FanGraphs Bits and Pieces (Part One: A Couple Thoughts on the ZiPS Projections)
Jayslam has been pretty much dormant since the beginning of the offseason besides my reaction to the Yimi García and Kevin Gausman signings and some Seiya Suzuki wishposting. In my defence, this was basically a foregone conclusion when the owners made the call to lock out the players. It’s hard to stretch a potential analysis of the Gosuke Katoh minor league signing into a post of any meaningful substance.
Thankfully, there are still quality baseball news and analysis outlets pumping out Blue Jays-related content for me to vulture dissect. Last week, FanGraphs released the Jays’ 2022 ZiPS projections by Dan Szymborski (a nice primer on ZiPS can be found here), as well as Toronto’s Top 37 Prospects list by Brendan Gawlowski and Eric Longenhagen. With roster-building, prospect watching, and general speculation being the only things that we as outside observers can really do right now, these posts being released at nearly the same time comes as a welcome respite to waiting out the lockout.
As it turns out, I may have gotten a bit overzealous in my hunger for that sweet, sweet content to write on, because I ended up writing a lot on the prospects. Substack’s format means that splitting the post in two between the ZiPS projections and the prospect list has become necessary. So this post will focus on the projections while the following one will look at minor leaguers.
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Batters
If you start with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, it’s hard for your offense to do too poorly without major malpractice. And no malpractice is present here, as George Springer projects to (hopefully) have a healthier season while the Jays’ confusing, Cerberus-like catching situation should be adequate whatever configuration they go with.
Szymborski begins by essentially stating the obvious. It’s hard to go wrong when you have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (projected at .303/.390/.585, 161 OPS+, 5.9 WAR), Bo Bichette (.291/.341/.497, 125 OPS+, 4.7 WAR), and a hopefully healthy George Springer (.267/.352/.513, 132 OPS+, 3.0 WAR) leading the charge.
As for that Cerberus-like catching corps, ZiPS projects Danny Jansen (.228/.315/.442, 104 OPS+) and Alejandro Kirk (.252/.327/.436, 106 OPS+) to both hit at slightly above league average, while Reese McGuire looks to regress further and further into a purely defensive option (.236/.260/.362, 77 wRC+). I would contest that the gap between Jansen and Kirk’s offence is probably a little wider than those OPS+’s would indicate. While OPS+ is a great stat, I personally prefer wRC+ since it’s based on wOBA (which correctly weights on-base percentage as being almost twice as valuable as slugging) and not OPS. ZiPS being based on OPS+ means that, in my opinion, it’s offensive projections are a tiny bit compromised, though that’s certainly too strong a word. The conclusions that wRC+ and OPS+ come to are usually extremely similar, so for all we know, wRC+ would have had exactly the same numbers.
Teoscar Hernández projects to regress a bit BABIP-wise, but his power still makes him a comfortable plug-and-play cleanup hitter, though I’d personally prefer that he hit third since that’s the lineup spot that leads off the fewest innings.
For several years, Teo (projected at .262/.322/.505, 121 OPS+, 1.8 WAR) has been bullied by projection systems, and it’s only seemingly gotten more puzzling to the layperson since his offensive surge in the latter half of 2019. Since being recalled in May 2019, Hernández has slashed .282/.339/.541 with a 132 wRC+, 18th among qualified hitters. When will the damn nerds and their big smooth domes catch on???
Well, it’s due to his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) rate. Projection systems like ZiPS see a higher BABIP (relative to a hitter’s previous career average) as unsustainable, being dependent on luck or poor defence. This isn’t without basis, as players who seem to suddenly break out one year, but who in doing so post BABIPs noticeably higher than their career average tend to come back down to earth.
A recent example that comes to mind for me is Chris Colabello in 2015, who slashed .321/.367/.520 with a 143 wRC+ in 360 plate appearances. His absurd .411 BABIP, however, was clearly unsustainable, especially when compared to his previous career rate of .285 in 2013-14 (during which he slashed .214/.284/.364 with an 80 wRC+ over 401 plate appearances). Sure enough, Colabello cratered, his MLB career effectively ending in 2016 after 10 awful games (obligatory “small sample size” notice) and a PED suspension.
