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As most of you know, Fangraphs provides Depth Chart projections which are Steamer and ZIPS projections averaged. But right now if you click on the Depth Chart link, ZIPS is not included yet and it's really all just Steamer. ZIPS is rolled out team by team during the offseason, and then within a week or so of all of them being rolled out, then they fold the ZIPS into the Depth Chart projections. Figure around when Pitchers and Catchers report.
Disclaimer:
These projections are not mine, but if I did my own, I would not come up with much different or better than these. If you don't like projections, thats cool. To each his own. No need to tell us you think Projections are B.S. Many people enjoy looking at them, and they are in fact useful tools and every team in MLB uses them. Generally good projection systems can get hitters "right" about 70-75% of the time and pitching projections barely over 50%. For me the interesting part is the Macro look. This guy may end up over, and that guy may end up under, but at the end the TEAM should be close. Sometimes you get 80% of the players performing over, like last year, and you get a surprise playoff team. Sometimes you get most of them going under, and you get a disappointment, like 2016. Sometimes 80% of the projections are "wrong", in that half the guys were way over and half way under, but the TOTAL ended up about where expected. Projections are a baseline, a STARTING point to start figuring out where we are. Everyone can and should have their personal "over and unders". Thats half the fun !
HITTERS
I decided to just look at wRC+ for hitters. I'm just trying to get the "quick and dirty" on where the projections see these guys. Counting stats like HR, RBI, Walks, K's, etc are playing time dependent, and it's impossible to know who will get hurt or who will get in the manager's dog house. So I like to look at rate stats at this stage. But even then, I prefer the park adjusted metrics, as ZIPS and STEAMER may be using different league run scoring environments, so triple slash BA/OBP/SLG is impacted by that. So for now just looking at wRC+ to keep it simple. If you are not familiar or not sure about wRC+, I suggest reading This Link before proceeding further.
- Below table is ranked by the highest avg between ZIPS and STEAMER wRC+ projection.
- I also show what the hitter did in 2017 vs 2018 Projection. I am comparing against 2017 because comparing to career would be much closer and seeing the gap between 2017 and projected helps combat "recency bias"
- Players that played most of their time in minors in 2017 show their 2017 minor league wRC+ They will show the largest differences between projected and 2017 of course, because 2017 was in MiLB
- This table is all the players on the 40 man roster PLUS JD Martinez, just for context.
| Name | Steamer | ZIPS | avg | 2017 | avg-2017 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 137 | 131 | 134.0 | 142 | -8.0 |
| JD Martinez | 130 | 137 | 133.5 | 166 | -32.5 |
| A.J. Pollock | 108 | 112 | 110.0 | 103 | 7.0 |
| Jake Lamb | 107 | 108 | 107.5 | 111 | -3.5 |
| Yasmany Tomas | 98 | 104 | 101.0 | 89 | 12.0 |
| David Peralta | 101 | 99 | 100.0 | 104 | -4.0 |
| Alex Avila | 94 | 94 | 94.0 | 124 | -30.0 |
| Ketel Marte | 94 | 90 | 92.0 | 89 | 3.0 |
| Christian Walker | 89 | 94 | 91.5 | 147 | -55.5 |
| Brandon Drury | 91 | 81 | 86.0 | 92 | -6.0 |
| Daniel Descalso | 83 | 78 | 80.5 | 88 | -7.5 |
| Chris Owings | 78 | 80 | 79.0 | 85 | -6.0 |
| Jeremy Hazelbaker | 75 | 80 | 77.5 | 111 | -33.5 |
| Domingo Leyba | 71 | 78 | 74.5 | 131 | -56.5 |
| Ildemaro Vargas | 72 | 74 | 73.0 | 111 | -38.0 |
| Chris Herrmann | 74 | 67 | 70.5 | 58 | 12.5 |
| Nick Ahmed | 64 | 70 | 67.0 | 76 | -9.0 |
| John Ryan Murphy | 66 | 61 | 63.5 | 89 | -25.5 |
| Socrates Brito | 63 | 64 | 63.5 | 100 | -36.5 |
| Jack Reinheimer | 59 | 58 | 58.5 | 83 | -24.5 |
| Jeff Mathis | 56 | 35 | 45.5 | 51 | -5.5 |
A few more points about above table:
The only players showing better than last year are Tomas, Herrman, Pollock and Marte
In Herrman and Tomas' case, hard to imagine them being quite that bad again, & it's not hard to see Pollock as doing better based on his history, and the improvement for Marte while not big, is good to see.
Every other player is projected to be off last year's production. A lot of this is just regression. But the big drops for Avila, and Martinez if he is actually around should be noted. Avila takes Chris Iannetta's place , who had a 120 wRC+ last year. A full season of Tomas, (101 wRC+? fingers crossed) would be taking the place of JD Martinez. And even if JD Martinez 2018 is taking the place of JD Martinez 2017 it's still likely to be at a lower level than last year's full season 166, let alone the 172 he had with Arizona.
Bottom line: Without JD Martinez or another upgrade somewhere, on paper this offense is projecting to be significantly worse than last year. And even if JD comes back, they are STILL projected to be a little worse.
