Today, I’ll be starting my 2009 Wins Above Replacement projection for the Giants. I’ve done some WAR-related stuff on this website before, but if you’re new to the idea, check out this link. It’s a good place to get started. Also, FanGraphs just posted a two-part article on Win Values. It’s also a very good read and I suggest that you check it out. You can find part one, here.
In this post, I’ll be doing the projected 2009 WAR calculations for the Giants position players. We should be able to get an idea of how many games the 2009 team should win by figuring out how many ‘wins above replacement’ the Giants have by their position players and pitchers. We know that a team composed of nothing but replacement level players would win about 50 games. So, in order to project the 2009 team we just need to find out how many wins above replacement the Giants have as a team. Then, you just add the total team WAR + 50 — the baseline for a team full of nothing but replacement level players — to find our projected team wins for 2009.
Some assumptions before I get started:
~ I’ve set league wOBA to .332
~ For my defensive projections I used a combination of past bUZR, plus/minus, and PMR data. Also, I’m using the CHONE defensive projections for 2009 as well. I tried to go conservatively with my defensive projections. For example, I called Randy Winn a +8 run RF when in 2008, he was probably closer to a +16 run defender.
~ For my batter projections, I used a combination of the Oliver Projections and CHONE. Both Oliver and CHONE use minor league data to forecast players, so it’s preferable for guys with little major league experience (ie: Sandoval, Ishikawa, Burriss, etc.)
~ I didn’t include baserunning wins, because they usually amount to so little, but if you want, you could probably bump up guys like Fred Lewis, Emmanuel Burriss, Randy Winn and maybe Dave Roberts a couple of runs.
Let’s check out the spreadsheet:
Thoughts:
- Overall, I’ve got the Giants position players adding about +15.5 wins above replacement. If you add that to the replacement team baseline wins of 50, you’ll end up with 65-66 wins by offense alone.
- The top five Giants hitters by projected WAR: Aaron Rowand (+2.38), Edgar Renteria (+2.03), Randy Winn (+1.96), Bengie Molina (+1.86), and Pablo Sandoval (1.70). Fred Lewis comes in at +1.49 wins.
- Much of Aaron Rowand’s value is tied up in him becoming an average defender again. In 2008 he was -11 runs in center field, which was a career worst. CHONE has Rowand bouncing back to an average defender with a projected ’0′ runs in CF.
- On the other side, I called Sandoval a -5 defender at third base which seems about right to me. CHONE has him projected as a -3 defender at third base but I think he’ll be closer to -5. He’s a big dude and he might not be able to handle a full season, defensively, at third base. I’ve projected Sandoval to get 70% of his playing time at third with another 30% at first base. I don’t think the Giants will be using him at catcher next season, despite his value playing best at the position.
- Nate Schierholtz has the best projected wOBA of our position players. His wOBA of .345 would be highest on the team. I figure he’ll have to fight for playing time with Dave Roberts. Thus, I only have him getting about 105 PA’s next season. That might be a little low but I think a healthy Roberts will get most of 4th OF playing time.
- Speaking of Dave Roberts, he really doesn’t have a place on this team. In my projection he’s getting way too much time in CF — a projected 20% backup to Aaron Rowand — for my taste. Roberts just can’t defend the position well enough and I’ve got him down as a -5 run defender in CF which, again, might be too conservative. But, with Bochy at the helm, I can see Roberts playing in LF and maybe in CF occasionally to spell the starters. Nate will have to scratch and claw for playing time. Another reason to dislike Roberts? He’s overpaid by about $3-4M. Not a wise allocation of resources.
- I’ve got Burriss and Frandsen splitting second base with Frandsen backing up third base. I like Frandsen as a utility player but I think he’ll be stretched as a full-time starter. He could win the second base job in the spring but Burriss seemed to impress the Giants with his defense at the position last year, so for now, he gets the nod.
- The Oliver projections like Ishikawa a bit more than I do, he’s projected to be an above league average hitter in 2009. Because he’s stuck at first, he’s barely above league average projection isn’t great, but it’s much more optimistic than my personal feel with Travis. I decided to run with Oliver’s projection even though CHONE was more pessimistic. When I think about it, I should probably adjust his line some but I won’t worry about it for now. I might tweak it after I do the pitchers.
- I figure that the West can be won with 86-88 wins next season. As of now, the Giants are at 65-66 wins. That means that they’ll have to make up the remaining 20 wins by their rotation and bullpen. Adding Randy Johnson should help.
So, there you have it. The Giants strength isn’t their positional players, but we already knew that. They’ve got a collection of some nice pieces: Winn, Rowand, Lewis, Schierholtz, Sandoval but nothing resembling a superstar. If the Giants can get some breakout years from Sandoval, Ishikawa, or Lewis, that would go a long way to boosting the offense and taking some of the load off the pitching.
Tomorrow we’ll be projecting the pitching to see how much of that 20-win gap the team can make up.
Comment Stater: Thoughts on the position player projections?
The Giants are a fish and Dave Roberts is their bicycle.
Nice work Chris. Thanks.
I always liked the way Roberts carried himself but Sabean needs to perform an intervention. He is crack to Boulder Skull and if he keeps getting rammed down Giants fans throat things will probably get ugly. And he deserves better then that.
I think Nate will get more PT than that. I’d adjust the allocations of PT to be:
LF – Lewis (75%); Roberts (15%); Schierholz (10%)
CF – Rowand (75%); Winn (15%); Lewis (10%)
RF – Winn (70%); Schierholz (30%)
Both Sabean and Bochy have publicly stated that they think Roberts is miscast as a CF (at least I know Sabean has, not sure about Bochy, now that I think about it). They’ve played Lewis in CF last year and he didn’t embarrass himself. I think they’ll play Winn in CF this year to make more room for Schierholz as well, assuming he doesn’t pull an Ortmeier and completely embarrass himself at the beginning of the year.
