2010 Pirates projected wins
by epoc on Jan 13, 2010 10:25 PM EST
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PrintIn light of the Church signing, which should put an end to free-agent position-player acquisitions, and partially in response to the prevailing notion (as expressed, for example, here) that the 2010 Pirates are a ~65 win team, I decided to run the projected numbers and see what kind of team we should expect next year. I'll admit that going into it I was more optimistic about next season than a lot of people. I definitely didn't think they'd be the worst team in the NL, and I thought they even had a shot at 4th place in the Central. These projections support that to some extent.
What I did was look at the CHONE projections for the 2010 Pirates, though I adjusted them according to my own playing time projections. I also adjusted the defensive projections where CHONE's TZ diverged substantially from UZR. Obviously, I made some assumptions on both counts, but I think they're all reasonable.
I set up the roster the way I'd like to see it, which is not necessarily how it will actually happen. I assumed that Clement would start the season in AAA and end up getting ~200 PAs in the majors. I also assumed that the Pirates would cut Vazquez and use Crosby as the utility infielder, but I could very well be wrong about that. I penciled Lincoln in for a midseason call-up, but not Alvarez. I think it's likely we'll see him at some point this season, but it's no sure bet, and I wanted to see how we'd look without him. I figure if he comes up it will be because he's ready, so anything he gives the team will be gravy.
Everything else is self-explanatory. The results are after the jump.
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| pos | player | PA | bRAA | fRAA | pos adj | repl | WAR |
| C | Doumit | 420 | 1 | -6 | 8 | 12 | 1.5 |
| C | Jaramillo | 280 | -4.5 | -6 | 5 | 8 | 0.3 |
| 1B | Jones | 350 | 5 | -1 | -6 | 10 | 0.8 |
| 1B | Pearce | 140 | 0.6 | 0 | -2.5 | 4 | 0.2 |
| 1B | Clement | 210 | 3.7 | -5 | -4 | 6 | 0.1 |
| 2B | Iwamura | 595 | 5.3 | 0 | 2.1 | 18 | 2.5 |
| 2B | Crosby | 105 | -2 | 0 | 0.4 | 4 | 0.2 |
| 3B | LaRoche | 595 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.1 | 17 | 2.4 |
| 3B | Crosby | 105 | -2 | 0 | 0.4 | 4 | 0.2 |
| SS | Cedeno | 490 | -10.3 | -2 | 6 | 14 | 0.8 |
| SS | Crosby | 210 | -4 | 0 | 1.5 | 7 | 0.5 |
| LF | Milledge | 490 | 3.8 | -4 | -5.3 | 14 | 0.9 |
| LF | Moss | 210 | 0.6 | 1.5 | -2.2 | 6 | 0.6 |
| CF | McCutchen | 595 | 14 | 0 | 2.2 | 18 | 3.4 |
| CF | Raynor | 105 | -1.2 | -2 | 0.4 | 3 | 0.0 |
| RF | Church | 420 | 0 | 4 | -4.4 | 12 | 1.2 |
| RF | Jones | 210 | 3 | -3 | -2.3 | 6 | 0.4 |
| RF | Moss | 70 | 0.2 | 0.5 | -0.8 | 2 | 0.2 |
| hitting | 16.1 | ||||||
| IP | FIP | lg | LI | W% | WAR | ||
| SP | Maholm | 195 | 4.07 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.525 | 2.9 |
| SP | Duke | 185 | 4.34 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.496 | 2.2 |
| SP | Morton | 175 | 4.16 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.515 | 2.4 |
| SP | Ohlendorf | 165 | 4.67 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.461 | 1.3 |
| SP | McCutchen | 165 | 4.65 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.463 | 1.3 |
| SP | Lincoln | 100 | 4.69 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.459 | 0.8 |
| CL | Hanrahan | 70 | 3.89 | 4.3 | 1.7 | 0.546 | 1.0 |
| RP | Meek | 70 | 4.13 | 4.3 | 1.4 | 0.519 | 0.5 |
| RP | Ascanio | 60 | 3.82 | 4.3 | 1.2 | 0.554 | 0.7 |
| RP | Hart | 80 | 4.19 | 4.3 | 1.2 | 0.512 |
0.4 |
| RP | Lopez | 50 | 4.43 | 4.3 | 1.2 | 0.486 | 0.1 |
| RP | Jakubauskas | 100 | 4.93 | 4.3 | 1 | 0.435 | -0.4 |
| RP | Jackson | 40 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 0.8 | 0.489 | 0.1 |
| pitching | 13.4 | ||||||
| total | 29.5 | ||||||
| replacement | 47.1 | ||||||
| wins |
76.6 |
Obviously, there's some uncertainty here, not only in the projections themselves but also in the projection system - i.e., it may have overestimated the league such that a replacement team would win fewer than 47 games in this hypothetical league. That said, none of these projections look too optimistic to me. CHONE really likes Morton, but other than that it all conforms with my intuition, more or less. I think we can safely say that the 2010 Bucs are more like a 75-win team than a 65-win team.
