ZIPS on the 2013 Mariners: They Suck
Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projection system is one of the best publicly available forecasting tools available. No system is perfect, and of course teams can perform quite differently than their forecasts — hello, 2012 Orioles — but it’s still important to understand what a good forecasting system expects from a specific group of players. And for most of the Mariners current specific players, ZIPS does not think very favorably.
Focus mostly on the plus and minus stats, as the overall numbers will likely change due to the change in the dimensions affecting how Safeco Field plays. I’d expect most of the hitters to post better numbers, and most of the pitchers to post worse numbers, but all you really should care about is their performance adjusted for league norms and park effects.
For instance, Kendrys Morales is projected for a 115 OPS+, right around what he got last year. That’s not bad. He’d be a roughly league average player when he’s on the field if that forecast is correct, which is about what we pegged him for when the Mariners acquired him. After that, though, the idea of a rejuvenated offense kind of goes away.
Michael Morse is projected for an OPS+ of 103, the same as Kyle Seager and Jesus Montero. ZIPS doesn’t see him aging very well. Meanwhile, the team’s next best projected hitter after Morales and those three — Mike Zunino, who is likely to have a very limited role in the big leagues this year, if he gets there at all. Now, the projection for Zunino is fantastic, calling him a +3 win catcher right now, but that doesn’t do a lot of good for the 2013 Mariners. You should be excited about Zunino’s future, but you were probably already excited about Zunino’s future. That ZIPS likes him a lot as well shouldn’t be a huge surprise.
Behind Zunino, hanging out in the roughly average hitter category, are Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak, Mike Carp, Raul Ibanez, Casper Wells, and Michael Saunders. For Ackley, a decent defensive second baseman, this makes him a pretty solid everyday player and the best position player on the team. For the rest, it suggests that they’re marginal role players at best, as an average bat at a corner position isn’t that valuable unless it is paired with elite defense. Wells and Saunders play good enough defense to be useful, but by and large, it thinks most of these guys aren’t good enough to start on a quality MLB team.
And then there’s the pitching. Oh, the pitching.
Again, the superficial numbers might look okay because the environment is based on a park that drastically deflates run scoring, but look at the ERA- numbers, which measure performance relative to park adjusted league average.
Felix has an ERA- of 79. In other words, still an ace. #1 comp is Greg Maddux. Felix is good.
Iwakuma comes in at 100. Solid average starter. About what you should expect.
Erasmo Ramirez comes in at 109, making him an okay #5 starter. I think he’s probably a little better than this, but it’s worth noting that his pedigree has always been about performance over stuff, and even a performance-only forecast isn’t a big fan.
And then the wheels come off. Blake Beavan is forecast for a 121 ERA-, making him a replacement level pitcher. Hector Noesi is at 132, and if he pitched 130 innings, he’d rack up -1 WAR. No Major League team should be okay with either of these guys in their rotation. Right now, the Mariners have both. Noesi is going to be replaced, but Beavan likely isn’t, and the depth behind him just isn’t there. Hultzen (115 ERA-), Paxton (120 ERA-), and Walker (127 ERA-) aren’t ready, and even the more command oriented Brandon Maurer (124 ERA-) is projected as another replacement level arm for 2013. These kids might have a bright future, but it’s not here yet. Expecting them to come in and turn into quality Major League starting pitchers is simply not realistic.
To be a legitimate contender for the playoffs, a team basically needs to compile 40 WAR, and needs more like 45 to 50 to give themselves a good shot at getting in. Just based on the M’s ZIPS projections and their current depth chart, the team comes in around +26 WAR. If you replace Noesi with an average starter, that puts them at +28 WAR. Maybe you bump them up a bit because you like the young bullpen arms more than the projections, so now you’re at +30 WAR. For comparison, the 2012 Mariners posted a total of +28 WAR.
