Individual Over/Underperforming expectation

[liveforoctober]

We are about a week away from being 1/4 done with the season. That would normally be a much better time for this thread but it's an off day and getting both Chourio and Vaughn back together feels like a pretty substantial before/after moment for the team.

I was eyeing up the roster and getting a gut reaction on whether or not guys have been better or worse than we expected and, given the temperature of the team, I was actually surprised how many guys I have pegged as "as good or better" more than what I was expecting. I think the heaviness of the left side of our infield + Sal and our 4th outfielder disaster + 2 bullpen arms have created a cloud for me that doesn't seem to be accurate? I'd be interested to see how you all place these names.

Performing at or above expectations

Harrison, Miz, Patrick, Woodruff*, Ashby, Hall, Uribe, Woodford, Anderson, Turang, Contreras, Lockridge, Bauers, Sanchez, Yelich*

Underperforming expectations

Sproat, Drohan?, Megill, Rengifo, Ortiz, Hamilton?, Frelick, OF bench depth (Matos/Perkins/Jones), Zerpa

Not enough time to put in any category but good depth pieces thus far

Henderson, Black, Fitzpatrick+

I don't know

Mitchell

I like you and the team likes you so you are in no trouble but stop doing weird things during games

Murphy

The reason for optimism is I don't think we have too many guys at all who are wildly outperforming expectations. Probably Harrison. Maybe Anderson and Hall? Perhaps Lockridge? But the others very much have a "that seems about right" sense to them. Meanwhile, getting Chourio and Vaughn back - coupled with any return to normalcy for Frelick and Rengifo + whoever hits 9th should make our offense so much more consistent.

Knock of wood the injury bug goes somewhere else for awhile ... but we look to have weathered the storm for the moment and are in a good position to win a few months of baseball. Would be interested to see how you all lay out the roster thus far.

[wiguy94]

I'll keep it to 50 PA and 10 IP for active roster players. 

Overperforming - Turang, Mitchell (health), Sanchez, Misiorowski, Harrison, Hall

Meeting Expectations - Contreras, Bauers, Hamilton, Lockridge, Woodruff, Ashby, Anderson, Woodford, Drohan

Underperforming - Frelick, Rengifo, Ortiz, Perkins, Patrick, Sproat, Uribe, Megill

[long ball]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

I'll keep it to 50 PA and 10 IP for active roster players. 

Overperforming - Turang, Mitchell (health), Sanchez, Misiorowski, Harrison, Hall

Meeting Expectations - Contreras, Bauers, Hamilton, Lockridge, Woodruff, Ashby, Anderson, Woodford, Drohan

Underperforming - Frelick, Rengifo, Ortiz, Perkins, Patrick, Sproat, Uribe, Megill

I think this is pretty fair on everyone listed. 

[thebruce44]

I'm curious what you guys expected of Mis to list him as overperforming. An ERA around 3 and trending towards 160 IP is what I thought was a reasonable expectation given his talent level. Maybe I was being too optimistic.

[Outlander]

I would put Patrick at meeting expectations and not underperforming but splitting hairs at that point. Also depends on individual expectations as I thought Turang would play at a MVP level so meeting my expectations.

[wiguy94]

17 minutes ago, thebruce44 said:

I'm curious what you guys expected of Mis to list him as overperforming. An ERA around 3 and trending towards 160 IP is what I thought was a reasonable expectation given his talent level. Maybe I was being too optimistic.

I think he definitely had it in him to do this but I was expecting a bit more up and down like we saw last year. He hasn't had a single blowup outing. He's gone at least 5 innings in every start.

These were his numbers as a SP last year - 4.38 ERA, 3.31 xERA, 3.59 FIP, 3.56 xFIP, 3.45 SIERA, 21.5% K-BB rate

These are his numbers this year - 2.84 ERA, 2.90 xERA, 2.98 FIP, 2.63 xFIP, 2.58 SIERA, 28.4% K-BB rate

ERA improved by 1.54 runs

xERA improved by .41 runs

FIP improved by .61 runs

xFIP improved by .93 runs

SIERA improved by .87 runs

K-BB rate improved by 6.9 points

[GAME05]

I'm the same with Miz and I've been really happy. I figured he'd strike out 15 in 6 innings one outing and then give up 6 runs in the first inning the next. He's been way more consistent so far than I figured he would be.

Sanchez has to be an overperform for as good as he's been against lefties so far. Last year he was somehow worse against L than R, so for him to be hitting well and adding 1b and DH duties is a big overperform.

I expected a down year from Frelick, but yikes.

But let's go ahead and mark Chourio up as "expected" since he's great and I see no reason he can't carry his current numbers through the rest of the season.

[adambr2]

Hamilton has been exactly who he has always been. He’s a meet expectations guy to me.

I don’t think any of the roster is too far off from their expected norms other than Frelick and a few guys in the pen. Not being healthy has hurt.

[owbc]

The underperforming list doesn't really shock me other than the bullpen. On offense it's mostly a depth issue. 

Sal isn't far off from his 2025 Savant numbers but when you rely on your speed and defense to generate value you don't have much wiggle room to slump. I'm seriously concerned that he is a .650 OPS guy that had an outlier year in 2025. 

[wiguy94]

9 minutes ago, owbc said:

The underperforming list doesn't really shock me other than the bullpen. On offense it's mostly a depth issue. 

Sal isn't far off from his 2025 Savant numbers but when you rely on your speed and defense to generate value you don't have much wiggle room to slump. I'm seriously concerned that he is a .650 OPS guy that had an outlier year in 2025. 

The thing with Sal is the underlying numbers are on par because he's walking more and striking out less. The contact quality is down a bit this year. Specifically he's hitting way more ground balls than he ever has. He's at 56% GB-rate this year compared to 49% for his career and these extra ground balls have come almost exclusively at the cost of line drives where he's at 15% compared to a career average of 23%. Line drives are good especially for a hitter like Sal. Assuming that evens out, I think the production will start to improve.

[owbc]

4 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

The thing with Sal is the underlying numbers are on par because he's walking more and striking out less. The contact quality is down a bit this year. Specifically he's hitting way more ground balls than he ever has. He's at 56% GB-rate this year compared to 49% for his career and these extra ground balls have come almost exclusively at the cost of line drives where he's at 15% compared to a career average of 23%. Line drives are good especially for a hitter like Sal. Assuming that evens out, I think the production will start to improve.

It's just not easy to OPS .750 with 5th percentile bat speed. Sal has elite pitch selection and he's improved his BB rate and xwOBA. The 2026 vs. 2025 differences in his batted ball profile are slight. Mostly it seems that he got very lucky last year (.405 SLG vs. .339 xSLG) and is slightly unlucky this year (.321 SLG vs. .348 xSLG).