STARTING PITCHERS
On the pitching Side, I'm just showing ERA and FIP. Unfortunately the Steamer projections are not showing ERA- or ERA+, so no choice but to go with unadjusted ERA and FIP. I separate by role, but don't bother with IP projections or counting stats either. I included more minor league guys not on the 40 man roster, as over the course of the season more chance some of these get added.
| Name | sERA | sFIP | zERA | zFIP | avg ERA | avgFIP | 2017 ERA | avg-2017 | 2017 FIP | avg-2017 |
| Robbie Ray | 3.63 | 3.62 | 3.61 | 3.38 | 3.62 | 3.50 | 2.89 | 0.73 | 3.72 | -0.22 |
| Zack Greinke | 3.80 | 3.76 | 3.48 | 3.53 | 3.64 | 3.65 | 3.20 | 0.44 | 3.31 | 0.34 |
| Zack Godley | 4.05 | 3.99 | 4.01 | 3.98 | 4.03 | 3.99 | 3.37 | 0.66 | 3.41 | 0.58 |
| Patrick Corbin | 4.21 | 4.22 | 4.29 | 4.18 | 4.25 | 4.20 | 4.03 | 0.22 | 4.08 | 0.12 |
| Anthony Banda | 4.05 | 4.14 | 4.61 | 4.49 | 4.33 | 4.32 | 5.39 | -1.06 | 4.72 | -0.41 |
| Taijuan Walker | 4.51 | 4.41 | 4.38 | 4.49 | 4.45 | 4.45 | 3.49 | 0.96 | 4.04 | 0.41 |
| Shelby Miller | 4.60 | 4.50 | 4.50 | 4.36 | 4.55 | 4.43 | 4.09 | 0.46 | 3.57 | 0.86 |
| Kris Medlen | 4.10 | 4.13 | 5.47 | 5.36 | 4.79 | 4.75 | 4.95 | -0.17 | 4.36 | 0.39 |
| Jon Duplantier | 4.82 | 4.85 | NA | NA | 4.82 | 4.85 | 1.39 | 3.43 | 2.89 | 1.96 |
| Taylor Clarke | 5.07 | 5.14 | 5.51 | 5.57 | 5.29 | 5.36 | 3.35 | 1.94 | 3.87 | 1.49 |
| Braden Shipley | 5.12 | 5.10 | 5.56 | 5.55 | 5.34 | 5.33 | 5.66 | -0.32 | 5.92 | -0.60 |
Key Takeaways:
- These are ranked by avg ERA projection
- When comparing vs. 2017, negative numbers = better, positive numbers = worse
- Although most of the SP from last year projecting significantly higher ERA than last year, which was to be expected it's still showing good depth. Even Walker and Miller's ERA translate to over 100 ERA+. Remember, last year's team 131 ERA+ was HISTORIC.
- The projections really like Banda, and really kinda hating on Walker.
| Name | sERA | sFIP | zERA | zFIP | avg ERA | avgFIP | 2017 ERA | avg-2017 | 2017 FIP | avg-2017 |
| Archie Bradley | 3.48 | 3.42 | 3.33 | 3.12 | 3.41 | 3.27 | 1.73 | 1.68 | 2.61 | 0.66 |
| Andrew Chafin | 3.50 | 3.59 | 3.64 | 3.28 | 3.57 | 3.44 | 3.51 | 0.06 | 3.39 | 0.04 |
| Jared Miller | 3.65 | 3.81 | 3.49 | 3.56 | 3.57 | 3.69 | 2.93 | 0.64 | 2.73 | 0.96 |
| Randall Delgado | 4.19 | 4.17 | 3.82 | 3.73 | 4.01 | 3.95 | 3.59 | 0.42 | 3.16 | 0.79 |
| Jimmie Sherfy | 3.81 | 3.84 | 4.61 | 4.75 | 4.21 | 4.30 | 3.12 | 1.09 | 3.62 | 0.68 |
| Fernando Salas | 4.38 | 4.36 | 4.37 | 3.96 | 4.38 | 4.16 | 5.22 | -0.85 | 3.92 | 0.24 |
| Yushihisa Hirano | 4.38 | 4.41 | 4.38 | 4.41 | NA | NA | NA | NA | ||
| Rubby de la Rosa | 3.74 | 3.66 | 5.06 | 4.98 | 4.40 | 4.32 | 4.70 | -0.30 | 4.98 | -0.66 |
| Brad Boxberger | 4.11 | 4.15 | 4.71 | 4.85 | 4.41 | 4.50 | 3.38 | 1.03 | 3.43 | 1.07 |
| T.J. McFarland | 4.11 | 4.20 | 4.73 | 4.39 | 4.42 | 4.30 | 5.33 | -0.91 | 4.10 | 0.20 |
| Silvino Bracho | 4.19 | 4.21 | 4.74 | 4.63 | 4.47 | 4.42 | 5.66 | -1.20 | 4.90 | -0.48 |
| Jake Barrett | 4.49 | 4.52 | 4.61 | 4.40 | 4.55 | 4.46 | 5.00 | -0.45 | 6.27 | -1.81 |
| Joey Krehbiel | 4.37 | 4.43 | 4.76 | 4.83 | 4.57 | 4.63 | 3.27 | 1.30 | 2.66 | 1.97 |
| Neftali Feliz | 4.49 | 4.54 | 5.03 | 4.94 | 4.76 | 4.74 | 5.48 | -0.72 | 5.66 | -0.92 |
| Matt Koch | 4.57 | 4.55 | 5.10 | 5.01 | 4.84 | 4.78 | 7.71 | -2.88 | 6.51 | -1.73 |
| Albert Suarez | 4.26 | 4.27 | 5.63 | 5.46 | 4.95 | 4.87 | 5.12 | -0.18 | 3.79 | 1.08 |
- Archie's ERA projected to double from last year. That is some mean ass regression. Hope thats wrong
- Jared Miller and Jimmie Sherfy project as guys that are ready to step up, which Sherfy already did last year but may be challenged to win spots perhaps due to all the veterans signed.
- Boxberger and McFarland have some scary projections.
- Of the reclamation projects, (Sala, Feliz, Suarez) the projections like Salas the best