That’s still not a very good team. The offense isn’t as improved as the Mariners are hoping for, and the pitching looks like it could be a total disaster. There’s some reasons for optimism in the forecasts for Zunino, Ackley, Montero, and Brad Miller (forecast to be nearly a league average player right now, which is kind of interesting), but by and large, ZIPS is unimpressed with the imports the Mariners made this winter, and thinks this team would need a few minor miracles to have a shot at contending in 2013.
The Mariners could outperform their forecasts. These aren’t written in stone tablets, of course. But think of this like a weather forecast. Based on the available information, and what we know about historical patterns, the 2013 Mariners don’t look very good. Prepare for a pretty lousy team, just as you would prepare for rain if the weather guy told you a storm was coming. It might not happen, because there are unpredictable variables that can have a real impact on the team’s outcomes, but the most likely outcomes involve the 2013 Mariners being bad.
Happy Wednesday.
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I don’t think you understand what “misprojected” means. If you have an unweighted coin, the forecast for every flip will be 50-50. Each individual outcome is not a “misprojection” by 50%.
Historically, most teams have generally finished with a range of about +/- eight wins relative to their forecasts. So, a team projected for 75 wins should be expected to fall somewhere between 67-83. That kind of variation is entirely normal, because there are a lot of factors that go into wins and losses that simply can’t be projected ahead of time.
There’s always an outlier who drastically outperforms or underperforms their projection. Last year, there were a few. Just like there’s always someone who wins the lottery. You do enough tests, and you’re going to get someone at the end of a tail. It’s not a forecasting error. It’s just how distribution of outcomes work.
So, the fact that ZIPS thinks the Mariners are terrible doesn’t mean that they will definitely be terrible. It means that their range of probable outcomes is slanted towards the losing side of the spectrum, and it will take far more good luck (2012 Orioles style) to result in a 90 win season than it will for a team with a higher talent base.
I have to say I’m really optimistic about next season. 2014, that is.
That’s the year so many of our talented players are liable to significantly contribute. Hultzen, Paxton, Zunino, Romero, Franklin, Miller, possibly Walker. When we trade Morse and Morales at the deadline we may add a couple more names to that list. I don’t seriously believe either will sign an extension with us. Hopefully at least one of the two is good enough to trade for a decent prospect.
2014’s the year our team might actually hit the 90 win mark. If it happens this year it would mean more than one player had an amazing outlier of a year. This year we should find out which of our current youngsters is worth keeping. Then the next round of prospects comes up and we can begin to really fill out a roster with talented, affordable players and add one or two expensive FA’s to complete the picture.
r-gordon-
The scoreboard is gone for good and replaced by a HD video version in left center… And actually directly where the hand operated scoreboard was is now going to be one of Edgar Martinez’s restaurants where you can rest on the rail of the fence with your burrito and beer, and catch a homer. (Sort of an older folks version of the center field bar/cafe. Could be kinda cool.
djw-
Point taken… But my point was really just that holding to a one-sided point of view and belittling the other point of view was very Coach-like. (Sort of how I view Democrats and Republicans– “same shit, different pile”)
I didn’t see anyone here claiming we’re a sure playoff team and gonna compete for the Division Title. Heck, the lone mention of contending for the 2nd WC berth made me wince a little, and I’m about as optimistic as anyone.
That said, I DO claim that we’re “likely” to be better than last year, even if we didn’t make a single change to our roster, but not by ignoring facts/data– precisely BECAUSE of facts/data. The majority of our team performed well below their norm last season. So it’s reasonable to expect better. And again, that’s BEFORE the offensive “upgrades” to Safeco. And no matter what folks think about him, Morse is an upgrade over much of what we threw into LF last season.
We need more pitching, but if we can figure that out I see no reason why we can’t break the 80 win barrier, which is a positive thing in my book.
I watched a team that lost over 100, watched when we won almost 70, then won 75… I’m certainly not gonna stop watching the team with a chance to get above .500 in wins. I mean, we’re talking about a team that’s had 90+ wins only 5 times since 1977.