Personally, this makes me like the Iwamura, Church, and Crosby acquisitions even more. First, second, and short were the three positions we could easily have improved without hurting the future, and that's exactly what NH did (unless he cuts Moss or Pearce in favor of Vazquez, which would be pretty short-sighted). If Moss plays to his potential, Church can be the fourth OF. If not, Church can start. Jones plays first until Clement proves he can handle it defensively. The Bucs are going to have to make some tough decisions this year regarding who's part of the future and who needs to go, but I think they've put themselves in a position to intelligently assess those situations while putting a decent team on the field.
Finally, here are some variations on this projection:
Optimistic:
- McCutchen repeats 2009: +1 win
- Jones repeats 2009: +1.5 wins
- We sign a couple bullpen arms. Dotel and Carrasco, for instance, would add +1-1.5 wins.
- One or more of Milledge, LaRoche, Clement, or Moss break out: 1-3 wins
- Doumit and Church stay healthy: 2 wins
Pessimistic:
- LaRoche, Milledge, and Moss stagnate: -1-3 wins
- The starting rotation isn't really this good: -1-2 wins
- Injuries, especially to Doumit, Church, or Crosby, who are very injury-prone: who knows?
All in all, I don't think it's impossible that the Bucs could even break their losing season streak, though I don't expect that. Even if they don't, I think they'll be a respectable mediocre team rather than a bad one.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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Ya' Know, I really, really hate
statistics beyond concrete metrics like ERA, WHIP, BA, etc…. Could be that they simply befuddle what little brainpower I have left. However, I agree that 2010 looks more like 75 win, with at least a shot at 82 wins season than a 60 and floundering season.
- Our starting rotation is better at the beginning of the year than last year. This “WAR” thingy is “Wins Above (league average) Replacement,” right? So what if the guys that Morton or “No Relation” McCutchen are replacing had a negative WAR? We don’t just increase above the average replacement, we’re taking losses off the table.
- Same way with our middle relief, muddlin’ through parts of the bullpen, particularly if some of these rumored free agent signings come through. Again, we get the “WAR” of the player we signed and we lose the negative value. If Hanrahan is an league average closer, we still pick up a couple wins because Matt Capps isn’t blowing saves.
- Our bench should be stronger. Again, that’s not gonna’ make us a 164 game winner this year, but we should be more competetive.
Appreciate the work put into the post, although it’s kind of like looking at an Andy Warhol picture for me.
I agree with you just give me ERA, WHIP, BA, OPS, K-to-BB ratio and HR
that will tell me all I need to know about a player
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: DIck Lebeau, Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Greg Llyod, Andy Russel, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene and Jerry Kramer
"If you give Arians a fullback, he won’t use one. Instead, he insists on using Matt Spaeth, who probably doesn’t cast a shadow because it would require blocking sunlight." steelin with some very true words
by WVPiratesfan on Jan 14, 2010 12:14 AM EST up reply actions
In response to the "So what if the guys that Morton or "No Relation" McCutchen are replacing had a negative WAR? We don’t just increase above the average replacement, we’re taking losses off the table."
statement.
I believe (someone correct me if I am wrong) it won’t affect our total win projection if the player being replaced is actually “below replacement value” because that just means our baseline number (in this case given at 47.1, which should be league-wide (is that correct?)) starts lower.
