to be about a 4 WAR player based really on his defense, I'm not sure you'll find many folks that disagree with you. I think Chris Johnson's defense will continue to be somewhat boosted by having Simmons next to him, and I think that with a bit more platooning than last year, he can hit enough to be league average, which will give him some okay value for 2015. Chris Johnson's not really a spring chicken, and I wouldn't feel comfortable affirming that his dreadful 2014 offensive performance is somehow going to be the baseline for him going forward; I think he'll hit a bit better, and maybe get the monkey off his back a bit.
The other infielders are kind of all over the board, which is to be expected when you mix some possible retreads with some potentially-exciting young hitters. Callaspo and Kelly Johnson are in that "below average hitter, below average fielder, but not so bad that doesn't accrue positive value" tranche. Steamer really hates Phil Gosselin, but I (not quite inexplicably, but not worth a huge digression here) think he can be an average regular if given time and sticking to second and third base, though I really doubt he'll get the chance with the middle infielder bloat on the roster.
Jace Peterson is very much a wild card at this point given his relative lack of professional playing time, his quick ascent through the minors, and what one hopes is a very idiosyncratic major league performance at the tail end of 2014. Given his minor league track record, I think he'll be able to put up a 90ish wRC+ with average defense, which puts him in "okay regular" territory. Steamer and ZiPS are less optimistic: Steamer is currently pegging him as replacement level, and ZiPS is only giving him a bit more credit. Obviously, this is an inexact science, but I think Peterson's minor league stats warrant a bit more consideration than what Steamer might be giving them. The projections for Jose Peraza aren't that different: his hitting will likely be a bit more raw than Peterson's, and any advantage he has defensively might be neutralized by the fact that Peterson might play third, where the positional adjustment is the same but he'd be matched up against a weaker class of fielders.
Outfielders
The outfield situation is also kind of a mess, projection-wise. You've got Jonny Gomes and Nick Markakis who more or less are what they are at this point. The case for Melvin Upton, Jr. is kind of the same, though I guess there's an outside chance he starts to look more like the player the Braves actually intended to sign. Beyond that, there are a bunch of guys with variable or nonexistent track records, which make projection very hard. Plus, there's Dian Toscano, and I don't even know what eldritch magic ZiPS and Steamer had to employ to estimate his stats, since I don't think there's a Serie Nacional MLE calculator (I hope it's called CASTRO if it does exist) out there. Also, ZiPS apparently thinks Eric Young Jr. is apparently lost in time and space or something.
I'm really not a fan of the Markakis signing but neck-related concerns aside, I think he'll be passable? acceptable? unexciting? in right fielder this year. Unfortunately, he'll likely do so in a way that fails to take advantage of an easy way to rack up value in the corner outfield by just being somewhat fleet of foot and thus better than a lot of the leadfoots teams run out there these days, but seeing as he'll be something like the third-best regular on the field for the Braves, it seems misguided to complain about that particular reality. Gomes, if deployed against lefties, should provide okay bench value, but the less he sees the field, the better.
I had a really hard time making guesses for the other players. Zoilo Almonte probably won't hit enough to make up for the fact that he's not supposed to be a good fielder in a corner. I have no idea why it looks like Todd Cunningham killed Steamer's parents (-1.9 projected WAR, holy Mike Carp), but I think he can be okay with the stick and play good enough defense to accrue okay value if given a chance. The same goes doubly for Eury Perez, who seems to have a better minor league track record with the stick, and is, by the accounts I could find, a strong defender in center. I'm being really aggressive in my estimation for him, especially since I doubt he'll get any kind of serious play time to verify or disprove my guess, but I think if he can be slightly worse than league average while playing the kind of center field he supposedly can, he might be really valuable. (Side note: Jake Marisnick put up nearly 1 WAR in under 250 PAs despite a terrible 67 wRC+ on the strength of phenomenal CF defense, so good CF defense plus a slightly below-average bat goes a long way as far as player value is concerned.) I think Joey Terdoslavich can put up a league-average campaign with the bat, but he's got no real position and plays like it, meaning that accruing value for him is a steep, uphill climb. Lastly, Eric Young Jr. is Eury Perez-lite in my estimation, and he's actually had some major league playtime where he hasn't really disproved that.
Overall, the Braves' outfield is gearing up to be pretty miserable in 2015. I'm hopeful that some good defense and okay hitting can deliver some value, but I think they'll basically be starting an outfield full of bench players on a good team. ZiPS is not overly dissimilar, but hilariously, Steamer is more or less of the opinion that the Braves will have a replacement level outfield (assuming that the OF playtime rotates around the cast of characters above). So the next time you're looking at the Fangraphs standings (which use a mix of Steamer and ZiPS) and wonder why the Braves seem so awful, the outfield is a substantial chunk of why they're projected to be so dismal. I mean, I don't know why anyone looked at Zoilo Almonte and figured he was a decent Plan A or Plan A-and-a-half for a major league team's corner outfield slot, but here we are.
Starting Pitchers
I don't know what the rotation is going to look like. Mike Minor will again not start the season on the 25-man roster. Shelby Miller is the kind of question mark the Riddler would wear on his suit. Wandy Rodriguez and Eric Stults are old and recently ineffective, and while Aaron Harang-style necromancy is not out of the question, does anyone really want to bet that this kind of semi-effective old pitcher lightning can strike twice in consecutive seasons?
