More upside or downside for 2023?

[Frobby]

I’m curious what people think about whether each of our players has more upside or downside for 2023 compared to last year?  Here are my votes.  (U = upside, D = downside, E = even)

Mountcastle - U

Mateo - U (offense)

Urias - U (health and offense)

Henderson - U (playing time and offense)

Hays - U (offense)

Mullins - E

Santander - D

Rutschman - U (playing time and offense)

Stowers - U

Vavra - U

McKenna - E

Kremer - D (ERA worse, but more innings)

Bradish - U (ERA and innings)

Voth - D

Wells - E

Gibson - U

Bautista - E

Tate - E

Perez - D

Baker - U

Hall - U (ERA and innings)

Krehbiel - D

Akin - D

Watkins - D

Overall, I think our offense has more upside than downside.   Unfortunately, I think there’s more downside on the pitching side.

What are your thoughts?

 

[RZNJ]

I think you did a good job.    I think I agree with every one.  The only one I would question is super minor.   Krehbiel.   I would say E on him.  Could go either way.

[interloper]

I might go even on Santander just because his 2022 seems like the type of season he should put up. But I would understand having downside if you think he's injury prone or that his plate discipline won't stick.

Otherwise yeah basically nailed it.

[Frobby]

My one reservation about my grades is that I think the offense will suffer more injuries in 2023 than in 2022, I just don’t know who it will be.  It’s tempting to dock Hays and Santander for that, given their track records, but my view is that injuries are more often random events than signs that particular players are “injury prone.”

[now]

Hard to argue with your individual grades. BTW they total 12 U, 7 D, which looks promising. 

MLB.com just ran a feature on teams with most gains in one season, with 12 of the 13 regressing the following year. But they're pretty open ended assessing this team. 

It's interesting to note, from their team summaries, that a lot of the big gains came from contributions of one or two key players. Can't say that was the case for us, since even Rutschman didn't play a full season. Maybe Bautista on the pitching side.

Overall, I'd say we're ripe for some individual breakout seasons in '23, along with a slight gain teamwise. 

Edited December 10, 2022 by now

[Aristotelian]

I'd give Mateo, Urias, and Hays all E. I think we have pretty much seen what they can do. I'd give Santander E as well. Aside from injury risk he's been pretty consistent.

I'd give Baker an E. He had a good year, I don't see much room for improvement unless he takes a big leap into Devin Williams territory and I don't see that happening. Could just as easily go the other way. Fangraphs projects him with 3.62 ERA vs 3.42 last year.

[Yardball85]

36 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m curious what people think about whether each of our players has more upside or downside for 2023 compared to last year?  Here are my votes.  (U = upside, D = downside, E = even)

Mountcastle - U

Mateo - U (offense)

Urias - U (health and offense)

Henderson - U (playing time and offense)

Hays - U (offense)

Mullins - E

Santander - D

Rutschman - U (playing time and offense)

Stowers - U

Vavra - U

McKenna - E

Kremer - D (ERA worse, but more innings)

Bradish - U (ERA and innings)

Voth - D

Wells - E

Gibson - U

Bautista - E

Tate - E

Perez - D

Baker - U

Hall - U (ERA and innings)

Krehbiel - D

Akin - D

Watkins - D

Overall, I think our offense has more upside than downside.   Unfortunately, I think there’s more downside on the pitching side.

What are your thoughts?

 

Great post.  I agree on all except Hays, who I think kind of is what he is at this point.  I'd give him an E. 

[Jim'sKid26]

I like this line of thought, @Frobby. This is a cool thread. Thanks.

So there are some changes happening in the rules in 2023. The larger bases and the pitch clock should help teams with good overall speed. Mullins, Mateo and maybe Hayes could benefit. There may be others.

The shift ban with help the LH hitters a bit. So Mullins, Santander, Adley, Gunnar and whomever the DH/COF is they add.

Will Adley hit as well when he's catches 115-120. 