Basically “replacement level” isn’t a measure of actual players, but simply a metric used to describe how many wins a team (again, in this case 47.1) would win if they fielded a roster exclusively of “replacement level” players. After that is determined, projections seem to indicate that Andrew McCutchen will give us 3.4 more wins by himself than a “replacement” and LaRoche 2.4 more wins.
To answer your question more directly. If the guy D. McCutchen replaces is actually -1.1 wins WORSE than a “replacement level” player, our baseline would regress to 46 wins, and McCutchen, who would suddenly be worth 2.4 wins more than his specific individual “replacement level” player, would still put us at the end total of 76.6.
Hope this helps.
(and hope I’m right)
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Jan 14, 2010 9:08 AM EST up reply actions
In a theoretical conversation like, if we switch out Ian Snell for Morton we would win this much more, then you’d figure from Snell’s negative number. But counting up all the projected WAR on the team, then you’d figure from the baseline like you did.
One issue I have with this kind of analysis is that if we really did have only McCutchen worth 3.5 WAR and only 2 other players approaching 2.5 WAR territory, it seems extremely unlikely we would win 75 games because there are going to be some players with negative WAR.
It’s very possible this could be a good average, though, even if some players would perform better and others worse.
by MarkInDallas on Jan 14, 2010 9:44 AM EST up reply actions
Yep
you have to account for all the negative WAR players when you make your estimates. Last year the Pirates had -2.2 WAR of pitching and 5 WAR of negative hitting/fielding. Intersestingly, the majority of the negative WAR in the hitting category was accounted for by our pitchers’ terrible batting. Ohlendorf was -1.1 WAR at the plate all by himself.
Overall, the 2009 Pirates had 14 WAR from hitting/fielding and 8 WAR from pitching. Fangraphs theoretical replacement level team would win around 46 games, so the Buccos could have expected 68 wins based on their WAR values.
IIRC
Fangraphs default data for pitchers doesn’t include their hitting. Which would mean that epoc is high by at least a couple wins that our pitchers cost us at the plate.
Right...
Pitcher’s hitting is listed in the hitting section and ours were beyond horrible last year. A pitcher being -1.1WAR with the bat is epically bad.
good catch
Pitcher hitting cost us 4 wins in both 2008 and 2009, so you’d estimate 72-73 wins instead of 76-77. That does put a damper on the projections, but it doesn’t really change the ordinal rankings. I’d still say we’re markedly better than the Nationals, Astros and Padres, and neck-and-neck with the Reds and D’Backs. That’s not a great group of teams, but I think we have a fighting chance of not finishing in 6th place again, at least.
But I’m not sure what you mean by “you have to account for all the negative WAR players when you make your estimates.” If there are players who project to be below replacement, I include them. Jakubauskas was the only one. You could argue that CHONE’s projections are too optimistic, but I didn’t make a mistake by not including worse players. You could also point out that players other than the ones I listed are likely to get some playing time, especially in the event of injury, and that some of them will perform below replacement, but we’ve got good depth and there’s no way to predict specific injuries. I’ve already projected the injury-prone players for less than a full season, and I mentioned that injuries would lower the expected WAR.
actually
I think what I just wrote is also incorrect. Fangraphs does not calculate pitcher hitting WAR properly. They do not include a positional adjustment, which means they significantly underrate pitchers. How you should do it, I think, is to calculate the average wOBA for pitchers, and use that as replacement level for their hitting (since only another pitcher could replace a pitcher). Whatever you do, you definitely can’t calculate pitcher hitting WAR the same way you do position players unless you’re going to include a position adjustment that makes replacement level near or equal to average hitting for a pitcher. Anyway, Rally does it properly (or at least it seems so), and his hitting WAR values for pitchers are significantly better than fangraphs’.
Anyway, Maholm, Duke, Morton, Karstens, and Ohlendorf were -.5 batting wins last year altogether according to Rally, as opposed to -3.3 as per fangraphs. I think it would be better to estimate -1-1.5 wins for pitcher hitting, rather than 4, so that means 75 wins, not 76.5 or 72.5. I’m pretty satisfied with that.
Mark,
…wipe that drool offa yer chin.
Another stat to analyze? You must be in hog heaven.
;-)
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jan 14, 2010 9:54 PM EST up reply actions
that is very optimistic
i like it but i can’t agree. i’m picking something like 73 wins. there’s still a lot of wheat to separate from the chaff out there that it’s going to take another tough year to get through.