(This really is a half full/half empty glass scenario– so one can choose an angle without needing to belittle the opposite take of the same picture… Otherwise all our comments from top to bottom would need be nothing more than “meh”. That was the only point I was hoping to get across. Eponymous wasn’t adding to the conversation at that point, he was taking a jab at other people’s perspectives. Tat for tat.)
For me, the most distressing aspect of the Zips projection is that trades for major league players have done little to help the Mariners. Hopefully, a healthy Smoak will actually start hitting this year and Montero will not be a defensive disaster. Apparently the skill set needed to predict success at the major league level is different than that of selecting for minor league success. In addition, the trades since last season seem more like shuffling deck chairs than attempts to produce a quality product.
Nwade- seriously? That kind of garbage fandom is why the rest of the country sees us as terrible fans. Only “hopping on the bandwagon” when times are good. In Boston they would refer to you as a pink hat. I’m going to invite you to be done now. I’ve been a die hard my whole life and always will be. Through thick and thin. You stick with your team. The last 10 years have sucked. I’m not a fan of the moves we’ve made this offseason and I think I think we are going to be bad again this year. But guess what? I’ll be here next year, with fingers crossed, and a golden trident on my hat.
I’m sorry but when Z came in…I was very optimistic just by the fact that it was addition by subtraction not having Bavasi destroying the team. I thought Z had a plan he put in motion to emphasize defense and pitching early on while rebuilding the decimated lower levels of the organization. I was expecting some minor steps forward this winter building on the foundation that had been set. However what I’ve seen has been nothing short of a joke. None of it seems to make sense. Maybe I just don’t know and they truly were trying to get other players but couldn’t get them to come to Seattle. But the Jaso trade really impacted my thinking and I’ve now turned on Z. It shouldn’t take a decade to turn around a team. Other teams do it faster than the M’s. Time for new blood.
There…I feel a little better.
Ghost – I have two reactions to your post (and I understand where you’re coming from):
1) I moved to Seattle in 1999, and I came from an area where my closest MLB team was the Padres. Suffice it to say that Baseball was not a part of my childhood! But I got here in time for the M’s amazing run, and a new stadium, and it seemed great. I’ve stuck with the team for 13 years, through the good times and into the bad. So don’t think I am simply a short-term “bandwagon-only” fan. My comment was basically that I don’t intend to put myself through torture if the M’s keep churning in last place without improving. Its just not worth it to me to spend my time agonizing over them, until they _after_ start doing better (i.e. their efforts prove to be paying off).
2) I understand the die-hard fan mentality; and there’s nothing wrong with it. BUT you have to realize you’re in the super-minority. Sports is supposed to be exciting and enjoyable. If it isn’t (for ANY reason – be it wins & losses or the personalities involved or even just personal reasons), then its perfectly acceptable to NOT pay attention. You probably find C-SPAN to be boring and unenjoyable – but applying the logic you implied in your comment, we should all pay attention to it no matter how horrible, because its at LEAST as important in our lives as a baseball game! But human psychology just doesn’t work that way. We all choose our priorities and where we want to expend our emotional energies – and who are you (or I) to judge the “right” or “wrong” of someone’s personal priorities?
“Historically, most teams have generally finished with a range of about +/- eight wins relative to their forecasts. So, a team projected for 75 wins should be expected to fall somewhere between 67-83. That kind of variation is entirely normal, because there are a lot of factors that go into wins and losses that simply can’t be projected ahead of time.”
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Thanks for explaining, Dave. Armed with this understanding, I can ignore ZIPS now without a twinge of conscience.
