Selected ZiPS WAR projections, 2024-26

[Frobby]

The player pages on Fsngraphs now have ZiPS projections for each of the next three years, and I thought I’d just post a few of our younger players here:

Rutschman 5.2, 5.0, 5.0

Henderson 4.8, 4.7, 4.8

Holliday 2.9, 3.1, 3.4

Westburg 2.8, 2.7, 2.6

Mayo 2.3, 2.4, 3.2

Kjerstad 1.5, 1.3, 1.0

Cowser 1.7, 1.6, 1.7

For 2024, these all assume a full year in the big leagues, which obviously may not be the case for some of these guys.

 

[Billy F-Face3]

Interesting to see how high Westburg is listed there. They have him basically on parr with the #1 prospect in baseball.

[clapdiddy]

I definitely expect more WAR from Henderson and Holliday...and maybe not as much from Adley.  

[Greg Pappas]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

The player pages on Fsngraphs now have ZiPS projections for each of the next three years, and I thought I’d just post a few of our younger players here:

Rutschman 5.2, 5.0, 5.0

Henderson 4.8, 4.7, 4.8

Holliday 2.9, 3.1, 3.4

Westburg 2.8, 2.7, 2.6

Mayo 2.3, 2.4, 3.2

Kjerstad 1.5, 1.3, 1.0

Cowser 1.7, 1.6, 1.7

For 2024, these all assume a full year in the big leagues, which obviously may not be the case for some of these guys.

 

Thanks for this.  You know, I'll occasionally look at WAR and think that Player A, who has a higher WAR than Player B, means Player A, by that one metric at least, is the better player.  And then I recall it is position-based.  Therefore, Rutschman with a 5.2 WAR at catcher is not necessarily a better player than than a 4.8 WAR Gunnar at SS.   However, I'd be interested to know whether there is a WAR-based metric that factors in the differences in positions.  

[Frobby]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:56 PM, Billy F-Face3 said:

Interesting to see how high Westburg is listed there. They have him basically on parr with the #1 prospect in baseball.

Well, he is like 5 years older.  Also, those projections for Holliday are pretty pedestrian. 

[Aristotelian]

21 WAR from those players alone. We would need about 6 WAR more from the rest of the offense to match last year's production. 

[Just Regular]

Some of the fun of Jackson Holliday is just watching the tools like ZiPS not exactly know what to do with him.

I'd posted that James Holzhauer gambling story the other day where he celebrated his Ryan Howard to lead MLB in HR prop bet win, and suggested undervalued longshots as a profit center to mine.     It isn't an entertainment I partake of, but in that spirit I feel like a Prop for "Jackson Holliday to win 2024 AL Batting Title" could return value.

Fangraphs Depth Charts only forecast Yordan, Yoshida, Seager and Bichette to hit .290 in the 2024 AL.     It doesn't feel impossible that Holliday will arrive fully formed, lace his singles even off of Griffin Canning and Michael Wacha, and hit .306 or something.

Or sharpen his skills with that wicked Norfolk live batting practice, etc.

[Just Regular]

The DT's include six-year mean projections, and here's an assortment of 2024-2029 readouts (6-year WAR total beginning with 2024) on the players upcoming AL championships will go through:

35-40 WAR: Soto, Julio, Yordan, Judge, Adley

25-32 WAR: Seager, Tucker, Bichette, Gunnar, Volpe, Holliday, Carter, Vlad

18-21 WAR: Paredes, Bregman, Altuve, Basallo, Semien, Mayo

14-16 WAR: Caminero, Cowser, Mullins, Jung, Arozarena

Others surveyed: Westburg 13, Langford 11, Kjerstad 6.    The DT's still like Cowser and are out on the older, hackier Kjerstad.    I think that Langford is too low, but his pro track record is small.

Soto, Vlad, Bo - should you stay, or should you go?   

 

[waroriole]

Interesting they project Gunnar has peaked. 

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, waroriole said:

Interesting they project Gunnar has peaked. 

How do you figure that?

[Frobby]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:58 PM, clapdiddy said:

I definitely expect more WAR from Henderson and Holliday...and maybe not as much from Adley.  

I think there’s a very good chance that Adley has another gear we haven’t seen yet.  

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think there’s a very good chance that Adley has another gear we haven’t seen yet.  

I just hope that gear isn't neutral.

[Frobby]

11 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I just hope that gear isn't neutral.

Turbo.

[luismatos4prez]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:56 PM, Billy F-Face3 said:

Interesting to see how high Westburg is listed there. They have him basically on parr with the #1 prospect in baseball.

I've said this before but there are many teams in baseball where Westburg would be the most exciting young player on the team. And he's an afterthought here. Not that people think badly of him, it's just Adley, Gunnar, and Holliday are objectively more exciting.

It really speaks to the job Mike and co have done.

[Say O!]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:21 PM, Greg Pappas said:

Thanks for this.  You know, I'll occasionally look at WAR and think that Player A, who has a higher WAR than Player B, means Player A, by that one metric at least, is the better player.  And then I recall it is position-based.  Therefore, Rutschman with a 5.2 WAR at catcher is not necessarily a better player than than a 4.8 WAR Gunnar at SS.   However, I'd be interested to know whether there is a WAR-based metric that factors in the differences in positions.  

That is what WAR inherently attempts to do with positional adjustments embedded into the composite metric

Edited February 11 by Say O!