SNY: Salfino: Projecting the Mets’ lineup

Bah!...Bill “ZiPS” PECOTA used to bat anywhere in the Mets lineup!

Still, I greatly respect the hard work and willingness to be so precise in laying it out there in black and white so that we can debate their relative merits. I’m using three projection systems. The father of the sabermetric movement, Bill James, is represented as published in The Bill James Handbook. We use the PECOTA system of Nate Silver as published in the Baseball Prospectus annual. That system was partially inspired by James’ “player similarity scores” but is more rigidly modeled. And Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections come courtesy of BaseballThinkFactory.com, which consistently lives up to its name. ZiPS looks at similar skills more than players in calculating projections.

...So, let’s go right down the projected starting lineup, leading off with shortstop Jose Reyes.

James gives Reyes a .789 OPS with 14 homers and 69 steals. Amazingly, PECOTA tabs him at .788 with 14 homers and 60 steals. ZiPS says 800 with 15 homers and 70 steals.

When did Reyes turn into such a projectable player? None of the three projected Reyes to hit .300 again. I do because his barely average .302 average on balls in play is very low considering his speed. Blame the elevated fly ball rate. That was a bad deal for Reyes because his rate of homers on fly balls was cut in half. His now (just about) 1-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio is what you look for from a guy who can contend for a batting title even when they can’t motor like Jose.