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Transaction Oracle — A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen Sunday, January 27, 20082008 ZiPS Projections - Arizona DiamondbacksAs obvious as one of the main storylines of 2007 was, the pitching being top-notch and the offense being, well, otherwise, the park made these actually more extreme, masking to some degree just how good the pitching was and just how bad the hitting was. After all, the surges of the Rockies and Phillies, bringing Jimmy Rollins and Matt Holliday to the front of the pack, might have saved us from Eric Byrnes of the 104 OPS+ in left being taken seriously as an MVP candidate (as he was at times in the middle of the season).
The offense should be better but the pitching shouldn’t drop off too much, which makes the Diamondbacks yet another contender in a crowded NL field. What makes the Diamondbacks especially dangerous is those little twos in the age column - the major league squad is chock-full of players that are at ages they can improve. Counting on an individual young player to improve is generally not as good a bet as most people think. However, when massed as they are in Arizona, they act almost as an index stock - it doesn’t really matter if it’s Mark Reynolds or Conor Jackson or Chris Young or Stephen Drew or Justin Upton make a huge step forward so long as some of them do, which the odds do favor. I don’t know if it will be Conor Jackson hitting 25 homers or Chris Young rebounding from a weak rookie season or Justin Upton making huge adjustments carefully, but I know that there are going to be some player on this team that are going to move over a bunch of those dashed lines below.
This completes the team-by-team ZiPS projections. Now I can start finalizing rosters and players. By popular interest, I’m going to release the DMB disk and spreadsheet as often as possible, even when not complete. The first build will include all 40-man rosters, non-roster invitees, and verified minor league signings and should appear in the next several days (with the rest of the players, new/requested projections and lower-level minor leagues following). Well, most 40-man rosters as there are a few players on 40-man rosters I can’t really do projections for, including players from Cuba and those with little or no professional experience (and no chance at making a roster soon).
I hope you all have enjoyed the team-by-team rundown of projections. It would be neater to simply add them all at once, but I think the discussions that result from doing them one-by-one are quite interesting. As usual, all suggestions for formatting and various other things you’d like to see in future projections are much appreciated. Also, any players that you would like to see a projection for that I can reasonably do!
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Dan Szymborski
Posted: January 27, 2008 at 07:18 PM | 105 comment(s)
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Hitters gonna suck.
ZIPS also thinks the only hitter worth penciling in the lineup is also the hitter recovering from a microfracture surgery on his right knee and taking blood-thinning medication to dissolve clots in his leg. Not good, not good.
The solution is simple: Get Manny.
I believe the guys at BPro still expect him to implode one of these days... like they have since 2004.
I don't quite agree with the defence/pitching attributions. Hudson/Drew/Young as Av/Fr/Av would lead to the inference that this is a below-average team defence (especially with Tracy and the catchers being no better than average). Globally, most markers indicate that the team defence is above average.
Last year PECOTA had him down for a 3.49 ERA in their initial projections. He ended up with a 3.01. Hardly an implosion projection.
I remain optimistic that the defense will improve in 2008. I don't foresee Byrnes or Hudson simply collapsing defensively; Drew, Young and Reynolds all showed improvement (at least to the naked eye) as the season progressed, and Upton's sheer talent and athleticism should make him above average in right field. I can boldly predict that the Dbacks will have the fastest trio of outfielders in all of baseball next year. You guys should see Justin Upton fly in the outfield, it's unreal.
I was being facetious. Pecota predicted his death for years before coming to its senses last year.
And while ZIPS is cranking out the Cy Young award seasons in store for Parker, could you give us the projections for a couple of recent signees: Jesus Merchan and Trent Oeltjen? Thanks.
How about you tell us your projected run differential for the 2008 Dbacks?
If you're taking requests, I'd love to see a Kazumi Saitoh projection into a neutral park in both the AL and NL (or just one or the other - I don't mind!).
Although I'm not sure what that has to do with whether or not they outdo their run differential, it is a good question. I guess we'd need a depth chart and some estimates of playing time, along with the ZiPS/Marcel/Pecota projections.
Hudson: I think he can improve/hold steady with better positioning - I wish the team would shift him further to his right, particularly with a RHB at the plate. The FO should make some intern watch Counsell's '05 season for some pointers about this.
