Steamer releases 2016 Pirates projections

2016 Steamer projections have been released on FanGraphs, and there are a number of interesting projections for Pirates players. Warning: These are projections! Your mileage may vary!

-P- Unsurprisingly, Andrew McCutchen projects as the Pirates' best player, with 5.7 fWAR, followed by Gerrit Cole (4.1), Francisco Liriano (3.5) and Starling Marte (3.5).

-P- Neil Walker is projected to be worth 2.4 fWAR, more than justifying the approximately $11 million he'll likely command through arbitration.

-P- Gregory Polanco projects to hit .263/.327/.401, improving upon his 2015 offensive numbers but losing value overall due to declines in his baserunning and defense. I'll take the over on his projected 1.6 fWAR.

-P- Michael Morse is listed at .248/.306/.401 and slightly below replacement level. Josh Bell, meanwhile, projects to hit .275/.332/.395, which would be a big improvement on Morse as long as Bell's defense is halfway reasonable.

-P- Steamer doesn't like Mark Melancon's chances of continuing to dominate -- it thinks his K/9 and BB/9 will continue to get worse, leading to a projected 3.30 ERA. Actually, though, Steamer thinks a lot of key pitchers are ticketed for big steps backwards in their ERA, which to some degree might reflect the fact that projection systems still don't really know what to do with the Pirates' program of framing and defensive shifts. Pirates pitchers have easily outperformed their fielding-independent numbers in the past few years.

-P- Tyler Glasnow over 200 innings (which, obviously, he won't get): 202 strikeouts, 91 walks, 3.87 ERA.

-P- Relievers Steamer thinks would probably be pretty good: John Holdzkom, Joe Blanton, Radhames Liz, and, uh, Jose Contreras and Duke Welker, which kind of shows why you need to take these projections with a grain of salt for players with limited recent track records.