Fangraphs’ team positional rankings

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

No one cares.  Except us.  And we're not surprised.

 

[FanSince88]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

Fangraphs has started a daily post on positional rankings at the different positions.    I guess nobody is surprised that the Orioles were ranked 30th at 1B yesterday, with Davis occupying the position.    But I was somewhat surprised to see the O’s also ranked 30th at 2B today.    They’re projecting us at a collective 1.0 fWAR at 2B, led by Villar at 0.9.    

I wonder if we can go 9 for 9?   Hard to believe the other positions will be much better than 2B.

I’ll update the OP as they go along:

1B — 30th https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-positional-power-rankings-first-base/

2B — 30th https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-positional-power-rankings-second-base/

So in the blurb about 2B, they keep referring to Jonathan Villar as an "average" second baseman (both defensively and offensively).  Yet the Orioles are ranked dead last at 2B.  

All I can say is...

 

[jabba72]

Anyone still think we'll win 70 games this year?

[sevastras]

10 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

#1 draft pick.

Dylan Crews-Lake Mary HS

[sportsfan8703]

14 hours ago, makoman said:

Villar could easily play around 100 games, getting around 371 plate appearances, then get traded. Haven't checked this year, last year we played our 107th game on July 31st.

This is hilarious to laugh at but projecting Villar for only 371 PA is a joke. Yes, he will likely be traded, but they aren’t projecting that for every other player. We could’ve been 19th or something. Haha

[Frobby]

Wow, 3B is a strong position these days:  Ramirez, Bregman, Bryant, Turner, Machado, Rendon, Chapman, Arenado, Donaldson, Guerrero.

[Just Regular]

Back in 30th for catcher, though it must go to an extra decimal point to distinguish our 1.2 from Seattle and Oakland (I guess we can scrutinize the Japan games to see if maybe we're better than those guys).

It's a fairly hot take their Depth Charts guys have a 60/40 split in Wynns's favor over Sisco.

[Ohfan67]

4 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

This is hilarious to laugh at but projecting Villar for only 371 PA is a joke. Yes, he will likely be traded, but they aren’t projecting that for every other player. We could’ve been 19th or something. Haha

I don't know how Baseball Reference does their projections, but they are far more optimistic regarding Villar

Projections

• Glossary

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2019	Proj.	28	501	449	58	116	20	2	14	47	31	8	44	134	.258	.327	.405	.733	182	8	3	3	2	1	84%

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Wow, 3B is a strong position these days:  Ramirez, Bregman, Bryant, Turner, Machado, Rendon, Chapman, Arenado, Donaldson, Guerrero.

The Orioles are ranked 29th and project to 1.8 wins.  Two is about an average major leaguer in full time play.  For this series of articles to make sense there are going to have to be several positions where the average player (at that position) is well below average overall.  

That's not catchers, which came out today.  The Orioles are again #30, but at 1.2 wins.  The median team catching value is 2.4 wins.  At second the median player is 2.5 wins.  At third it's almost 3.0.  At first it's 1.7.  There are going to have to be several more like first, or worse.  Unless this is Lake Wobegon, where all the kids are above average.

[25 Nuggets]

This thread is golden.

[DrungoHazewood]

Just now, Ohfan67 said:

I don't know how Baseball Reference does their projections, but they are far more optimistic regarding Villar

Projections

• Glossary

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2019	Proj.	28	501	449	58	116	20	2	14	47	31	8	44	134	.258	.327	.405	.733	182	8	3	3	2	1	84%

I think most of these systems, with the exception of Baseball Prospectus that uses comparables, just does a weighted average of the last X seasons with some aging sprinkled on top.  The variables are how many seasons to go back, and if the weighting is 4-3-2-1 or something else.  Villar had a very poor 2017 and a very good 2016, so how they do weighting would have a pretty big impact.

[Aristotelian]

12 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The Orioles are ranked 29th and project to 1.8 wins.  Two is about an average major leaguer in full time play.  For this series of articles to make sense there are going to have to be several positions where the average player (at that position) is well below average overall.  

That's not catchers, which came out today.  The Orioles are again #30, but at 1.2 wins.  The median team catching value is 2.4 wins.  At second the median player is 2.5 wins.  At third it's almost 3.0.  At first it's 1.7.  There are going to have to be several more like first, or worse.  Unless this is Lake Wobegon, where all the kids are above average.

WAR is above replacement, not above average. Replacement means a AAAA guy. Average should definitely be a game or two better than that.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

WAR is above replacement, not above average. Replacement means a AAAA guy. Average should definitely be a game or two better than that.

I'm well aware of that.  Fangraphs is projecting the median third baseman to be worth almost three wins above replacement.  By definition the league median in WAR should be about 2.0.  So by their projections 3B are going to be much more valuable than an average position. As are catchers and second basemen.

[Ohfan67]

Looking at Wins Above Average by position for last year was very fun/extremely depressing. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/team_compare.cgi

The Orioles were near the bottom at every position except SS, but of course that was due to Machado. The whole team really did stink...no surprise, I know. I was thinking about where the Orioles might see some improvement.  As others have noted, catcher and 2B were two positions where the Orioles at least had six or more teams worse than they were. I could see catcher being about the same, maybe a little better if the O's get lucky. 2B could be about the same or maybe a little better. I don't think Villar will hit as well as he did with the O's last season, but Schoop was pretty bad and about 120 PA's went to a relatively long list of blah players. Hopefully the OF is "significantly" better. The OF as a whole was third worse (I could have used "hole" and it would have been accurate). They really have to get Mancini out of LF. The O's sucked at DH last year. If Trumbo actually plays a good bit (I'm skeptical that he will be healthy at all this year...I see him starting the year on the injured list or whatever it is called now and then going back on the list a little later in the season, rinse and repeat), then they may be better...but Davis could spend some time at DH. It doesn't look like there will be much room for improvement at 3B...maybe a little. 

 

Where do you guys think the O's will improve? 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, OrioleDog said:

Back in 30th for catcher, though it must go to an extra decimal point to distinguish our 1.2 from Seattle and Oakland (I guess we can scrutinize the Japan games to see if maybe we're better than those guys).

It's a fairly hot take their Depth Charts guys have a 60/40 split in Wynns's favor over Sisco.

Updated the OP.    At this point I’m disappointed that they ranked us 29th at 3B.    We’d be just a SS away from a clean sweep in the infield!