Drew: His range isn't going to improve, but he'll be much better if he can quit booting so many routine plays. If he doesn't start hitting, though, the team needs to go in a new direction sooner rather than later.
Young: He noticeably improved as the season progressed.
I really think the defense is going to improve, even with declines from Hudson and Byrnes. Reynolds and Upton were learning new positions in the majors and Young wasn't patrolling a tiny CF, either.
SG ran a couple of sets of Diamond Mind simulations (100 seasons worth) for the 2008 season; for one of them, he used his CAIRO projections, and for the other, he used AROM's CHONE projections.
With the CAIRO projections, the Dbacks averaged 725 runs scored and 695 runs allowed (84.8 wins, 77.2 losses).
With the CHONE projections, the Dbacks averaged 831 runs scored and 704 runs allowed (93.5 wins, 68.5 losses).
As discussed here recently when I linked Nick Piecoro's blog entry, the two projection systems seem to like the pitching equally well, and just eye-balling Dan's projections above, the three systems pretty much agree that the Dbacks will have excellent pitching in 2008. If the Dbacks pitchers allow ~700 runs next year, then they may very well allow the fewest runs in the NL (as both sets of simulations predict), which will give the Dbacks by far the best team ERA+ in the NL... an impressive feat considering the ballpark.
The other question, however, is how good the offense is going to be. If they show only a modest improvement on the 2007 season, and score 725 runs (as the CAIRO simulations see them doing), then the Dbacks will probably miss the playoffs, as I don't see them outperforming their pythag again by 4-5 games and reaching the 89-90 wins needed to win the NL West.
If they score 831 runs however (as the CHONE simulations see them), and have a pythag record of 93.5 wins, then I have a really hard time seeing them outperform that pythag at all, and in fact they're quite likely to under-perform it by a game or three... but that might still mean they'll be in the fight for first place in the NL west until the last day of the season.
If you take the average b/w the CAIRO and CHONE projections, and give the Dbacks a run differential of 778 runs scored and 700 runs allowed, which projects to 89.2 wins/72.8 losses -- or basically their actual 2007 record of 90-72. So really, the money is on them having a much better run differential in 2008 than in 2007, yet finishing with the same record as in 2007--or even under-performing their pythag by a game or three and finishing with 87-88 wins.
1.) Chad Tracy had a set back after his micro fracture surgery, developing a blood clot in his leg. He is on blood thinners, and although he has started hitting, it looks like there is little chance he will be ready to go on opening day. He hasn't started running yet. In my own projections, I rather subjectively dialed him back a bit, figuring his effectiveness is going to be impacted.
2.) Doug Slaten also had micro fracture surgery on his knee, and he is highly questionable to start the season, and you never know how that is going to affect his performance.
Obviously ZIPS is probably not able to account for these two particular situations, but the health status of these two players is notable considering where they rank on these projections in relation to the dotted lines
3.) For an established starter that has been around a while and is not coming off an injury, that sure is a pretty big spread between the optimistic and pessimistic for Doug Davis. I personally think the odds would lean a lot more towards the pessimistic than the optimistic for him. I think younger NL West hitters will do a better job this time around of laying off his junk and waiting for him to come inside the strike zone.
4.) Poor projections for the hitters was pretty much expected, although it's interesting to compare between ZIPS, Chone, and Bill James. ZIPS is overall, more pessimistic (realistic?) when it comes to the D Backs Bats. I agree with Dan's assessment. One of these guys is likley to break out, but who the heck knows which one.
Josh Byrnes has built this team on pitching and defense, and a wing and a prayer that at least one of the hitters will develop into a genuine star that he can build the lineup around. In the meantime, he is counting on balanced production and hopefully some continued, incremental improvements for most of the hitters.
Big Drop:
Snyder: 777 vs. 731
Big Increases:
Drew: 683 Vs. 731
Upton: 647 vs. 717
All the rest within a range of 3-24 OPS points of last season
Jackson: 835 vs. 829
Hudson: 817 vs. 820
Reynolds: 844 Vs. 820
Byrnes: 813 vs. 793
Young: 762 vs. 776
With Chris Burke replacing Tony Clark, the bench offense gets weaker than last year. Tracy of course is the wild care there.
Also of note is Javier Brito's projection. Too bad he's not left handed. :(
But overall, it looks like ZIPS is actually forecasting the D Backs offense to be slightly worse in 2008. God...I hope not, I don't think I could sit through that again.