I tend to agree more with the 73
but hope for the 85… because 85 wins = free McCutchen jersey.
by McCutchenIsTheTruth on Jan 14, 2010 12:59 PM EST up reply actions
Not as optimistic-need more offense
SP should be slightly better
RP same if no others FA picked up
Offense same
Defense same or slightly better (better at 2nd, worse at 1st, Cutch and Millredge get better, RF?)
Year Record Manager Finish
- 2010 70-92 John Russell 6/6 with addt’l FA relievers 73-89
____________________________________________
2009 62-99 John Russell 6/6
_____________________________________________
2008 67-95 John Russell 6/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2007 68-94 Jim Tracy 6/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2006 67-95 Jim Tracy 5/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2005 67-95 Lloyd McClendon
and Pete Mackinin 6/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2004 72-89 Lloyd McClendon 5/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2003 75-87 Lloyd McClendon 4/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2002 72-89 Lloyd McClendon 4/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2001 62-100 Lloyd McClendon 6/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
2000 69-93 Gene Lamont 5/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
1999 78-83 Gene Lamont 3/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
1998 69-93+++ Gene Lamont 6/6
-——————————————————————————————————————-
1997 79-83 Gene Lamont 2/5
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09251/996247-63.stm#ixzz0cYlUiwUK
- my prediction
idk
why everyone is down on the offense. it only has the oppurtunity to get better. we now have McCutchen all year. Jones all year. Milledge all year. Cedeno (slighty better hitter than Wilson) all year. and again a healthy doumit who could play all year (unless traded). to me the offense will be better this year.
Jones is probably due for some regression.
And it’s an open question whether Cedeno will out-hit Wilson’s past performances.
Certainly the offense is an unknown
However, it’s like that for most teams also. Going into last year, you wouldn’t expect after having added Milton Bradley that the Cubs offense would suck. Texas was expecting Josh Hamilton to continue mashing, etc. But of course none of our offensive weapons have a consistent track record of success in MLB expect for Akinori Iwamura, so for us it’s even harder to predict.
I’m pretty bullish on the offensive potential of the team for 2010, but that is simply trusting the assembled talent and expecting that someone new will emerge, just like they do practically every year.
by MarkInDallas on Jan 14, 2010 5:55 PM EST up reply actions
In fairness...
…we do also have a fair number of players, such as Cutch and Milledge and LaRoche, in the age range where you’d expect increases in performance going forward.
I agree
But I don’t think we should count on it. Plenty of young guys have some success and then fall off the planet.
In the aggregate for the group as a whole...
…I think it’s reasonable to expect at least mild improvement. For any individual player, of course, there’s a significant chance of failure.
When making an evaluation
You have to look at the possible reasons for success or failure. I personally like players who have been successful in spurts who have a hard time sustaining that or alternate periods of success with periods of failure over players who have been consistently mediocre.
by MarkInDallas on Jan 15, 2010 4:21 PM EST up reply actions
Seems reasonable
But (there had to be a but):
Biggest red flags to me are in the pitching: I think it’s probably best-case to get 3.4 wins out of Ohlie/Cutch2/Lincoln – I like all those guys, but that’s still a lot of wins out of your 4-6 starters.
As you note, that’s a big breakout for Morton, and no regression from Duke or Maholm. We should be so lucky.
Even though I like the looks of our bullpen, this still seems really optimistic – everyone but ’bauskas a positive contributor?
That said, I like our chances of topping 70 wins – at this point, it seems that several things would have to go wrong for us to lose 100, mostly because we have competent depth behind Jones/Clement and at 2B – between Aki, Crosby (I hope) and Church, we gain something like 5 wins from last season’s roster.
My biggest fear: Clement and Jones both crater, and Pearce fails to respond (if he even makes the roster). That would pretty much undo all the good from the other 3.
hmm
Didn’t Maholm already regress a tad from ‘08? and surely Duke’s bounce back is more his true talent than the 6 ERA version. Give Morton a full seasons worth of starts to average out that Cubbie outing and his projections aren’t such a breakout.