Ghost – One more thing: I don’t think the rest of the country sees us as terrible fans. There are “bandwagon” folks for every franchise, and they all largely behave the same. And from a business-standpoint: If winning didn’t draw more fans (and thus more revenue), many team owners wouldn’t try to field winning teams! Sure, some of them are going for a championship purely out of ego; but there are business reasons behind the desire to win. Repeated winning seasons will usually build and sustain an ongoing revenue-stream that can last a long time. Repeated losing seasons result in reduced attendance and reduced revenues, as we’ve seen. This is true across the country and across sports – Seattle is not special in this regard.
Ignoring projections because they have a normal range of variance is the height of silliness.
Well, for starters, anyone reading and/or contributing to the comments section of baseball blog is….yeah, a die hard. You can’t fool me sir. You are one of us, and while you claim that you will allocate your focus elsewhere, you won’t. As for me I have many other interests and diversions. C-SPAN is not one of them. In fact, I don’t know a single person who just kicks back, puts up their feet and gets relaxes with a little C-SPAN. If you do, then I’m the a**hole who is imagining you chain smoking cigarettes that you have lit with wooden matches struck from the callouses on your feet.
Many sportswriters around the country refer to our fandom as blah. How we really don’t care too much to be bothered. Obviously I don’t agree. But missing the playoffs for 11 straight years will shake off casual fans which leads to decking revenue.
What are we arguing about again?
Ghost – My calloused feet, apparently! And hey, I’m happy to talk about anything less-depressing than our off-season moves! Well, that and watching Dave point out flaws in the logic of other commenters. You’re right, maybe I will stick around here…
Dave – I think that’s unfairly mischaracterizes what various commenters have said.
It’s not that they are ignoring projections because they have a normal range of variance. Almost all of them are actually making projections of how they expect the team will perform, incorporating some concept of a normal range of variance into their projections.
It’s just that they prefer their personal gut-based, unverified and untested projection system to an objective peer-viewed and vetted projection system with known variance.
No Dave, the height of silliness is walking around town with your pants below your underwear.
Ignoring projections because of variance is stupidity, or ignorance if he really doesn’t understand the concepts.
The concept was core in the thinking of the Bavasi regime. That was part of what led them to acquire Spezio, Aurilia, and Vidro, among others. There is as much volatility in veterans as there is in young players. But the volatility for veterans is probably more on the downside than the upside.
But think twice before you say “Aha”, because those trends are already incorporated into ZIPs. ZIPs assumes young players will get better and older players will get worse. And it bases those assumptions on normal variances of those types. And the variances in those rates simply becomes part of the normal variance in ZIPs projections that Dave mentions above.
Is anybody else getting a strong 2005 vibe?
– Four-headed turd (Franklin/Piniero/Meche/Sele) and a strong bullpen.
– Ibanez & Morse combined for 948 PAs (currently projected for about 920).
– M.Saunders =average(R.Winn,J.Reed).
– Debut of awesome rookie pitcher (Felix!).
– 69 wins (currently projected for 67+).
– Much, much more.
But hey, no Scott Spiezio! Yet.
That said, I DO claim that we’re “likely” to be better than last year, even if we didn’t make a single change to our roster, but not by ignoring facts/data– precisely BECAUSE of facts/data. The majority of our team performed well below their norm last season. So it’s reasonable to expect better. And again, that’s BEFORE the offensive “upgrades” to Safeco. And no matter what folks think about him, Morse is an upgrade over much of what we threw into LF last season.
You know, I’d normally point out that projection systems like ZIPS actually incorporate data like past performance here (in a more systematic way than “I’m a Mariners fan and I like GMZ and being optimistic in January, so I’m going to give his team the benefit of the doubt when it comes to talent evaluation over a projection system”), or that Dave actually pointed out things like “I’d expect most of the hitters to post better numbers, and most of the pitchers to post worse numbers, but all you really should care about is their performance adjusted for league norms and park effects.”
But that would be me taking a jab at perspectives, and we all know that all perspectives are equally valid during Spring Training, given that all teams are tied for first place going into Opening Day.
“Ignoring projections because they have a normal range of variance is the height of silliness.”
