Offseason Projections

[Brewcrew82]

Coming soon...

 

[Brewcrew82]

So, with Burnes, pitching side of things looks to remain in good shape. That bullpen is really, really good. 

But, man, we still need some help on the corners and/or at DH. Give me a Soler or Hoskins.

If anyone wants to know why we traded Houser, look at that Gasser projection....

 

[wiguy94]

10 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Coming soon...

 

If that's what WAR this team gets out of LF and C we are going to finish 4th in the NLC. Last year C got us 6.2 fWAR and LF got us 5.9 fWAR. 

[Brewcrew82]

10 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

If that's what WAR this team gets out of LF and C we are going to finish 4th in the NLC. Last year C got us 6.2 fWAR and LF got us 5.9 fWAR. 

Yeah. IDK why ZIPS is so low on Yelich and Contreras. My guess is it doesn't buy Contreras' defensive improvements, which I would disagree with. And that Yelich is going right back to the 2021 version, which I also find unlikely. Big discrepancy with Steamer.

On the other hand, you get something close to the 2023 versions of both, and that's pretty close to the top team in the Central if a guy like Santana is added for 1B. 

[wiguy94]

18 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Yeah. IDK why ZIPS is so low on Yelich and Contreras. My guess is it doesn't buy Contreras' defensive improvements, which I would disagree with. And that Yelich is going right back to the 2021 version, which I also find unlikely. Big discrepancy with Steamer.

On the other hand, you get something close to the 2023 versions of both, and that's pretty close to the top team in the Central if a guy like Santana is added for 1B. 

Here's our positional WAR last year and the ZiPS projections for 2024. fWAR for position prospects and rWAR for pitchers.

C - 6.2 -> 2.8 (-3.7)

1B - -0.6 -> 0.7 (+1.3)

2B - 0.5 -> 1.5 (+1.0)

SS - 3.1 -> 4.1 (+1.0)

3B - 1.2 -> 1.9 (+0.7)

LF - 5.9 -> 1.9 (-4.0)

CF - 3.3 -> 1.9 (-1.4)

RF - 0.4 --> 2.0 (+1.6)

DH - -1.6 -> 0.7 (+2.3)

SP - 15.8 -> 12.8 (-3.0)

RP - 8.6 -> 4.7 (-3.9)

Safe to say ZiPS is not a fan of the 2024 Brewers. 

[sveumrules]

Three things projections struggle the most with are defense and relief pitching (because they are more volatile year to year), and young players (because they have a limited MLB track record to project from).

A big reason the Brewers have consistently beat their projections over the last seven years is they have regularly fielded top end defenses (+249 DRS from 2017-23, 3rd), and bullpens at 36.0 rWAR (5th) and +35.85 WPA (2nd) over that same stretch.

This year they’ll be relying on a number of young players too which will further muddy the waters.

FanGraphs Playoff Odds uses a 50/50 split of Steamer and ZiPS, here are their Brewers preseason projected win totals for every full season from 2017-23, with their actual win total that year in parentheses after…

2017: 70 (86)
2018: 80 (96)
2019: 81 (89)
2021: 83 (95)
2022; 90 (86)
2023: 86 (92)

So five out of six seasons beating the projections by at least six wins with +54 cumulative wins over the projections during that run.

The one year we didn’t beat the projections our bullpen collapsed, finishing 17th in WPA.

I think it’s safe to say whatever internal projections the Brewers front office utilizes are a little more precise than the publicly available ones.

[KeithStone53151]

16 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

So, with Burnes, pitching side of things looks to remain in good shape. That bullpen is really, really good. 

But, man, we still need some help on the corners and/or at DH. Give me a Soler or Hoskins.

If anyone wants to know why we traded Houser, look at that Gasser projection....

 

Relief pitching is extremely volatile. Most of the guys that had success for us last year did not have success for us prior to last year. We had 4 or 5 guys "figure it out" and be effective all during 2023. I don't think all of Peguero, Payamps, Megill, Uribe will carry similar success into 2024.

