We’ve hit most of the big boys in the projection series. Now, more so than ever, everything revolves around playing time. There are so many moving parts to the story, ones that are likely interconnected. So, we’ll be doing multiple people at a time, starting with today’s catcher entry.
Travis d’Arnaud can’t stay healthy and last year when he did play he wasn’t very good. Rene Rivera is a good defensive player but other than running into an occasional homer, he doesn’t offer much with a bat in his hands. And there’s Kevin Plawecki, too. Here are our individual forecasts for this trio:
TDA | RR | KP | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PA | OPS | PA | OPS | PA | OPS | |
Dalton Allsion | 390 | .640 | 450 | .660 | 320 | .637 |
Joe Barbieri | 445 | .754 | 126 | .559 | 214 | .648 |
John Fox | 404 | .785 | 189 | .625 | 70 | .610 |
Charlie Hangley | 390 | .735 | 212 | .690 | 200 | .725 |
Brian Joura | 417 | .771 | 165 | .610 | 48 | .590 |
Mike Koehler | 370 | .750 | 170 | .600 | 50 | .520 |
Matt Netter | 350 | .790 | 200 | .620 | 50 | .490 |
Jim O’Malley | 385 | .685 | 218 | .612 | 162 | .576 |
Rob Rogan | 402 | .750 | 166 | .610 | 58 | .630 |
Mike Ryan | 515 | .722 | 130 | .604 | 90 | .580 |
Chris Walendin | 450 | .811 | 150 | .625 | 75 | .645 |
Last year Mets catchers totaled 623 PA. The most by any position was the 722 turned in by right fielders, buoyed by Curtis Granderson leading off a fair number of times. As a group, we struggled some with this concept, especially as it’s highly unlikely any of these guys will see time at another position, and that includes designated hitter. Sure, they may get a handful of pinch-hitting appearances. And we can hope that the offense will score more runs, leading to more PA for everyone. But there’s no way this trio should account for 700 PA.
Focusing on individual players, it’s a bit of a surprise that no one expected fewer than 350 PA for d’Arnaud. Five people had him reaching at least 400 and Mike R. had him with 515. Our production was all over the map, too. Neither Dalton nor Jim saw him cracking a .700 OPS. Meanwhile, eight of us saw him comfortably in the 700s and Chris is the most optimistic with an .811 forecast.
Only one person saw either Rivera or Plawecki cracking a .700 OPS, with Charlie expecting Plawecki to post a .725 OPS. Five of us saw him failing to reach the .600 level, with Matt suggesting he wouldn’t even crack a .500 mark, albeit in just 50 PA. No one really sees Rivera as much of a threat. For his sake, too bad we didn’t ask about controlling the running game.
Here is our group forecast for the catching trio:
After what we saw last year, it seems most Mets fans would be happy if any of the three catchers delivered the .750 OPS in 411 PA that we project for d’Arnaud. Let’s look at the projections from the computer models:
TDA | RR | KP | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PA | OPS | PA | OPS | PA | OPS | |
Mets360 | 411 | .750 | 198 | .612 | 122 | .610 |
Steamer | 308 | .737 | 179 | .627 | 58 | .659 |
ZiPS | 363 | .702 | 277 | .622 | 399 | .656 |
Compared to the computers, we’re very optimistic on d’Arnaud, about right on Rivera and pessimistic on Plawecki.
The ZiPS comp for d’Arnaud is Randy Hundley, who was extremely durable for four straight years and then never again able to reach those earlier heights. Mets fans probably know him better as the father of Todd Hundley. The comp for Rivera is Nelson Santovenia, a Cuban player from an era when we didn’t have many people from there. For Plawecki, the comp is Jason Jaramillo, who played with the Pirates from 2009-2011 but who has already been erased from my memory banks.
Check back Saturday when we project some infielders.
Given history, what we’ve seen from TDA- all the projections are very bullish. He is an Achilles heel in this organization. If they were that concerned with having a defensive leader and quality ML catcher they would sign Wieters and thus begin that bridge to KP and/or Nído in doing so.
It’s sad & useless when a computer system, ZIPS, forecasts 1,039 PAs for the Mets catchers.
A computer should know better.
I think this is the same system that had both Conforto and Bruce getting 500+ PAs.
Yeah, I agree. I’m going to have Dan S. on the podcast and I’ll ask him about this. I imagine his response will be similar to what Bill James used to say about his system, something along the lines of this is how much playing time Player X deserves, not what he’s likely to get.
Baseball is so unpredictable. Watch TDA hit 25 HRs. Who saw Porcello winning 20 games last year ? You never know. Oh, by the way, his 25 HRs were in stratomatic baseball.