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Any schmuck on some radio talk show can give you a projection with that wide a variance. Stop pretending that this is some esoteric knowledge.
I have been reading Szymborski’s stuff for 15 years or more, back to the rec.sport.baseball days on Usenet, so don’t tell me I don’t understand it. I repeat, it can be ignored. It has a predictive value of greater than zero, to be sure.
It’s not saying the Mariners suck, anyway. It’s predicting them for between 67 and 83 wins. Fair enough. Dave is the one who says that sucks. That’s his value judgment, and he’s certainly entitled to it. But it’s a value judgment, not a product of statistical analysis.
An improvement, any improvement, over last year’s win totals would be something more than sucking. ZIPS allows for this. It projects up to 83 wins, right? Most people would consider breaking .500 something other than sucking, and I’d venture to say that goes for most people here.
That’s why I can ignore ZIPS. It tells me nothing I don’t already know. If some of you think that’s “silly,” that’s your problem and not mine.
Phew-
Thanks for sparing me having to face reality, Eponymous (ZIPS is reality, right?). Very thoughtful.
If any of you had read a list of the offseason moves by the Mariners but possessed no other information about the club, would you suspect that Z. had been fired and Wedge was now the general manager?
Kind of looks like it to me.
Strangely the projections fill me with some hope. I look at Montero, Ackley and some of the young ones getting better (except Seager, hmmm). Also with the offense, if somebody isn’t getting the job done it will be easier to shift some of the other bats around, so we shouldn’t have any negative WAR this year. (Assuming Wedge doesn’t dig his heels in for struggling vets).
Also what we are really hurting for, starting pitching, there are answers. Sure it would be money and maybe us going over budget, but if I was Z and I saw these ZIPS I’d call Lohse’s agent then Saunder’s agent and just get it done. With those two and not Beaven and Noesi, we should improve by six wins. Both can be easily traded if and when we need to. Maybe Z does a trade instead,
And what it says about Zunino is very exciting along with some of the other AAA players, that they are close.
So while the M’s project to be about 75 wins, the FO should be able to look at that and make a difference before the season starts. Maybe not a playoff team, but an enjoyable one. Just don’t trade the bright future to do it.
What a bold projection. The Mariners are likely to be below .500 unless a lot of their younger players improve. Also, they have some big question marks in the rotation.
I’m glad Dave and ZIPS has provided all of us the certainty that the M’s suck and suck something terrible. ZIPS was only off by 10 wins or more on 10 out of 30 teams last year. That’s 67% within a wide variation of error! I guess I can quit being optimistic!
I can’t wait to see somebody come along and pedantically inform me of the corrected statistical wording for the obvious meaning of my statements too.
Optimists dwell on the Brad Miller projection. Not only is he outside of the M’s top five prospects on almost every list, but MLB didn’t list him among their top 100. Zips (and John Sickels FWIW) feels differently.
Between Seager, Ackley, Franklin, Miller, and the excellent defensive Ryan there’s some real potential competition in the M’s middle infield moving forward.
But my point was really just that holding to a one-sided point of view
Taking a well-designed projection system seriously isn’t “one-sided.” It’s middle-sided. It’s entirely plausible, as many have exhaustively pointed out, that this team could be better than that projection. But it’s also possible–probably roughly equally so–that the team could be notably worse.
That said, I DO claim that we’re “likely” to be better than last year, even if we didn’t make a single change to our roster, but not by ignoring facts/data– precisely BECAUSE of facts/data. The majority of our team performed well below their norm last season. So it’s reasonable to expect better.
Everything you say here is taken into account by any decent projection system, so none of these concerns would be a reason to be suspicious that the projection system is underrating the team. As Dave pointed out, ZIPS is assuming major steps forward for Montero and Ackley and they’re still coming in at 26 WAR.
And again, that’s BEFORE the offensive “upgrades” to Safeco.