I would anticipate Yelich getting significant atbats at DH this year. He was a lot better in the field last year, he might even have been average, but let the 19-26 year olds chase fly balls and keep Yelich healthy and more fresh for stealing bases and hitting dingers. This might be why the ZIPS projection above is so low on him, though even at DH i would think he can do better than 2-2.5 WAR. The Contreras one is surprising and frankly doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That's wild regression, I can certainly understand not projecting him at 6.2 but 2.8 seems weird.

[StearnsFTW]

15 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Three things projections struggle the most with are defense and relief pitching (because they are more volatile year to year), and young players (because they have a limited MLB track record to project from).

A big reason the Brewers have consistently beat their projections over the last seven years is they have regularly fielded top end defenses (+249 DRS from 2017-23, 3rd), and bullpens at 36.0 rWAR (5th) and +35.85 WPA (2nd) over that same stretch.

This year they’ll be relying on a number of young players too which will further muddy the waters.

FanGraphs Playoff Odds uses a 50/50 split of Steamer and ZiPS, here are their Brewers preseason projected win totals for every full season from 2017-23, with their actual win total that year in parentheses after…

2017: 70 (86)
2018: 80 (96)
2019: 81 (89)
2021: 83 (95)
2022; 90 (86)
2023: 86 (92)

So five out of six seasons beating the projections by at least six wins with +54 cumulative wins over the projections during that run.

The one year we didn’t beat the projections our bullpen collapsed, finishing 17th in WPA.

I think it’s safe to say whatever internal projections the Brewers front office utilizes are a little more precise than the publicly available ones.

Sveumrules out here doing the lord's work again.

[brewcrewdue80]

Contreras had a far better defensive season than was thought he could do last season. You should expect regression after a stellar hitting/Def year. You also don't have Caratini but Haase? Plus for backup. That's going to be a dropoff.

It's going to be brutal with not having over 3 seasons of info to avg in to.  Adames and SS is ranked higher.  Respecting he likely had a down year.

You're holding on to a healthy Williams who is #1-4 in all of baseball in the bullpen. That really brings up the bullpen numbers at end of season.  Can't continue predicticting the health and results from previous produced.  So naturally bullpen drops.  They give a bump at 1b yet there's nobody penciled in there. That's how bad last year was for 1b.

Last for what it's worth. Grayson Rodriquez they give an increase to 2.7 from 1.8.  While having 6 more starts-40+ more innings.  BRef doesn't have that improvement.  I'd expect he beats the IPs and ERA/Fip. So imo should be higher. He just hasn't passed the sample size to get that. Like Chourio-Frelick-Mitchell-Wiemer-Monasterio-Turang-Black-Ashby-future Gasser-Uribe.  Young team it should be low projections. The risky volatility/sample size says so. Monasterio/Perkins/Uribe/Milner may have given their career best seasons well ever see.

[RedStickBrew]

7 hours ago, StearnsFTW said:

@sveumrules out here doing the lord's work again.

[sveumrules]

Article over on FanGraphs today about which players saw the biggest gains and losses to their 2024-27 projections based on their performance in 2023.

Brewers landed four risers with Tyler Black, Jackson Chourio, William Contreras and Abner Uribe all catching the computer’s eye.

[Brewcrew82]

Fangraphs sees a dog fight for the division, with the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers having greater than 15% odds and the Reds not too far behind. 

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

[Underachiever]

Brewers are going to win the division. Ok, the Cubs may sign some guys to change that. But St. Louis? Baby Brewers over the collection of geriatrics in St. Louis any day. Add Sonny Gray, subtract Montgomery. Lance Lynn? Will be interesting to see what is higher: his ERA or his K/9. Both should be in the 5.something range. Kyle Gibson will give them innings, but he didn't have great numbers in Baltimore. Along with Mikolas, that's most of your rotation. Goldschmidt turns 37 this year. Oh that's right, Matt Carpenter is back from the dead (they are only paying him the minimum. Padres on the hook for the rest). That's 105 million in salary to those 6 players, average age 36.