Why do we think Mountcastle will improve? Does the two headed hitting coach has a pitch selection improvement elixir?

If Hayes plays less is he more or less effective?

Why would Kremer get worse but Bradish get better?

Not trying to shoot holes in this but just responding to the OP>

[waroriole]

I have some disagreements here. I don’t see much upside for Mateo. We’ve seen his best defensively and there’s no reason to think his plate discipline will improve over last year  

Mountcastle - U but limited with no plate discipline and big LF  

Mateo - D

Urias - E 

Henderson - U 

Hays - E

Mullins - U

Santander - E

Rutschman - U 

Stowers - U

Vavra - E

McKenna - E

Kremer - D 

Bradish - U

Voth - D

Wells - E

Gibson - U (compared to Lyles?)

Bautista - E

Tate - D

Perez - D

Baker - U

Hall - U (but mostly a wildcard)

Krehbiel - E

Akin - D

Watkins - D

[Spy Fox]

9 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Why do we think Mountcastle will improve? Does the two headed hitting coach has a pitch selection improvement elixir?

Why would Kremer get worse but Bradish get better?

I agreed on these two. For Mountcastle it's because 2022 was the worst of his three seasons so far-- and not for totally wall-related reasons. If I recall he and Mancini both showed up on some leaderboards of unlucky hitters. Not sure if he'll hit 33 HRs again in new Camden, but I think he's more likely to bounce back than to keep declining. 

Peripherals say that Kremer was worse than the results showed and Bradish was better than the results showed. There's also the fact that Bradish ended the year very strong, and Kremer was real bad in '21 as factors in the data set. (I personally think Kremer is likely to be better than Bradish again, but I do think there's more year-over-year upside for Bradish.)

My disagreements with the OP were Bautista (Upside on SV count, but I see more downside in terms of his overall #s. Worried he could easily have more control flare-ups than we saw last year.) and Mateo (I agree with waroriole above that he might be more downside. Yes he has some skills that could take him to the next level, but he also profiles as a guy who might have just had the best season of his career.)

[Slight Upward Arc]

I’m very intrigued with Wells. I like his intensity. Peripherals are uneven for him, but he visibly wore down the second half of last season. If he can maintain the strength and focus from the first half, I could see him having a really nice year. I could equally envision him being a bullpen piece eventually. Nice list Frobby.

[Aristotelian]

13 minutes ago, Slight Upward Arc said:

I’m very intrigued with Wells. I like his intensity. Peripherals are uneven for him, but he visibly wore down the second half of last season. If he can maintain the strength and focus from the first half, I could see him having a really nice year. I could equally envision him being a bullpen piece eventually. Nice list Frobby.

The key thing for Wells is his K rate. I don't think he can sustain success with K rate in the 6's. Either his K rate will normalize, or his ERA will. I also think he may be a better fit for bullpen.

[MarCakes21]

@Frobby have you cross referenced your predictions with fan graphs /zips/steamer to see how they feel about the team upside and improvement? Would be interesting to see how bullish other projection sources are on some bounce backs and regression

[Frobby]

58 minutes ago, Slight Upward Arc said:

I’m very intrigued with Wells. I like his intensity. Peripherals are uneven for him, but he visibly wore down the second half of last season. If he can maintain the strength and focus from the first half, I could see him having a really nice year. I could equally envision him being a bullpen piece eventually. Nice list Frobby.

Welcome to the board.  Great screen name!  Is that a reference to the bat path, or the path of the team?

[btdart20]

1 hour ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

Why do we think Mountcastle will improve? Does the two headed hitting coach has a pitch selection improvement elixir?

His HH% and EV was pretty high in 2022.  But his BA wasn’t.  If you look on Baseballsavant at his percentile rankings for batted balls, he’s in the 80 and 90th percentile for the majority of the “expected” stats.  All of that means he hit the ball hard but it just didn’t find holes.  He may never match his 2021 HR total but he should find a few more holes in LF for some hits and doubles.  OBP will likely be bad still since he can’t take a walk.