AVE, OBP, SLG, OPS comp
Also, a simplified comparison, looking at OPS alone:
OPS alone comp
Three cheers for Dan!
Poor Snyder - no love again.
Both teams have average defence, so i think it might tilt towards the Braves, but it would be interesting. Does pitching win the postseason?
Does Micha Owings get a boost in his W/L record since he is such a good hitter?
What are his hitting ZIPs?
BPro's adjusted ratings had the Braves robbed by about 4-5 wins, while the rest of the east stole a game or two. Then, there's the kings of stealing wins, who'll actually earn those 90 wins this year. It'll be a good race.
Also, D Backs defense was better than average last year, and is only going to get better.
I've got to question the legitimacy of your projection system.
I developed my own projection system on which I've been working on for the past few minutes.
For comparison's sake, I have Upton posting a 1025 OPS, Drew at 1050 with a +35 defense, and Young hitting 54 out and drawing 125 walks.
I mean, what gives dude? It's not just the hitting, but I have Webb going 27-4 in 280 innings with a 180 ERA+ and RJ finally breaking Ryan's single-season K record (albeit by a small margin).
ZIPS sucks and CHONE swallows...
Ha! Does that mean you broke your non-disclosure agreement?
Well, I think the Lemonschmacks (name has been altered for my protection) will be happy if the above players produce at the levels my projection system says, disclosure be damned.
seriously good work, thanks.
Sincerely,
Pablo Gutierrez (name altered for my protection once again)
1. Is Tracy really on the bench? If so (and this is of course entirely reasonable), AZ will have its best-projected hitter (by a nontrivial margin) on the bench.
2. What happened to Byrnes' defense? When he was in OAK, we all initially thought he was a good defender because he was superfast and had tons of hustle. He _looked_ like a good defender. But the numbers had him as below average, and when we started paying attention, we noticed that in fact he took awful routes to balls. Now apparently he is Gold Glove-caliber. I certainly can see how experience would help, but this is not a position change taking time to acclimate; he's always been an outfielder.
ZIPS 852
James 832
Marcel 827
Chone 816
I originally had him at .819, but have since revised him down to .772 He is going to come back late, and probably struggle with his timing for a while. He could be a good pickup in roto leagues in the second half though.
Reynolds comes out on top for hitters, because of the whacky James projection, (905 OPS). James was also the outlier for Upton, with an 849, and overall, had the highest projection for 7 of the 13 hitters. He also had the highest projection for 5 of the 12 pitchers listed below......so the Bill James system LOVES the D Backs.
Reynolds 839
Jackson 837
Tracy 832
Young 801
Hudson 795
Byrnes 785
Upton 772
Salazar 761
Montero 756
Snyder 754
Drew 753
Burke 718
Ojeda 672
One thing that stands out is that if Tracy really does struggle with that knee very badly, this team is really going to miss Tony Clark off the bench.
Webb 3.32
Haren 3.77
Pena 3.82
Cruz 3.83
Slaten 3.82
Qualls 3.85
Lyon 3.99
Johnson 4.09
Owings 4.39
Davis 4.53
Gonzalez 4.63
Nippert 4.79
BTW, if Dan had shown his RC/27 I'd have used that instead of OPS. The other 3 systems have RC/27 available on Fangraphs site. I could have figured it...but I'm lazy. I'll wait till ZIPS hits Frangraphs or Dan releases his spread sheet and do that then.
I want you to treat him like young Albert Belle, dammit.
The Bill James system is laughably in love with most young players.
Or Dan can go to hell!
We demand Excel!
Or Dan can go to hell!
None that I can see. To be clear, the "Bill James" projections are associated with the man in name only; whatever projections he currently produces are the property of the Red Sox.
Tracy 832
Jackson 829
Reynolds 817
Hudson 798
Young 792
Byrnes 789
Salazar 759
Drew 753
Montero 749
Snyder 748
Upton 746
Burke 716
Ojeda 686
Webb 3.30
Haren 3.78
Qualls 3.85
Cruz 3.85
Pena 3.92
Lyon 3.94
Slaten 3.94
Johnson 4.09
Owings 4.42
Davis 4.58
Gonzalez 4.58
Nippert 4.95
They're the only ones that really like the Dbacks hitters? That's a good enough reason for me.