Back when the Steamer projections first came out, I was kind of puzzled that Steamer was so down on Julio Teheran. Then, when I started digging into numbers myself, I kind of came to agree, even though there's an Optimistic Angel vs. Pessimistic Devil struggle going on inside me even as I write this. On the one hand, he's Julio Teheran, he's awesome, and I love watching him pitch. Instinctively, I think he'll continue to anchor the pitching staff. The ZiPS numbers seem pretty good to me at first glance. But I think that while it won't directly impact his FIP, having a considerably worse outfield defense may really hurt him, leading to more walks in an attempt to pitch out of trouble, especially without a good offense capable of bailing him out after mistakes. I also think ZiPS might be a bit optimistic about his strikeout rate going forward, and there's the fact that I think his HR/FB can regress a bit, which will make his numbers worse as well. I think that Teheran can take another step forward, and I really hope he does, but at this point I'm leaning more towards Steamer's projection of his 2015. Meanwhile, Alex Wood will continue to carve dudes up. So long as he keeps his walk rate down, he could really put a hurting on the rest of the league.
Mike Minor's hard to peg these days, unless he's having a 2014-esque day and you're hitting off of him. I think he'll be a bit worse than his overall average for his career, partly driven by what's been over a year-long inability to shake off various ailments (arm-related and otherwise). Steamer and ZiPS are in a similar wheelhouse there, but like Shelby Miller's chances more than I do for 2015. I know there's a lot of anecdata for why Miller might be alright in 2015, but his 2014 was so awful that it's hard for me to fully discount it. I don't think he'll be bad enough to be kicked out of the rotation, but I'd want to see some kind of specific improvement before I feel okay saying that he's going to be even an average starter for the Braves.
As for the other guys, well... Foltynewicz needs to continue on his spirit journey to be a pitcher and not a thrower. I think he's still too much of the latter, and I'm not expecting anything from him in 2015 unless he rectifies that. Steamer, which I know cares a fair bit about fastball velocity, unsurprisingly has more faith in him. Cody Martin is relatively well-liked across the board, even though he's not going to be anything special. While he doesn't have a stellar pedigree or anything (7th-round draft pick), he's been solid-to-good throughout his minor league journeys, and I don't think he's any worse of a bet to eat innings than anyone outside of Teheran or Wood. If I had to pick between Eric Stults or Wandy Rodriguez to have a Harang-esque resurgence, I'd easily take Stults. Neither of those guys misses many bats, but I think Stults can keep the walks under wraps a bit more, and he's also a year younger and less fraught with arm issues. It looks like they may both start the season in the rotation, so we might find out fairly quickly whether either of them have still got anything worth running out there every fifth day.
Relief Pitchers
This is probably the hardest group of players to nail down in terms of 25-man roster presence, so I included more or less everyone, and am pro-rating performance over 65 innings pitched. Reliever performance is highly volatile and often skewed by singularly bad performances (or a lack thereof), and as such, I'm not really expecting to be right here. (Honestly, I'm not expecting to be right anywhere, but especially not here.) I think that Fredi Gonzalez's bullpen usage also creates another problem for projections here, because, for example, while Josh Outman might be an effective LOOGY, I really don't think he'll be used as one, which may really bombard his overall stats.
I'm throwing away the regression to the mean concept when it comes to Craig Kimbrel and his video game numbers; I think he'll be highly impressive once again. Beyond that, the bullpen projections are a mixed bag full of other mixed bags. ZiPS thinks Jason Grilli will be solid, while Luis Avilan, Jim Johnson, Josh Outman, and Arodys Vizcaino will be worse than Replacement L. Player. Steamer is also targeting Grilli to be good, and reserving its enmity for Avilan and James Russell. Personally, I think Grilli has the right pitching profile despite his age to succeed in the later innings, but I'd watch out for Jim Johnson, Josh Outman (I think he'll be misused), and Arodys Vizcaino (I'd prefer he get a handle on the hitters in the International League before pitching in Atlanta).
Overall, though, I don't envy anyone whose job it is to accurately project bullpen performance. As we all know, the names on the table above probably won't even constitute two-thirds of the bullpen innings pitched by Braves relievers next year, as injuries and waiver-wire pickups will indubitably throw a wrench into these particular works.
Bar Charts
Just in case you needed a cheat sheet that puts this all together into one visual unit, I've added a few bar charts with all three sets of predictions below, one for hitters and one for pitchers. What's most clear from these is that Steamer was sent back in time from the future to find and destroy Todd Sly-Porcine, that I really think Wandy Rodriguez is going to be bad (for some reason), and that Freeman, Simmons, Teheran, and Wood are going to be main quality guys for the Braves in 2015.
Anyway, what do you all think? How off-base am I? Any blind spots that you think aren't address here? Anything else you're interested in (i.e., how many homers Freddie Freeman will hit)? As always, I'll be annoyingly bouncing around the comments with answers for anything that might be bugging you (and it might be bugging me too; I'm sorry Julio!).