(I ignored Arenado, because he's younger, I still think he is good, and he made my rant less effective.)

[owbc]

12 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

Brewers are going to win the division. Ok, the Cubs may sign some guys to change that. But St. Louis? Baby Brewers over the collection of geriatrics in St. Louis any day. Add Sonny Gray, subtract Montgomery. Lance Lynn? Will be interesting to see what is higher: his ERA or his K/9. Both should be in the 5.something range. Kyle Gibson will give them innings, but he didn't have great numbers in Baltimore. Along with Mikolas, that's most of your rotation. Goldschmidt turns 37 this year. Oh that's right, Matt Carpenter is back from the dead (they are only paying him the minimum. Padres on the hook for the rest). That's 105 million in salary to those 6 players, average age 36.

(I ignored Arenado, because he's younger, I still think he is good, and he made my rant less effective.)

Exactly -- signing washed up vets is a perfect way to game the projection system, but it rarely translates to actual wins. 

The Cardinals underperformed projections by 20 games last season, now the projections are showing them improving 15 games from last year. 

It feels like insanity. There's free money to be made betting the 'under' on the Cardinals and the 'over' on the Brewers. 

 

[sveumrules]

Early ZiPS projected NL standings are up over at FanGraphs today.

Has the NLC win totals at…STL (83) CHI (81) MIL (80) CIN (79) PIT (75)

Here is where it saw the NLC at the same time last year with the actual win total following the projection…

STL (91, 71) MIL (83, 92) CHC (78, 83) CIN (70, 82) PIT (68, 76)

Twelve wins seems like a pretty steep drop to me.

No Burnes (4.8 rWAR), Woodruff (2.8 rWAR) or Houser (1.4 rWAR) is 9 wins of rotation mainstays gone. But no Lauer (-0.8 rWAR), Bush (-0.7 rWAR) or Chafin (-0.4 rWAR) eats into that by a couple wins.

Offense is a few wins worse with no Caratini (1.1 WAR), Canha (1.0 WAR), Taylor (0.8 WAR) or Santana (0.7 WAR). But not having guys like Rowdy (-0.9 WAR), Winker (-0.8 WAR), Brosseau (-0.5 WAR), Voit (-0.4 WAR) or Singleton (-0.4 WAR) wipes most of that out.

On paper, I’d see 2024 about seven or eight wins short of 2023 before accounting for offseason additions and hopeful improvement from a stable of young position players.

[wiguy94]

43 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Early ZiPS projected NL standings are up over at FanGraphs today.

Has the NLC win totals at…STL (83) CHI (81) MIL (80) CIN (79) PIT (75)

Here is where it saw the NLC at the same time last year with the actual win total following the projection…

STL (91, 71) MIL (83, 92) CHC (78, 83) CIN (70, 82) PIT (68, 76)

Twelve wins seems like a pretty steep drop to me.

No Burnes (4.8 rWAR), Woodruff (2.8 rWAR) or Houser (1.4 rWAR) is 9 wins of rotation mainstays gone. But no Lauer (-0.8 rWAR), Bush (-0.7 rWAR) or Chafin (-0.4 rWAR) eats into that by a couple wins.

Offense is a few wins worse with no Caratini (1.1 WAR), Canha (1.0 WAR), Taylor (0.8 WAR) or Santana (0.7 WAR). But not having guys like Rowdy (-0.9 WAR), Winker (-0.8 WAR), Brosseau (-0.5 WAR), Voit (-0.4 WAR) or Singleton (-0.4 WAR) wipes most of that out.

On paper, I’d see 2024 about seven or eight wins short of 2023 before accounting for offseason additions and hopeful improvement from a stable of young position players.

