Given the less-than-pleasant weather in the Pacific Northwest, thoughts of warm days at T-Mobile Park seem like years, not months, away.
Spring training, which starts after Valentine’s Day with pitchers, catchers and players participating in the World Baseball Classic reporting to the Mariners’ complex in Peoria, Arizona, can’t come soon enough.
Until then, an unbearable span of just under four weeks, there isn’t much for Mariners fans to fill their baseball desires.
The hope of a trade for Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds seems more like a dream than a reality. Any future free-agent signings from the picked-over pool of players, one of which came Thursday with the addition of veteran infielder Tommy La Stella on a one-year contract, was met with shrugs and “should’ve been someone else” rather than any excitement.
Beyond that, the next best substitute comes from the annual release of preseason prospects lists and computer-generated performance projections.
On Wednesday, the annual ZiPS projections from FanGraphs and its creator Dan Szymborski were released for the Mariners. The popular website for baseball statheads is releasing a different team each day with the projections for individual players before releasing the win-loss projections for each team.
How does ZiPS work?
Per Szymborski: “ZiPS uses growth and decline curves based on player type to find trends. It then factors those trends into the past performance of those players to come up with projections. The system uses statistics from the previous four years for players from ages 24-38, and it weights more recent seasons heavier. For younger or older players, it uses weighted statistics from only the previous three years. The system also factors velocities, injury data and play-by-play data into its equations.
Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners president of baseball operations, was asked on his weekly radio show on Seattle Sports 710 about the ZiPS projections and other systems such as Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections and “Steamer,” which was developed by a high-school science teacher named Jared Cross and two of his then-students Dash Davidson and Peter Rosenbloom.
While the Mariners have their own in-house projection systems, does Dipoto look at any of the third-party projections? Does have a preference?
“We really value it, particularly the projection system FanGraphs uses, which I think is among the most sophisticated in what is available on the internet,” he said. “We do our own and we value it highly like 29 other teams. We are building a team and we are building in anticipation of what our return might be. And fairly or unfairly, we will look at those ZiPS projections.”
A year ago, ZiPs projected the Mariners to win 80 games, prior to the spring-training trade that landed Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez. They won 90 games and ended the postseason drought. Going into the 2021 season, the Mariners were projected to win 73 games and won 90 in a season that defied baseball and statistical logic.
“If you look back a year ago today when our ZiPS projections came out for the 2022 season, effectively we’ve upgraded at eight positions, including the bullpen, year over year,” Dipoto said. “This year the improvement was pretty significant and mostly in line with the way we projected it.”
But not identical.
“We were off on a couple of guys. Some guys, we see with more potential or upside for this season than the systems do,” Dipoto said. “Like I’ve mentioned before, those systems need major league performance to project major league performance. And we tend to use something that’s a little more geared toward the player and of the traits that each player embodies, whether it’s physical stuff, it’s power, it’s swing decisions and some of the things we’ve talked about through the years. So we rely on our stuff a little more, but I think the FanGraphs product is about as good as it gets for what’s available to the public.”
It’s important to note, as Szymborski wrote: “the basic ZiPS projections are not playing-time predictors. By design, ZiPS has no idea who will actually play in the majors in 2021. ZiPS is essentially projecting equivalent production; a batter with a .240 projection may “actually” have a .260 Triple-A projection or a .290 Double-A projection.”
Here’s a look at 2023 ZiPs projections for the key contributors. As expected, Julio Rodriguez and Luis Castillo are projected to be the Mariners’ top performers.
