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Royals Weighted Steamer Projections

By Shaun Newkirk
Jamie Squire/Getty Images

It's Friday, and on Friday anything goes. It's jeans day or casual Friday or whatever your office calls it (maybe you work from home and everyday is casual Friday). So for Friday I'm going to post what is simply a thought experiment.

The other day one of my co-workers (if you're reading this: hey co-worker!) was browsing the internet about baseball and noticed some information about Steamer projections. The idea behind projections is simple: using historical data to project future data. He grasped that concept with ease, but the problem was he didn't know what the data meant. He saw that Alex Gordon was projected to hit 16 home runs, but he didn't know how many home runs 16 home runs are. It's more than 15 but less than 17, but what does that mean in the context of things? I know 16 home runs is above average for 600 plate appearances but he didn't and I'd venture most fans don't know what the league average rate is. A lot of casual fans will rant off that Joe Smith could hit .300 with 25 home runs and 150 RBI without knowing exactly how good (or underestimating/overrating) that projection/prediction is.

The idea of league-weighted metrics have been around since at least the inception of ERA+, if not further back, so we aren't breaking ground here but more so simplifying the projections.

So I decided to calculate (more so plug the formulas into excel) the Royals Steamer projections weighted to the league Steamer projections. So every point over/under 100 would be 1% better/worse than the Steamer league projection for that stat (see notes). For metrics ending in +, over 100 is good and those metrics ending with - under 100 is good.

Let's get one thing out of the way: this is entirely just for fun/thought. While the metrics below are usable and true, they aren't necessarily worth using outside of the context of this article given the wide criteria used to calculate them as well as they are being based on projected performance.

Some notes before the numbers:

When calculating the Steamer projected baseline average for the weighting I limited it to players projected to receive 150 or more plate appearances.

While the counting stats for the league average are un-adjusted, for the Royals players they have been prorated to 600 plate appearances.

Rate stats for the league-average are not from Steamer projections, but instead based off the 2014 league average. I couldn't quite get the results I was looking for calculating the Steamer league average rate stats so this is simpler. For instance my Steamer league average OBP is .3135 and the actual 2014 OBP average was .314 so the results shouldn't be noticeably different.

Steamer only maxed Sal Perez at 450 PA and there's reason to believe he'll receive more than that so I adjusted his counting stats to 550 PA. That might be too much or too little, but it's what we're going to use, damnit.

WAR+ is entirely just for fun, more so than any other metric here and is probably pointless, but you know...it's Friday. For the baseline I used 2.0, which is essentially a league average player.

For starters, the minimum projected innings pitched is 90. For Relievers, it's 20.

Also, unERA-/unFIP- are most assuredly not the same as ERA- nor FIP-. Neither metric has park and rather than an AL/NL split for the average, it is the entire MLB.

For relievers, the maximum innings projected to pitch was 65, meanwhile the baseline fWAR/RA9-WAR was 0.5.

Hitters

Player HR+ BB%+ K%- SB+ AVG+ OBP+ SLG+ WAR+
Alex Gordon 133 115 101 114 107 110 109 205
Eric Hosmer 142 100 78 100 110 107 111 105
Kendrys Morales 150 88 89 14 104 102 106 30
Salvador Perez 133 52 64 14 109 98 108 170
Mike Moustakas 158 85 81 43 98 97 105 145
Lorenzo Cain 67 73 107 314 106 100 95 140
Alex Rios 92 60 86 286 105 96 100 30
Omar Infante 67 63 60 114 109 99 95 85
Christian Colon 75 69 51 186 100 95 88 45
Jarrod Dyson 33 94 93 771 98 97 84 120
Alcides Escobar 42 50 69 329 103 94 88 105

Cain and Dyson are good at stealing bases, the Royals soon to be full time DH (Kendrys Morales) is expected to be ~70% worse than an average player, as is the projected starting right fielder Alex Rios.

Starters

Player unERA- ER- HR- WHIP+ K/9+ BB/9- unFIP- WAR+ RA9-WAR+
Yordano Ventura 96 120 103 100 106 120 97 130 130
Jason Vargas 103 130 149 100 81 83 110 80 95
Edinson Volquez 114 144 126 110 87 130 113 55 40
Danny Duffy 98 122 149 104 100 126 113 80 120
Jeremy Guthrie 113 142 149 105 70 86 117 45 45

Strikeouts remain an issue for this team.

Relievers

Player unERA- ER- HR- WHIP- K/9+ BB/9- unFIP- WAR+ RA9-WAR+
Greg Holland 63 90 93 81 141 94 66 260 300
Wade Davis 69 102 116 85 126 90 75 200 260
Kelvin Herrera 82 119 93 92 111 97 84 160 160
Luke Hochevar 87 130 139 91 103 77 92 100 140
Brandon Finnegan 88 130 139 96 104 99 94 100 140
Jason Frasor 98 147 139 99 99 104 99 40 80
Yohan Pino 91 135 186 91 95 62 101 80 120
Tim Collins 95 141 139 100 109 122 102 40 100
Kris Medlen 106 158 163 97 78 67 104 40 40
Louis Coleman 101 147 163 102 96 109 109 -20 60
Brian Flynn 106 158 163 102 79 87 109 20 40
Michael Mariot 106 158 163 103 88 101 109 0 40
Aaron Brooks 111 164 186 98 68 56 110 -20 0
John Lamb 107 158 163 104 88 106 111 0 40
Jandel Gustave 139 203 163 128 73 172 142 -180 -160

No surprise here. The three best Royals relievers project to be really good again while Royals feature two other average relievers in Finnegan and Hochevar.

Meanwhile, the Royals may potentially carry Jandel Gustave for the entire season as mandated by the Rule 5 rules (if they want to retain him), but as shown above, he may not be MLB ready.

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