Today we kick off our second year of projections. We started this last year hoping to provide a counter to the systematic projection systems like ZiPS and Steamer. None of us have a forecasting system. What follows is just our gut feeling on how the player will do in 2014. The expectation is that with a bunch of us chiming in, we can get a “wisdom of the crowd” projection that not only can hold its own with the big boys but hopefully be more accurate, too.
We were successful with this approach last season and hopefully with a year under our belt we can do even better this time around. We start off with one of the big offseason additions for the club in Curtis Granderson. In addition to having not played for the team previously, Granderson presents a challenge as he is coming off an injury-plagued campaign. Here is how we expect him to perform in blue and orange this year:
| PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBIs | OPS vs LHP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albanesius | 620 | .240 | .320 | .465 | 25 | 73 | .690 |
| Ferguson | 700 | .245 | .320 | .460 | 28 | 90 | .700 |
| Flattery | 556 | .260 | .353 | .468 | 30 | 89 | .681 |
| Joura | 550 | .240 | .325 | .420 | 24 | 86 | .650 |
| Koehler | 575 | .235 | .321 | .465 | 29 | 80 | .795 |
| Kolton | 517 | .267 | .296 | .429 | 17 | 83 | .633 |
| McCarthy | 656 | .255 | .341 | .467 | 28 | 88 | .701 |
| O’Malley | 565 | .256 | .332 | .471 | 22 | 78 | .692 |
| Rogan | 670 | .255 | .320 | .472 | 31 | 89 | .701 |
| Schubert | 652 | .242 | .325 | .456 | 26 | 82 | .725 |
| Stack | 620 | .238 | .345 | .475 | 23 | 77 | .681 |
| Vasile | 590 | .242 | .331 | .450 | 21 | 68 | .730 |
| Walendin | 624 | .243 | .333 | .468 | 23 | 89 | .751 |
All of the writers see Granderson staying healthy in 2014. Dan Kolton sees the fewest PA with 517. Kolton probably has the most bearish prediction of the group. But, no one really has an over-the-top forecast for a guy who hit 84 HR in 2011-12. Rob Rogan’s 31 HR is the top mark in our group and Sean Flattery projects the highest OPS with an .821 mark. Granderson has a lifetime .828 OPS and in 2011 he put up a .916 OPS.
Since we did not forecast the individual numbers that go into the triple slash lines, we are going to use average for the counting numbers and median for AVG, OBP and SLG to come up with our Mets360 forecast. Here is what our group as a whole projects for Granderson in 2014:
One of the keys for Granderson will be how he fares against southpaws. For his career, he has a .704 OPS against lefties, which is 172 points lower than his mark against righties. Early in his career, Granderson was dreadful against LHP but in the past three seasons he’s done quite well, including a .792 OPS last year and a .944 mark in his big 2011 season.
Earlier it was mentioned that none of our writers went crazy with their forecasts. But did we err too much on the side of caution and did we end up with a projection that was too conservative? Let’s compare our forecast to others currently available on the pages of FanGraphs:
| System | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | RBIs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mets360 | 607 | .243 | .325 | .465 | 25 | 82 |
| Steamer | 581 | .228 | .320 | .429 | 24 | 68 |
| Oliver | 600 | .220 | .306 | .390 | 19 | 65 |
| ZiPS | 474 | .237 | .322 | .444 | 20 | 54 |
Our projections were the highest in all six categories, so it’s difficult to say we were being too conservative. Steamer and ZiPS both have a hard time handling Granderson’s injury-plagued season last year. Oliver gives forecasts for all hitters on the basis of 600 PA. Oliver is the most pessimistic of the bunch and it’s safe to say that Mets fans will not be happy if Granderson posts a sub .700 OPS in the first season of a four-year contract.
We will run forecasts for 15 or so players this year. Check back Monday for our next entry in the series.