Thanks for the fansgraph site. I did not see Runs Created listed as a stat though, as you can tell I am a fan of that stat.
Where does it show up?
Cheers
On a side note, I completed a similarity score matrix of all of the outfielders of age 25 and younger. The similarity scores are based off of HR rate, BB rate and SO rate. It does not take into consideration age, defense, or which outfield position a players plays, just the three important offensive rate stats. This gives you an idea of which young outfielders are the most similar offensively at this point in time. For the Arizona outfielders here are there three most similar young outfielders. All stats were park adjusted to a neutral playing field, and of course used Dan's 2008 ZIPS Projections.
OF - Chris Young
1) Adam Jones (SEA)
2) Hunter Pence (HOU)
3) Dorn (CIN)
OF - Cyle Hankerd
1) Gomez (NYM)
2) Pride (TB)
3) McCutchen (PIT)
OF - Justin Upton
1) Felix Pie (CHC)
2) Choo (CLE)
3) Huffman (SD)
For a look at the complete spreadsheet email me.
vr, Xeifrank
Author: Dodger Sims Blog
Of course, there's always the possibility that the, er, Lemonschmacks might look at your projections and say, "Geez, if we've already got such an awesome roster, what are we doing wasting our money on all these scouts and analysts? You're gone, Gomez!"
Thanks for the fansgraph site. I did not see Runs Created listed as a stat though, as you can tell I am a fan of that stat.
Where does it show up?
Cheers
Here is Conor Jackson's page. Just scroll down to the second set of numbers and look to the right and you will see RC and RC/27 both for past seasons and projected for 2008 by the various systems.
That's a strange list. Hankerd really doesn't have the speed of the other guys.
ERA+ takes park factors into account, no? (Not to suggest that the DBacks don't have a fine pitching staff.)
I'm surprised at how weak those projections for the DBack offense look. And yes, I'm well aware their offense was terrible last year.
LINK
The thing about the 2008 Dbacks lineup is that with a few breaks and expected improvements, every starter could end up with OPS of > .800 next year, except for catcher, and even then, I won't be shocked if Snyder/Montero combine for OPS of .775 or so. So while there may not be MVP-like performances, that lineup hopefully won't have too many black holes either. And if two or three guys post OPS of > .850, then that team will score some runs.
No, not really. I just figured their youth would portend a pretty significant improvement in their offense in total, which it apparently doesn't. Not one DBack projecting to outhit an average 1B or corner OF (and only one to outhit an average 3B)? Ouch.
Can ZiPS calculate that?
Well, their youth is countered by the horrendous performances that basically everyone (not named Byrnes or Hudson) had last year; much as you like youth, you can't throw out their 2007 numbers. I believe the 2007 are uniformly lower than the true talent, for more or less everyone who'll be a starter on the 2008 Dbacks (aside from Byrnes and Hudson, again), but ZiPS can't do that.
Owings won't get 150-200 at bats.
Maybe he should. If not more.
I think it's because levski's been pimping all the D'backs prospects so much,retro, you might have missed how PCL-inflated their MLE's were.
I know you are joking Kevin, partly.....but are you trying to say that Pecota, Zips, Chone, et al have no idea about PCL park factors and failed to adjust for those? Every single one of these projection systems over projected the D Backs offense last year, and every single one uses MLE's that take into account minor league park factors. There were other factors at work here that all combined to create a vortex of suck. Don't under estimate the damage that Kevin Seitzer did to many of these young players. He really got WAY too far inside many of these kids heads and messed up their approach, swing mechanics, you name it. Combine that with Quentin's shoulder injury, and Drew's inexplicable development of a severe uppercut, and it all just went to ####.....until the last couple months of the season.
D Backs pre all star break OPS .716
D Backs post all star break OPS .755 (Setizer was fired around the ASB)
The projection systems can't over weight second half performance......but as a fan boy, I have no problem coming to the conclusion that the second half performance is much more indicative of the true talent level of this team.
I was only half joking when I said that the hitting would be great and the pitching would suck. I truly believe the hitting will beat the projections by a hefty margin, and the pitching won't be quite that good.
Not enough imho, I've been doing my own minor league park and league adjustments for 3 years now- and most systems I've seen do not seem to make enough adjustments for the more extreme environments. A batter playing ion a hitter's park in a hitter's league does not seem to be "penalized" enough for that.