@Ted
You can adjust the playing time around a little but it’s not going to make a huge difference, it might swing the win totals by .5 wins.
I don’t mind seeing Roberts get less playing time, but I still think the Giants — and Bochy — will play him.
I definitely think Rowand and Winn will hit 80-85% for playing time. Winn has accumulated almost 650 PA’s per season since he came to San Francisco, he’s a rock. Even with injuries last year, Rowand broke the 600 PA mark. I know they plan to rest him more this year, but I still think he’ll make it past 600 PA’s.
A 75% PT for Rowand is about 525 PA’s and a 70% PT for Winn is 490 PA’s. Winn is one of the Giants best players. He must get 600+ PA’s. The offense — and defense — would miss him too much if he didn’t. There’s just no way they’ll play him just for 490 PA’s.
I think Nate’s key will be Lewis’ health. He had the foot thing, but he should be ready for the start of the season. If he’s not, you can bump Nate’s PT up some. If the Giants can move Roberts, I would do it. Even if it means eating his salary. It’s much more important to get Nate playing time and until Roberts leaves, he might have trouble finding it.
Just fixed an error in my spreadsheet. I had Holm as a -6 run defender at catcher. It was supposed to 0 runs. It moves our WAR total to +15.6-ish wins.
After watching Bowker transition to 1B with moderate success (at least defensively), I wonder if Schierholtz can do the same this year. It’s safe to assume that the bulk of starts in the OF will be a Winn, Rowand, Lewis trio. Why not let Schierholtz get some hacks as a 1Bman? He’s no gem of a RF anyway, and obviously an upgrade at the plate over Ishikawa.
>> I figure that the West can be won with 86-88 wins next season.
Out of curiosity, why do you think it will take that many wins to win the West? The Dodgers were something like an 88 win team last year, and even if they resign Manny I think they will have taken a step back this offseason. Also, considering the composition of their staff, they have a significant potential for injury and collapse.
The D’Backs lost Randy, Dunn, and Hudson. They have a bunch of young guys that could break out, but they aren’t likely to be a strong team.
@MrLomez
It’s a thought, but I’m not sure it’s one that the Giants will entertain. I don’t know if we’re remembering the same Bowker at first base from last year. He really had trouble at times. bUZR — in a pretty small 500 inning sample — had him a little under average. I think he could get better over time but with Sabean’s comments this offseason on defense — which probably were directed at the Bowker experiment — I don’t see them trying it again anytime soon.
I’d rather just jettison Roberts — who doesn’t have a place on the team — instead of monkeying around with Nate defensively.
@Marcello
88 wins is probably the high-end, it could be much closer to 86 wins needed. I need to evaluate the other NL West teams to make a better estimate. It’s mostly a guess that it’ll take 86-88 wins.
For what it’s worth, Seidman at FanGraphs thinks 85 wins is the magic number, that seems about right to me.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/can-the-giants-contend
Yeah, I think that 85 wins might be the high end, honestly. But I haven’t done any evaluations, it’s really just my eyeballing the division. I am excited to see the division projections.
@Marcello
A poster on BtBS was putting together WAR lineups for the NL West. You can find them here:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/12/27/702611/nl-lineups-by-war
Note: The lineups are using the Marcels projection system. As a result, the Giants WAR is about +2 wins over mine because of Sandoval hitting much better and some pretty optimistic projections for players without 3-years of major league data — Burriss is projected to hit a .330+ wOBA which isn’t going to happen. Still, it’s a decent measuring stick for how the NL West is shaping up but I think mine is more accurate.
I think he’s planning to do the pitching for each team as well.
Nicely done Chris.
What’s up with the Randy Winn projection? Even accounting for his conservative defensive estimate, that seems like a pretty significant dropoof.
One of the problems with projecting the 2009 Giants is the number of young players. We generally have a good idea how minor league offensive numbers translate but defensive evaluation contains a significant amount of voodoo (several seasons of play-by-play data is required before one can trust defensive stats).
@Kenshin
Over the past three seasons, by bUZR, Winn has saved 8.4, 7.8, and 16.9 runs in right field. I think calling him a +8 defender is pretty accurate. We know that the best and worst defenders usually range from +10 to -10 runs below average. If he’s defending at +8, he’s still a very good outfielder. In these WAR projections I try to go conservatively. Especially with the defensive projections. Winn is probably closer to a +10 outfielder.
CHONE, ZiPS, Oliver, and Marcel all project Winn to regress a little with the bat. Most of them have him around a .330 wOBA. Over the past couple of year’s he’s been between .350 and .352 for wOBA. Winn will be 35-years-old next season but his player-type seems to age well. He could very well beat his projection at the plate. I’ve got him right beneath +2 wins. Avoiding any collapses, I think he could beat that projection by maybe a half-win. He’s still one of our better players.
The defensive numbers for Burriss, Ishikawa, and Sandoval are all educated guesses. I think Burriss can be a plus-defender at second but I might have him a little high right now at +5 runs. I’m up for debate on that. I keep going back and forth on Pablo at third base. I’m not sure if -5 is too low or not low enough. I’m also open for debate on that one.
I honestly have no idea about Sandoval. UZR liked him and while that value clearly represents small sample size silliness, I think it represents an encouraging sign that he can at least play 3rd without totally embarrassing himself.
Burriss definitely seems like a guy who should be a plus defender. I however, have no clue if he is one.