So Teoscar Hernández’s .352 BABIP last year, while not as astronomically high as 2015 Colabello’s, may also seem due for regression compared to his previous career rate of .310, especially considering last season’s more contact-oriented approach. And maybe it is, but I honestly do think that in relying on BABIP, Teo’s ZiPS projection is slow to catch up to the fact that he’s simply a better hitter than he has been over his career.
One thing that can lead to a higher BABIP that isn’t luck or bad defence is quality of contact. Simply put, the harder the ball is hit, the better chance of avoiding an out and, therefore, getting on base. In 2021, Hernández ranked in the 88th, 88th, and 87th percentiles respectively in average exit velocity, hard hit rate, and barrel rate. For an analytic stat that’s a closer one-to-one with BABIP, I like Statcast’s xwOBACON, which is simply a hitter’s expected weighted On-Base Average on contact. Teo’s xwOBACON of .468 in 2021 ranked 11th among all qualified hitters. So while some of Hernández’s offensive surge COULD be due for regression, I think the evidence shows at this point that BABIP, and by extension ZiPS, are just taking a while to catch up to the new Teoscar Hernández.
ZiPS doesn’t see Cavan Biggio being as much of a chip off the old block as Bichette or Guerrero, but it does expect a great deal of improvement from his sub-replacement 2021 season.
I feel like nobody’s quite sure what to make of Cavan Biggio anymore. ZiPS, like, I assume, most of the rest of us, sees him rebounding from his abysmal 2021, slashing .225/.334/.401 with an exactly league-average 100 OPS+. This is pretty much in line with his career numbers (.235/.354/.408, 107 OPS+), but that slugging percentage is the number most worth keeping an eye on, in my opinion. The quality of Biggio’s contact harshly fell from 2019 to 2020 despite an increase in overall production (114 wRC+ in 2019, 122 wRC+ in 2020).
Biggio’s Statcast numbers in 2021 were nearly identical to those in 2020 but were also accompanied by a substantial regression to the mean (84 wRC+). I’m not saying that Keith Law was necessarily right about Biggio not being worth a 40-man spot, and moving him off of third base forever should do wonders for his defensive value at least. But his ability to either underperform some underwhelming contact or to play more like he did in 2019 may be the difference between Biggio being a solid semi-everyday contributor or a versatile bench player.
There are still places where the Jays can make improvements. Santiago Espinal was a nice little surprise and hit very well in the majors in 2021, but the projections are unimpressed with a minor league record that screams complementary talent. Kevin Smith projects to hit for power but with a low BA/OBP, and he’ll probably struggle to be valuable at third unless he turns out to be extremely adept at playing the hot corner. Another spare outfielder would also be helpful; ZiPS isn’t crazy about Randal Grichuk as the main fallback option.
I don’t know if this is a common opinion, because I’ve only seen it expressed by some overzealous people on the Blue Jays subreddit, but some people seem to be ready to pencil in Santiago Espinal as the team’s everyday third or second baseman. It’s understandable on a surface level. Espinal played some excellent defence at the hot corner while slashing .311/.376/.405 with a 115 wRC+ and 2.2 fWAR over 92 games. That rate adds up to 3.87 fWAR over 162 games, which I imagine must be terribly exciting for people who don’t know how small sample sizes work.
Defence can go a long way, and you have to think that Espinal has earned himself a spot on the active roster to start the season. But ZiPS is not sold on Espy as an everyday player, projecting him at a .269/.327/.377 slash line with 1.6 fWAR over 123 games. And honestly, that seems completely fair to me.
Santiago Espinal is limited most of all by a complete lack of power. His ISO (Isolated Slugging: Slugging Percentage minus Batting Average) of .095 in 2021 ranked 300th out of 323 players with at least 240 plate appearances. Statcast is even less favourable on that front, with an xISO (Expected Isolated Slugging) of .079 ranking 351st out of 362 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.
Granted, power isn’t necessary to be a good hitter, but Espinal doesn’t make especially good contact in general (his .312 xwOBACON last year was well below the league average of .364), and given the fact that he walks at about the league average, he doesn’t have much to rely on besides an okay eye and some slap singles. That’s not the worst, and his projected 91 wRC+ is below-average but certainly solid for essentially a defensive player. But everyday starter material it is likely not.