Position players
- Julio Rodriguez, CF: 5.0 WAR, 588 PAs, .270/.337/.484, 24 2Bs, 3 3Bs, 28 HRs, 89 runs, 90 RBI, 46 BBs, 146 Ks, 27 SBs
- Ty France, 1B: 3.2 WAR, 618 PAs, .273/.345/.433, 29 2Bs, 19 HRs, 75 runs, 81 RBI, 39 BBs, 102 Ks
- J.P. Crawford, SS: 2.8 WAR, 624 PAs, .25 0/.334/ .354, 29 2Bs, 2 3Bs, 8 HRs, 71 runs, 55 RBI, 64 BBs, 96 Ks
- Cal Raleigh, C: 2.4 WAR, 446 PAs, .222/.285/.449, 24 2Bs, 22 HRs, 48 runs, 68 RBI, 34 BBs, 120 Ks
- Kolten Wong, 2B: 2.4 WAR, 485 PAs, .249/.324/.393, 22 2Bs, 2 3Bs, 12 HRs, 61 runs, 50 RBI, 37 BBs, 86 Ks, 14 SB
- Eugenio Suarez, 3B: 2.1 WAR, 597 PAs, .209/.302/.413, 20 2Bs, 28 HRs, 66 runs, 78 RBI, 63 BBs, 185 Ks
- Teoscar Hernandez, RF: 2.0 WAR, 578 PAs, .253/.308/.462, 22 2Bs, 29 HR, 78 runs, 86 RBI, 38 BBs, 155 Ks
- Jarred Kelenic, LF: 0.9 WAR, 558 PAs, .223/.290/.419, 27 2Bs, 3 3Bs, 22 HR, 71 runs, 76 RBI, 44 BBs, 142 Ks, 11 SB
- AJ Pollock, DH/LF: 0.3 WAR, 432 PAs, .246/.296/.406, 20 2Bs, 14 HR, 49 runs, 48 RBI, 26 BBs, 91 Ks
- Tom Murphy, C: 1.6 WAR, 269 PAs, .228/.312/.392, 9 2Bs, 10 HR, 29 runs, 31RBI, 29 BBs, 83 Ks
- Dylan Moore, IF/OF: 1.4 WAR, 335 PAs, .218/.329/.386 14 2Bs, 2 3Bs, 10 HR, 33 runs scored, 36 RBI, 37 BBs, 98 Ks, 20 SB
- Sam Haggerty, OF: 0.4 WAR, 351 PAs, .224/.296/.339, 14 2Bs, 2 3Bs, 6 HR, 46 runs, 37 RBI, 28 BB, 96 Ks, 19 SBs
Rotation
- Luis Castillo, RHP: 4.2 WAR, 29 starts, 171 2/3 IP, 11-6 record, 2.99 ERA, 177 Ks, 23 BBs
- Robbie Ray, LHP: 2.5 WAR, 29 starts, 167 1/3 IP, 11-9 record, 3.82 ERA, 195 Ks, 58 BBs
- Logan Gilbert, RHP: 3.0 WAR, 30 starts, 174 2/3 IP, 10-8 record, 3.66 ERA, 164 Ks, 49 BBs
- George Kirby, RHP: 2.5 WAR, 28 starts, 136 2/3 IP, 8-6 record, 3.56 ERA, 132 Ks, 27 BBs
- Marco Gonzales, LHP: 1.3 WAR, 27 starts, 155 2/3 IP, 10-11 record, 4.39 ERA, 98 Ks, 43 BBs
Bullpen
- Paul Sewald, RHP: 0.4 WAR, 57 appearances, 5-4 record, 3.77 ERA, 72 Ks, 18 BBs
- Andres Munoz, RHP: 1.5 WAR, 64 appearances, 64 1/3 IP, 5-3 record, 2.80 ERA, 97 Ks, 23 BBs
- Matt Brash, RHP: 1.2 WAR, 44 appearances, 79 1/3 IP, 5-4 record, 3.63 ERA, 99 Ks, 42 BBs
- Diego Castillo, RHP: 0.7 WAR, 60 appearances, 56 2/3 IP, 6-4 record, 3.49 ERA, 62 Ks, 21 BBs
- Matt Festa, RHP: 0.3 WAR, 48 appearances, 51 IP, 2-1 record, 3.71 ERA, 59 Ks, 17 BBs
- Penn Murfee, RHP: 0.7 WAR, 48 appearances, 80 1/3 IP, 4-4 record, 4.03 ERA, 86 Ks, 27 BBs
- Trevor Gott, RHP: 0.3 WAR, 45 appearances, 45 2/3 IP, 3-4 record, 3.94 ERA, 45 Ks, 14 BBs
- Chris Flexen, RHP: 1.3 WAR, 22 starts, 8 relief appearances, 132 IP, 8-8 record, 4.23 ERA, 97 Ks, 43 BBs
How close were the ZiPs individual projections in 2022? Here’s a look at a few key players from last season:
Julio Rodriguez
2022 Projection: 3.3 WAR, 411 plate appearances, .282/.341/.465 slash line, 19 2Bs, 16 HR, 56 runs scored, 51 RBI, 15 SBs
2022 Production: 5.3 WAR, 560 plate appearances, .284/.345/.509, 25 2Bs, 28 HRs, 84 runs scored, 75 RBI, 25 SBs
Ty France
2022 Projection: 3.2 WAR, 640 PAs, .282/.356/.455, 31 2Bs, 21 HRs, 84 runs scored, 83 RBI
2022 Production: 2.4 WAR, 613 PAs, .274/.338/.436, 27 2Bs, 20 HRs, 64 runs scored, 83 RBI
J.P. Crawford
2022 Projection: 2.6 WAR, 653 PAs, .260/.329/.379, 31 2Bs, 11 HRs, 80 runs scored, 57 RBI
2022 Production: 2.0 WAR, 603 PAs, .243/.339/.336, 24 2Bs, 6 HRs, 57 runs scored, 42 RBI
Paul Sewald
2022 Projection: 0.5 WAR, 58 appearances, 6-5 record, 3.82 ERA, 63 2/3 IP, 88 Ks, 22 BBs
2022 Production: 0.5 WAR, 65 appearances, 5-4 record, 2.67 ERA, 64 IP, 72 Ks, 17 BBs