To be sure, in the long run, I think moving the park closer to neutral may well help the team, in terms of developing hitters, and convincing hitters to sign or re-sign with the team. But in terms of the personnel they’ve got, the change in the dimensions very likely to be neutral. The assumption that the changes will somehow help our hitters considerably more than it will hurt our pitchers makes very little sense; I’ve certainly never seen it coherently defended.
And no matter what folks think about him, Morse is an upgrade over much of what we threw into LF last season.
Casper Wells had a 1.2 WAR in considerably less playing time than Michael Morse, who provided .3 WAR. The claim that he’ll be an improvement depends on him returning to 2010-2011 levels of offensive production, because otherwise he gives back pretty much all his value with his atrocious defense, as he did last year. The assumption that he’s definitely a noticeable upgrade in LF is precisely the kind of blinkered optimism that projection systems help us avoid: maybe, despite being over 30, Morse will return to his offensive prime, and maybe his defensive shortcomings will be minimized by the field’s configuration and his fellow outfielders, but to assume this is the most likely scenario would be bad forecasting.
I’m certainly not gonna stop watching the team with a chance to get above .500 in wins.
Where is this coming from? Who said anything about not watching? I’ll plunk down for extra innings and watch, and hope for the best, like I always do and like I’ve done with much, much more hopeless M’s teams. Being a realist doesn’t mean giving up or ignoring the team.
djw-
But singling out Casper Wells’ stats to compare to Morse doesn’t take into account the negative of Robinson, Peguero, Carp, and anyone else we hid out there.
(Nor does it take into account that most of his value was in CF– Morse and Wells played roughly the same number of games in LF– Morse played 10 more– and while Wells’ Total Zone Runs Above Average was -3, Morse’s was +5. Range factor was- Wells 1.9, Morse 1.5.. So, closer than you might think.)
For whatever reason, Wells was the OF version of Jaso in Wedge’s eyes so it’s not like a full season of Wells was realistic either.
But hey, with any luck, Wells will be the guy sharing time with Morse (and Saunders and Guty)… And the improvement in LF will be even greater compared to last. Although with LOTS of luck, Bourn, Guty and Saunders are our outfield, with Morse and Morales sharing 1B/DH.
I’m not going to deny ZIPS takes into account way more than the average fan, but I’m not going to throw out the idea that our team is likely to perform better than last year offensively, and hopefully will fix our rotation deficiencies before the season starts– so I’d still expect us to be near 80 wins, and I’m hopeful of ending the season over .500.
I don’t know why this seems unreasonable to expect (with or without an appreciation of ZIPS)? Especially when it falls within the range of plausibility ZIPS offers.
PS- Admittedly, the “stop watching the team” comment wasn’t aimed at you, so wasn’t fair. My bad.
Are we really done? I thought the point of the Vargas-Morales trade was that it would be easier/cheaper to sign a SP than a slugger. Otherwise, it was stupid to trade Vargas given how thin our rotation is, unless they’re punting on 2013 and waiting for the Big 4 to emerge next year. We shouldn’t depend on very young pitchers and/or bargain bin vets for 3 rotation spots.
While I doubt anything will change with position players, I do assume the team will likely add between 1.5-3 expected WAR to the rotation before the season starts. At a bare minimum, offer Millwood a contract, for Allah’s sake. If this front office can’t find a cheap way to shore up the rotation…well, I lost a lot of faith in them with the Morse trade, but there’s still a fair bit more to lose. The necessity here seems pretty clear, and the task doesn’t seem that difficult.
ZIPS aside, what the Mariners have is what they have. So does this increase the chance of one of the young pitchers making the team out of spring training?? Granted Z may get someone else but the feeling is that two someones are needed. Once you get by Felix, Iwakuma and Ramirez it seems wide open. Are Walker, Hultzen, Maurer and Paxson worse than Beaven and Noesi or just less experienced at this point????