As for the need for another spare outfielder, I don’t think many would find too much disagreement with ZiPS’ league-average prediction (.246/.289/.457, 99 OPS+) for Randal Grichuk, though those numbers would still constitute an upgrade over 2021. However, I don’t know that the Jays would necessarily be on the hunt for an upgrade over Grichuk, given that A) he had already more or less been reduced to a part-time role by the end of 2021, and B) the infield and pitching are bigger priorities. Even if the Jays were to sign a Seiya Suzuki, Michael Conforto, or Kyle Schwarber, thus definitively relegating Grichuk to a bench role, I don’t know that we’d actually going to see him traded, based on his relatively high salary for unremarkable production. Unless you’re trading him for like, Shogo Akiyama or Steven Duggar (based on the Jays’ and Brewers’ apparent discussions about swapping Grich for Jackie Bradley Jr.) and at that point, you might just be better off keeping Randal Grichuk as your fourth outfielder. You’d like someone a bit more suited to centre field to back up George Springer maybe, but you could do a lot worse.
Pitchers
Toronto’s front four looks absolutely rock-solid, with ZiPS projecting Alek Manoah to continue to build on his breakout 2021 season. What else can you say about this group? I’d take them over any other quartet in the division.
*Drool*
The fifth starter is a little trickier, however, and given the competition in the AL East, I’d like the Blue Jays to add some depth of the Matthew Boyd variety rather than going with Ross Stripling until they’re sure about Nate Pearson and how much they can stretch him out as a starter. Plus, injuries do happen and the other starting options in the high minors aren’t terribly exciting. Even with the concerns about the back of the rotation, I’m much happier with the group than I would be if we flipped the calendar back a year.
Not the most constructive comment on my part, but I agree with all this. I don’t think it should be a controversial statement to say that this is a much more inspiring quartet than last year’s Ryu/Ray/Matz/Roark April juggernaut. With that said, no team has ever been hurt by too much pitching depth. Stripling (projected at a 4.78 ERA and 4.68 FIP) could pass as a fifth starter, but could also help as a long reliever should a better option be signed. Not only that, but the depth after Stripling and the yet-unproven Nate Pearson thins out rapidly, with none of Thomas Hatch, Anthony Kay, Zach Logue, or Bowden Francis earning ZiPS’ trust.
At this point, the infield is rightly seen as more of a priority to address at this point. Injuries always happen though, and it would behove the Jays to fortify their starter corps, even if it’s more of a Steven Matz-esque project. Boyd would certainly fit the bill, and Yusei Kikuchi also comes to mind as would a starting pitcher on the level of the Marlins’ Elieser Hernández, who would be more so competing with Pearson and Stripling.
Toronto’s bullpen wasn’t a highlight last season, but that was largely due to an itchier-than-usual rash of injuries. There isn’t much here that will knock your socks off beyond Jordan Romano, but there are a lot of solid projections. Like the rotation and the lineup, I think another arm or two in the back of the bullpen to fatten up the roster would be helpful, as the minor league depth isn’t that exciting.
I dunno, I’d say that Tim Mayza is pretty “knock your socks off”, but fair points.
Something that gets lost in the discourse of how bad the bullpen was last season is how good the Jays have been at building bullpens without big, flashy adds. It didn’t work out last year for reasons within and outside of the team’s control, and yes, signing Liam Hendriks might indeed have put the Blue Jays over the top I suppose, but I would still say the strategy of going for cheaper, less predictable, quality floor-raising adds (“dumpster diving”, as your uncle who just discovered Reddit calls it) like Adam Cimber, Trevor Richards, Yimi García, or even David Phelps works better than just blowing an estimated $13 million of valuable budget space on Kenley Jansen, or $14.5 million for Raisel Iglesias, good as they are.
That said, depth is just as important to the bullpen as it is the starting rotation, so additions to the bullpen may, in fact, be coming. What that means though is kind of up in the air. A cheap major league signing, a high-floor/low-ceiling minor league deal, or even the addition of a starting pitcher shifting Ross Stripling and/or Nate Pearson to the ‘pen. Nothing can really be ruled out.
I think all four of the good teams in the AL East have a strong chance at 90 wins, and while they may not project to have the highest ceiling, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Jays with the best shot to get there. All the contenders have work to do, but Toronto’s challenges are more about finding role players along the periphery than landing the big score. Not that one wouldn’t be welcome, of course!
“Finding role players along the periphery” is a funny way of saying “definitely trading for José Ramírez and Sonny Gray, and signing Seiya Suzuki”, but I think I see what Szymborski’s getting at here.