Also, in your hypothetical situation of all of our 1B options failing, is it out of the realm of possibility that Alvarez plays 1B upon his call up, only to return to 3B next year? I know management would not want to de-value him prematurely but we should have our best 9 on the field no matter what. Of course, that scenario would be much more likely to happen if we were in contention to some degree and Pedro clearly showed he was ready for the full-time gig.
I would be absolutely shocked if Alvarez played any 1B in 2010. He won’t have even practiced that position. I also will be pretty shocked if Alvarez is a better hitter than our other 1B/RF options in 2010. I think there’s a very good chance he will hit worse than all of them in 2010.
On Maholm, he actually had a lower FIP in 2009 (3.83), which was the lowest of his career. It turns out he was also pitching hurt in 2009, so I look for him to be better in 2010.
I’m not really worried about Zach Duke too much. I think he can put up around a 4.25 FIP like 2009. The defense behind him is what is going to be the question mark. If Jones is at 1B, we’re going to have some excellent outfield defense. The infield defense has a lot of questions. It could be average or poor depending on what combination is being used and how Clement and Alvarez do at fielding their positions.
by MarkInDallas on Jan 15, 2010 1:53 AM EST up reply actions
Maholm didn't really regress last year.
Peripherals were pretty close to static – down half a K per nine, and a third of a HR. On the whole, that actually works out to a .30 drop in his FIP. His year just looked like a regression because he had a higher BABIP (without anything to justify it – LD% was flat as a table).
If we run through three different 1B options, after having given all three extended trials at the position, we probably won’t have much season left for Alvarez to play 1B, even if they were inclined to do that. And if they needed an option for just a couple of weeks, Myrow would probably get the job done acceptably.
I was wondering who was next on the list in AAA, and whether he was more than a scrub. Yeah, Myrow would be OK.
What worries me about 1B is that any of those guys having solid seasons would represent exceeded expectations/projections. I mean, you can argue why any of them might, but none of them have done it before – 150 solid games at 1B at a high level.
Well, in fairnes...
…none of them have ever had the opportunity to do so, either. None has ever come into a season as an incumbent starter, not even once.
I'm not thinking about 100+ losses anymore,
and most certainly not the possibility of 110 defeats that we discussed a few months ago.
I like how things are shaping up with the pitching and some veteran depth among the everyday players.
We’ll have another losing season, but hopefully not more than 90-95 losses.
Thanks for doing this, saved me some work.
I like this approach and used a similar one on Bill James’ projections a few months ago. The results were similar: about 74 wins after I deducted pitchers hitting. A minor critique is that I think replacement-level for a team is generally defined to be a 30% winning percentage, or 48.6 wins in 162 games. How did you get 47.1 wins as replacement? Does it have to do with the NL being worse, or was it just a mistake?
For doubters about the usefullness of WAR, here are two studies (one by BtB and one of my own) that show that WAR correlates pretty strongly with actual teams wins:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/9/18/1035183/team-war-vs-actual-wins
http://www.sabermetrica.com/research/war-predicting-wins
Those of course are for WAR after the fact though and not projected WAR, but the relationship holds as long as the prediction system is decent.
The bottom line is that this is not likely to be the terrible team that many have predicted. They appear to be a run of the mill bad team, so if they over-perform they could break .500 and if they underperform they could only be in the high 60s or so in wins.
Tango set replacement level at 47.4 wins. That goes for both NL and AL, as the difference in league strength is in wins above replacement rather than replacement level. I misremembered 47.4 as 47.1, which is where that figure came from. I should have doublechecked before I posted. But of course, replacement level is theoretical, so there’s no way to determine before the season what the replacement level will be during the season. Anywhere from 45-50 is very realistic. On top of that, of course, the individual projection systems will be working with a projection for league average (and thus a projected relationship between average and replacement), which in addition to the variance inherent in player projection adds another level of variance for team projections. All of which is to say that though our best guess for the 2010 Pirates should be about 77 wins (assuming a Dotel signing in addition to Donnelly and Carrasco) with a +/-3 win variance in true-talent level. So, like you say, they’re just a run-of-the-mill bad team (74-80 wins), though they could end up better or worse than that based on over- or under-performance or good or bad luck.
Here’s Tango’s discussion of WAR and replacement level:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/how_to_calculate_war/
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