I feel like it needs to be taken into consideration how clutch the bullpen was last year. They were 5th in bullpen WPA among all bullpen’s in the 21st century. The likelihood our bullpen is that clutch again seems unlikely. I’d toss a few wins out just on the basis of that. 

[nate82]

39 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Offense is a few wins worse with no Caratini (1.1 WAR), Canha (1.0 WAR), Taylor (0.8 WAR) or Santana (0.7 WAR). But not having guys like Rowdy (-0.9 WAR), Winker (-0.8 WAR), Brosseau (-0.5 WAR), Voit (-0.4 WAR) or Singleton (-0.4 WAR) wipes most of that out.

On paper, I’d see 2024 about seven or eight wins short of 2023 before accounting for offseason additions and hopeful improvement from a stable of young position players.

I think Hoskins should equal the value of Santana and Canha at least.  I also believe we will see improvements from Turang and Frelick offensively. 

Where I could see the Brewers going a bit backwards is in the bullpen.  If the bullpen has even a slight down year which does tend to happen with bullpens that is where you could see a difference between last year and this year in the win and loss columns.  

 

[Thurston Fluff]

17 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Where I could see the Brewers going a bit backwards is in the bullpen.  If the bullpen has even a slight down year which does tend to happen with bullpens that is where you could see a difference between last year and this year in the win and loss columns.  

 

I think you're right in that bullpens tend to be volatile and some of the relievers we had last season are not likely to perform at the same level. The good thing is we aren't reliant on the same ones having the same type of year. The Brewers have had consistently good bullpens long enough to think they've figured out how to build/use them effectively. It's also why I liked some of the moves to get swing man type pf pitchers into the fold. They've got enough arms to fill in if a couple of last year's heroes turn into this year's goat.

[wiguy94]

32 minutes ago, Thurston Fluff said:

I think you're right in that bullpens tend to be volatile and some of the relievers we had last season are not likely to perform at the same level. The good thing is we aren't reliant on the same ones having the same type of year. The Brewers have had consistently good bullpens long enough to think they've figured out how to build/use them effectively. It's also why I liked some of the moves to get swing man type pf pitchers into the fold. They've got enough arms to fill in if a couple of last year's heroes turn into this year's goat.

I think the Brewers bullpen could have the same ERA as last season but be worse. I don’t think people realize how clutch the Brewers bullpen was last season. They could have the same ERA but the likelihood they match last season’s WPA is pretty low. As I said above they had the 5th best bullpen WPA in the 21st century. Pulling off back to back season at that level is very unlikely.

[nate82]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

I think the Brewers bullpen could have the same ERA as last season but be worse. I don’t think people realize how clutch the Brewers bullpen was last season. They could have the same ERA but the likelihood they match last season’s WPA is pretty low. As I said above they had the 5th best bullpen WPA in the 21st century. Pulling off back to back season at that level is very unlikely.

Right the bullpen is probably where the biggest substraction for wins will come from.  Even a slightly less WPA will result in some more losses.  Bullpens are like penny stocks.  

[Thurston Fluff]

3 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

I think the Brewers bullpen could have the same ERA as last season but be worse. I don’t think people realize how clutch the Brewers bullpen was last season. They could have the same ERA but the likelihood they match last season’s WPA is pretty low. As I said above they had the 5th best bullpen WPA in the 21st century. Pulling off back to back season at that level is very unlikely.

I guess it depends on whether you think clutch is based more on luck than talent.

[Playing Catch]

On 2/5/2024 at 10:37 AM, sveumrules said:

Article over on FanGraphs today about which players saw the biggest gains and losses to their 2024-27 projections based on their performance in 2023.

Brewers landed four risers with Tyler Black, Jackson Chourio, William Contreras and Abner Uribe all catching the computer’s eye.

Also former farmhand, Alex Binelas, on biggest losses to projections. His 35% K% in his 2nd go around in AA, probably the primary culprit.