Also, a player in Phoenix may be playing in a 6 r/g environment (home and road), whereas someone in another league and park may be playing in a 4 r/g environment. However, performance doesn't seem to scale in a linear fashion- you might think that someone who could produce 5 r/g in the 4 r/g environment (+ 25%) would produce 7.5 r/g in the 6 run environment- I don't think he does, he'll produce more like 8-9 r/g. Perhaps standard deviations should be used rather than %s, I don't know.
Micah's college hitting #s look nice, of course I have no idea what they mean.
FWIW:
Micah was the best hitter on a Tulane team that went 55-10
the year before he was almost dead even with Eric Patterson as the best hitters on a 44-21 Georgia Tech team- Patterson never hit as well as Micah did a year later at Tulane.
So my guess is that Micah is probably a better hitter than Patterson- who Zips projects as a .264/.318/.406 hitter in the MLB.
Owings Ranked 20th out of 54 with 5.36 R/G support. That was the best among AZ Starters. Livan ranked 31st with 4.98, Webb 42nd with 4.38 and Davis was 47th with 4.16. It will be interesting to keep track over the next several years to see if Owings being in the lineup translates directly into above avg. R/S on a consistent basis. It will also be interesting to see if any of the projection systems care to take that into account when projecting his W/L record.
I can believe the adjustments might not have been enough. In general, for Jackson, Quentin, and Hairston, passing through Lancaster/El Paso/Tucson was simply one hitters paradise after another, and contributed to them being ranked higher than they should have been. With the exception of Webb, it didn't seem to help D Backs pitching prospects having to run that gauntlet either. I suspect it had less effect on Webb once he learned his sinker.
Most D Backs fans I know are extremely happy the team is in the more neutral environments of Visalia and Mobile. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2009 as this is the last year in Tucson. The Sidewinders club is moving to Reno, although the D Backs may or may not be going with them. It's assumed that because of elevation, Reno will be a hitters park also, and I think the organization would prefer a neutral environment if one is available.
You mean "You're gone Gutierrez*", of course. Again, I gotta try to conceal my identity.
Not doing a good job of it Carl.
At first I thought it might be Jesus Melendez... but he doesn't strike me as one to hide behind a handle...
Then I thought it might be BL, but nah, writing style/ personality is off
Then I thought it was someone parodying/satirizing BL.
I'm leaning towards the last one.
My lone special request coming in at the tail end of your projections is this ...
what does 2009 Upton ZiPS look like optimistically?
TIA,
CAS
HERE IS THE LINK
Not a young Babe Ruth?
http://baseballmind.blogspot.com/
ZIPS is the highest of the popular projection systems, but they are all very close
ZIPS 3.92
Marcel 3.80
Pecota 3.73
James 3.72
Chone 3.62
AVG 3.76
If I am figuring it right, ZIPS projected Reynolds to have a .363 BABIP in 2008. Here is what I see among the various projection systems
ZIPS .363
Chone .328
Pecota .313
Considering that there are only 3 players in the major leagues that produced a BABIP over .345 in 2 consecutive seasons over the last 3 years, (Miguel Cabrera, Derek Jeter, and Michael Young), it seems like ZIPS is a little too bullish on Mr. Reynolds balls in play. Interesting to note that ZIPS shows only slight improvement in his K rate, from 31% to 29.5%, but Pecota shows more improvement in the K rate, to 25.5%, which of course offsets the larger regression to his BABIP. Chone has a projected 28..7% K Rate
Dan, where does Reynolds projected BABIP stack up among all projected full time players? I have to think .363 is among the highest projected BABIP ZIPS turned out, no?
Dan, where does Reynolds projected BABIP stack up among all projected full time players? I have to think .363 is among the highest projected BABIP ZIPS turned out, no?
Yeah, I have a few too high BABIPs - the standard linear models for minor league translations increase K rates for whiffers too much. Up to now, I've concentrated mainly on getting the BA/OBP/SLG to work out as nicely as possible, but I'm in the process of completely re-structuring minor league translations to a more flexible model.
In essence, it's turning a few in-play outs into strikeouts. It's hard enough getting the BA/OBP/SLG right that before now, I haven't really had the time to make a new minor league translation model that also hits the shape.
I reference your work almost every day, it's outstanding.
To make room on the 40 man roster, Billy Murphy was DFAed.
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