I think you have to throw out the injury plagued season. Being hit with a pitch that causes you to miss significant time is more of a fluke than a natural progression of age. Granderson should hit 35-40 doubles and get to double digits in triples which will off-set his reduced home run production. I think he’ll surprise us and hit above his lifetime average.
Taking citifield into account his totals will be: 30 hr’s and 100 rbi’s and if the hitter behind him has a great year like Travis D, Granderson will even have a better year!!
I think he said ,he is looking forward to a lot of 3 baggers in Citi-field,which we haven’t had fun to watch since Reyes was here.
It was so much fun to watch Reyes hit the ball in the gap and leg out a triple. I know it’s a pipe dream but it would be wonderful if Granderson could get back to his 2007 form when he had 38 doubles, 23 triples and 23 homers.
I missed the deadline on this, but the crowd-sourced totals are almost spot-on to what my projection would have looked like.
Over/under on .225 BA.
I’d take the under. My projection for him is what Adam Dunn did this year. .219/.320/.442 with .762 OPS and 34 HR’s.
Hitting in the 4-9 slots in 2011-2012 Granderson had an RBI every 5.1 ab. He protected Cano, A-Rod and Tex, and had hitters like russell martin, old vernon wells, suzuki, old Andruw Jones, and Lance Nix bat behind him in the line up. He still managed an RBI every 5.1 AB. If he gets at least 553 AB as he has 6 out of the last 8 years, he will get 108 RBIs. Even if he decreases production because he is “old” and manages a rbi every 6 AB clip, he will still get 92 RBIs. I am sure all of us here will be ok with that. He also hit 1 HR every 14.2 AB hitting in the same 4-9 slots. Even if he slows to 1 every 26 AB, which would be the largest HR/AB ratio that he has had in 5 out of the last 6 years, that will still give him 21 HR in 553 AB. I think he will be closer to his 2007 year where he had 20/20/20/20 season. 20 homers, triples, doubles, and steals as Brian Joura mentioned above.
Granderson mostly batted in the 2-hole in the 2011-2012 seasons with Jeter in front of him and Cano “protecting him” (although we all know protection is a myth)
I know the majority of his AB (906) when he was hitting 1-3. He had 270 AB hitting 4-9. I was attempting to compare apples to apples. So I split the stats to see how he fared, batting lower in the run producing slots of the lineup as opposed to batting in table setting slots, to see what kind of results we could expect. Just for reference he had RBI every 5.3 and HR every 13.9 hitting in the 1-3 slots in front of Cano or A Rod. He walked less in the 4-9 slots so OBP will be lower than his career, closer to the predicted but I think SLG will be slightly higher because his BA will be higher (bunt base hits to keep shift honest), .252/.330/.480.
Granderson needs to put up 11 WAR in the next 4 years to earn his contract. The consensus numbers of the staff indicate a year similar to 2009 when Granderson had a 4.3 WAR. The 2009 WAR included a 1.5 dWAR, a number that he hasn’t achieved since 2010. A shift to a corner outfield position should stabilize his dWAR and I would be pleased with a 3.7 WAR in the first year of the contract. The consensus numbers seem to be where Curtis needs to end up and they appear to be a good projection. A good 3.7 WAR start with a follow up of 3.2, 2.7 and 2.2 would have him earning his contract. It appears to be a fair and good signing.
Grandy is a good club house presence and should at the very least to better than Jay Bay ever did as a Met. Yes, his home run totals won’t be what they were when he played 1/2 his games at Yankee stadium, but he if stays heathy he’s still good for 20-25 homers. I think he has a fair to midland chance of having that 3+ WAR season.
CG is a great way to start this seqson’s predictions. Lets keep these rolling.
Baseball is in the final analysis all about pitching. Looking to 2016 I see a really good year for Mets pitching. As for this year, its a repeat at best of last year. Finishing near 500 would be quite the accomplishment.
[…] series. We start off with free agent acquisition Curtis Granderson. Take a few moments to see the original piece we did. Our group projection was for the following […]