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2013 CAIRO Projections For The Arizona Diamondbacks

The projection systems are beginning to come out with their 2013 numbers. What do they say about their expectations for the Diamondbacks next year?

Adam Eaton: maybe your 2013 MVP?
Adam Eaton: maybe your 2013 MVP?
Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

shoewizard alerted me to the CAIRO projections being out - they're not the first (Bill James numbers were already published), but have the advantage of being freely available in a convenient spreadsheet. Let's start with the Diamondbacks hitters.



G PA AB R H HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG wOBA oWAR
Bloomquist SS 96 365 340 49 94 4 27 20 58 .275 .315 .382 .307 0.7
Chavez 3B 66 215 193 24 52 7 24 18 43 .271 .330 .439 .334 0.7
Eaton CF 123 522 467 74 142 7 44 46 88 .305 .375 .436 .360 2.3
Gillespie LF 142 552 487 73 128 12 62 57 114 .262 .344 .422 .338 1.0
Goldschmidt 1B 146 597 527 82 142 27 81 61 162 .269 .348 .499 .363 2.1
Hill 2B 128 547 498 73 132 19 64 39 77 .265 .323 .448 .334 1.9
Hinske LF 112 269 239 27 58 8 32 25 65 .243 .318 .420 .322 0.3
Johnson 3B 52 217 199 28 54 8 28 14 49 .270 .324 .462 .339 0.8
Ka'aihue 1B 122 505 432 59 109 18 68 66 107 .253 .355 .441 .351 1.0
Kubel LF 117 475 424 58 111 21 70 45 108 .263 .333 .480 .349 1.5
McDonald SS 68 209 193 22 48 4 21 11 34 .248 .286 .371 .286 0.2
Montero C 130 520 457 64 125 14 70 53 104 .274 .358 .437 .351 2.8
Nieves C 71 245 226 20 55 4 21 14 44 .245 .289 .345 .281 0.2
Parra OF 140 485 440 60 123 8 43 37 87 .280 .337 .411 .329 0.9
Pennington SS 144 553 495 58 129 9 48 45 103 .260 .319 .385 .310 1.5
Pollock CF 130 543 503 67 138 7 50 32 89 .275 .322 .392 .315 1.1
Upton RF 148 627 553 100 156 23 71 62 131 .282 .359 .477 .363 2.4

Not included is Didi Gregorius, because I don't expect him to be a significant part of the roster next year [His projected numbers, in case you're interested, are .240/.283/.342, but those are not adjusted for Chase]. I do have some issues with the expected playing time here, e.g Miguel Montero is apparently going to play more often than Aaron Hill, who has averaged 147 games per year over the past four seasons. But taking those as read, what does it say about our offense?

  • Looks like it'll struggle overall - Hill (4.7), Montero (3.7) and Paul Goldschmidt (2.9) all did better last season, than 2013's expected top performer Montero (2.8).
  • Adam Eaton will the be the third most productive offensive player on the team, behind Montero and Justin Upton, ranking ahead of Goldschmidt and Hill. I stress: these numbers do not take defense into account.
  • Shortstop will be non-terrible, with Pennington's .310 wOBA exactly the same as Chris Young will be giving Oakland - and a good deal cheaper, obviously. 1.5 oWAR is a good deal better than the 0.3 figure Willie Bloomquist, Stephen Drew and John McDonald combined for this year.
  • Third base should be a little improved as well: Chavez and Johnson combine for 1.5 oWAR, and that's in a total of only 432 PAs, so should perhaps be scaled up a tad.
  • However, those improvements will be more than offset by the drop in production round the rest of the infield. In 2012, Montero, Goldschmidt and Hill were good for 11.3 oWAR as a trio: the 2013 projection has them coming in at only 6.8 oWAR.

Now, we move on to the pitchers:


IP H R ER HR BB K ERA FIP WAR
Bauer 97 103 50 44 11 56 103 4.14 4.17 1.5
Bell 66 63 29 27 5 26 67 3.67 3.23 0.8
Cahill 196 182 94 85 20 71 151 3.92 3.97 3.7
Collmenter 114 114 57 53 15 36 92 4.15 4.11 1.7
Corbin 182 223 100 93 23 61 147 4.59 4.18 0.9
Hernandez 77 73 37 33 9 24 72 3.86 3.67 1.3
Hudson 127 127 60 55 14 34 109 3.94 3.63 1.8
Kennedy 193 176 85 79 23 53 180 3.68 3.67 4.1
McCarthy 100 103 46 41 11 22 74 3.72 3.71 2.0
Miley 166 184 87 78 15 60 119 4.19 3.94 2.0
Paterson 54 61 30 28 8 25 49 4.62 4.64 0.4
Putz 49 38 16 15 4 12 57 2.68 2.48 1.3
Reynolds 61 59 28 26 9 20 61 3.79 3.88 1.1
Sipp* 61 52 30 28 9 26 55 4.20 4.53 0.3
Skaggs 139 166 80 71 19 56 121 4.57 4.45 1.2
Ziegler 67 57 25 22 3 23 49 2.93 3.11 1.9

* Sipp's numbers are not adjusted for Chase. This looks a little more promising. Let's break these down to a selection of bullet points

  • In 2012, Wade Miley was top in bWAR, at 3.2, with Trevor Cahill second at 2.5. Trevor Cahill and Ian Kennedy are expected to be clearly better in 2013, with Miley dropping back to two WAR.
  • Brandon McCarthy picks up two WAR in a hundred innings. That figure is in line with the 101 innings per active year he has average since 2007. Health is the big question, but I suspect you knew that already.
  • I left Trevor Bauer's stats in there for entertainment purposes. :) He is expected to be more productive than Patrick Corbin or Tyler Skaggs, despite pitching fewer innings.
  • Man, I love our bullpen. Last year, the best relief corps in baseball by fWAR [I'd use bWAR, but there's no easy way to see that for a team's bullpen, so I'm being lazy!] were the Royals at 7.3. The projections for the Arizona front seven in 2013 total 8.4 WAR. If achieved, that gives us some room for injury, and resultant replacement-level work, and they'd still be at or near the top.

The creator of the CAIRO system, Larry Mahnken, used those projections to run a simulation, and here's how he currently sees the NL West shaking down. However, as he says, "this is extremely early and completely useless so think of it more as a goof than anything too serious."

TM W L RS RA Div WC WC2 PS%
Dodgers 90 72 677 587 35.0% 9.3% 9.0% 53.4%
Giants 87 75 663 598 27.6% 9.8% 8.2% 45.6%
Diamondbacks 81 81 692 678 15.9% 7.1% 7.1% 30.1%
Padres 81 81 659 654 15.9% 7.7% 7.6% 31.3%
Rockies 71 91 770 865 5.6% 2.4% 2.5% 10.5%

That gives us the same record as in 2012, with our offense scoring 42 runs less, and our pitching and defense conceding ten less. That leaves us nine games back of the Dodgers, who ride their quintillion-dollar payroll to the title. However, I do note that we sill have a 16% chance of winning the division, and a 30% chance of making the post-season. I'd settle for that, given we didn't have a 30% chance after July 1st this campaign.

So, what do you think? Too pessimistic? Too optimistic? About right?