Project the Pirates' offense in 2013: An interactive tool

With the publication of the ZiPS for the 2013 Pirates on Fangraphs.com, it is officially projection season for Pirates fans.

Below is a tool that allows you to calculate the weighted Runs Created for the 2013 Pirates based on three scenarios: A player 1. repeating his 2012 offensive performance; 2. meeting his ZiPS projection; 3. meeting his Bill James projection.

How It Works

Simply type in the number of plate appearances you project for each player listed under the "Est. PA" column. You should aim to get the total plate appearances for the team as close to 6100 as possible.

The three columns next to plate appearances (dark grey) are the wOBA (weighted On Base Average) averages for each player. In order the wOBAs are: actual 2012 wOBA / ZiPS projected wOBA / Bill James projected wOBA. If you are unfamiliar with wOBA, think OPS, but better. wOBA is scaled to OBP, so what looks like a good OBP is a good wOBA. (For more on wOBA go here.) If you want to change the wOBA projections for a player you can.

The three columns next to wOBA (yellow) are wRC (weighted Runs Created). wRC is total runs created and it is based off of wOBA. As you change the plate appearances or wOBA for each player, you will change the number of runs he creates.

At the bottom of the table the team wRC is calculated for each projection. It represents a projection of the total runs that the 2013 Pirates will score based on plate appearances and wOBA.

(The "Replacement" row is a catchall for players that are not listed. If there is a player missing that you think should be included in the list, let me know and I will update the tool.)

What's Next

In the days ahead I'm going to try to construct a similar calculator for the pitchers so we can get projections for runs allowed.

Also, I will provide a Pythagorean Wins calculator so that we can calculate expected wins based on projected runs scored and allowed.

wRC Calculator

The Pirates team wRC in 2012 was 627. They scored 651 actual runs.

EDIT: Thanks to Wizard of Woz for this helpful rule of thumb.

From Fangraphs

Rating wRC
Excellent 120
Great 100
Above Average 80
Average 60
Below Average 55
Poor 50
Awful 40

Consider following me on Twitter @DavidManel and Bucdugout.com @Bucsdugout

All of the wOBA and plate appearance data came from Fangraphs.com