Real Life vs Projections: Results

Maybe the funnest time for a nerd in the offseason is when preseason projections come out. FanGraphs does an excellent job of not only posting projections, but breaking them down team by team, and perhaps most importantly, keeping record of the projections.

There also exists the added value of rest of season (RoS) projections that gives us a quantitative look at what we can perhaps see a player doing for the rest of the season built on a baseline of what they have done and what they were projected to do.

For today's exercise, we'll simply compare the pre-season projections and the current production.

My projection system of choice is ZiPS built by the one and only Dan Szy-mb-ors-ki. I breakup his name because he has a Google alert set to notify him whenever his name is posted and perhaps even said. He likely also has "ZiPs" and "projections" keyed together for an alert as well. Like Rumpelstiltskin, he will appear if you say his full name and maybe even appear behind you in a mirror if you saw it three times with the lights off.

Hitters:

ZiPS Projections:

Name	G	PA	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	Fld	WAR
Salvador Perez	132	517	13	67	0	.287	.320	.431	.327	8.1	3.9
Alex Gordon	155	691	19	73	11	.267	.339	.432	.337	9.6	3.6
Eric Hosmer	156	657	20	77	14	.296	.353	.459	.353	-1.6	2.7
Mike Moustakas	147	598	18	62	4	.255	.305	.416	.315	3.0	2.3
Billy Butler	156	653	19	85	1	.288	.363	.442	.349	0.0	2.0
Omar Infante	138	559	8	46	7	.279	.309	.387	.305	2.4	1.7
Lorenzo Cain	119	477	7	49	15	.252	.307	.367	.298	5.4	1.6
Norichika Aoki	148	638	5	41	17	.279	.336	.362	.312	5.3	1.5
Alcides Escobar	156	625	5	51	23	.259	.291	.346	.280	2.6	1.4
Josh Willingham	114	478	20	66	2	.233	.343	.431	.341	-5.6	1.4
Jarrod Dyson	111	377	2	22	36	.240	.300	.317	.276	4.0	1.0
Raul Ibanez	114	424	20	59	1	.241	.300	.451	.326	0.0	0.8
Christian Colon	121	529	7	42	11	.256	.303	.335	.284	2.9	0.7

2014 Results:

Name	G	PA	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	Fld	WAR
Alex Gordon	137	568	19	66	10	.274	.354	.450	.354	22.3	6.0
Lorenzo Cain	115	427	4	43	24	.295	.333	.403	.323	12.1	3.5
Salvador Perez	131	532	16	63	1	.265	.297	.415	.312	5.2	3.2
Jarrod Dyson	104	266	1	23	33	.283	.338	.342	.306	16.4	3.1
Alcides Escobar	143	536	2	44	28	.276	.309	.368	.299	5.7	3.1
Norichika Aoki	113	468	1	36	15	.265	.331	.334	.302	4.9	1.4
Omar Infante	116	501	6	59	8	.254	.290	.346	.281	-0.7	0.6
Mike Moustakas	121	435	15	51	0	.207	.265	.370	.281	2.3	0.8
Christian Colon	20	47	0	4	2	.302	.348	.442	.347	0.9	0.4
Billy Butler	139	558	9	59	0	.268	.321	.377	.308	0.0	-0.4
Eric Hosmer	111	471	6	48	4	.267	.312	.380	.304	-0.2	-0.3
Raul Ibanez	85	273	5	26	3	.169	.260	.289	.252	-0.2	-1.0
Josh Willingham	85	339	14	40	2	.220	.348	.415	.339	0.5	0.9

Gordon has been basically one and a half times as good as he was projected to be. Both hitting and fielding better than expected. Obviously defensive figures are hard to not only predict but also track, and we can see a large variance here.

Perez has settled in near his projection on both the offensive and defensive side per wOBA and FLD.

Moose has been 30 basis points worse than his expected wOBA and has been worth much less than his projected value.

Dyson has been three times better than expected while Escobar has been worth twice as much.

Raul Ibanez continues to defy logic that he should no longer be employed. Not because he's doing better than we thought, but the exact opposite. He's been horrible and shouldn't be on a playoff contender for anything other than stretching out players during warm ups or working as a translator.

We're all aware of the disappointment Hosmer has been, but if you believe in patterns then he's due to be better next year given his positive WAR, then negative, then positive, now negative WAR pattern.

Butler has seen a 40 point drop off from his projected OBP.

Pitchers:

ZiPS Projections:

Name	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	FIP	WAR
James Shields	3.61	212.0	8.24	2.50	3.51	4.1
Wade Davis	4.55	140.1	7.57	3.46	4.13	1.7
Greg Holland	2.34	69.3	12.99	3.38	2.23	1.6
Yordano Ventura	4.20	137.1	7.47	3.74	4.15	1.5
Kelvin Herrera	3.27	79.2	10.50	2.94	3.11	1.3
Danny Duffy	4.12	94.0	8.62	4.50	4.01	1.2
Jeremy Guthrie	4.55	166.0	5.20	2.60	4.61	1.0
Jason Vargas	4.71	191.0	5.80	2.36	4.84	1.0
Aaron Crow	3.77	57.1	9.27	3.77	3.66	0.4
Jason Frasor	3.83	44.2	9.46	3.83	3.74	0.4
Francisley Bueno	4.83	63.1	5.55	3.84	4.72	-0.3

2014 Results:

Name	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	FIP	WAR
James Shields	3.23	200.1	7.01	1.80	3.69	3.1
Jason Vargas	3.14	169.0	5.96	1.81	3.64	2.8
Wade Davis	0.71	63.1	13.36	2.98	1.29	2.7
Danny Duffy	2.42	141.1	6.88	3.18	4.41	2.4
Yordano Ventura	3.25	158.0	7.63	3.47	3.69	2.3
Greg Holland	1.60	56.1	12.78	2.88	2.17	2.0
Kelvin Herrera	1.34	60.1	7.76	3.43	2.69	1.2
Jeremy Guthrie	4.54	182.1	5.63	2.22	4.39	1.2
Jason Frasor	2.98	42.1	8.72	3.61	3.45	0.4
Francisley Bueno	4.45	30.1	5.64	1.78	3.84	0.0
Aaron Crow	3.71	53.1	5.23	3.38	5.28	-0.8

Shields has been worse than projected but the rest of the rotation/pen has picked up his slack and more so.

Vargas is more than a full run better than his FIP was predicted and in turn has been almost three times as more valuable.

Davis was projected to be marginally better than Holland, but has been half a win better (still a slight amount). Of course ZiPS had Davis starting 23 games, but as a reliever he's been much better.

Guthrie has been marginally better than projected while Crow has been worse.

There's still another 20 something games left and while these values are expected to change drastically, there can still be some minor swings if someone gets hot or cold.

Overall, the team has been better than expected as you can imagine. Gordon has gone from very good player to elite, while Cain and Dyson have been surprises.

On the pitching side Shields has disappointing, but as noted others have been better than expected.