This is the third and final edition of our series where we go back and revisit the preseason predictions made here at the site. Today we’ll look at the outfielders. Let’s compare the Mets360 forecast to what the player actually did. And if a reader put in a particularly good prediction in the comments section, they’ll get a shout out now.
Michael Conforto
Forecast – 615 PA, .275/.360/.525, 27 HR, 94 RBIs
Actual – 648 PA, .257/.363/.494, 33 HR, 92 RBIs
It’s a rare forecast where you nail two categories – OBP and RBIs, here – yet feel like it was not a particularly good one. Conforto ended up with six more homers than anticipated, yet his SLG was 31 points lower than the forecast. Sure, 18 points of that was due to AVG but the feeling was, much like Conforto himself, that somehow the end results should have been better. Hopefully next year his 2B won’t run into him and give him a concussion. After returning from the IL, Conforto had a .729 OPS over 209 PA his first 49 games back. It’s pretty amazing what his final numbers look like given that he was below average for one-third of the year. David Klein predicted .260/.360/.510 in the comments section.
Juan Lagares
Forecast – 210 PA, .250/.290/.340, 5 HR, 22 RBIs
Actual – 285 PA, .213/.279/.326, 5 HR, 27 RBIs
The homers and RBIs were right on; it’s just too bad that it took an additional 75 PA to get there. We know who Lagares is at this point in time. The forecast was for him to be pretty bad and it turned out that prediction wasn’t negative enough. If you’re looking for a bright spot, you can say he walked more than anticipated. Lagares did hit more balls in the air in 2019 and got his ISO back in triple digits. But the BABIP gods did not smile on him last year and his 63 OPS+ was easily the worst mark in his seven-year MLB career. Lagares was in the final group projection and no one offered any thoughts in the comments section.
Jeff McNeil
Forecast – 560 PA, .290/.340/.445, 15 HR, 68 RBIs
Actual – 567 PA, .318/.384/.531, 23 HR, 75 RBIs
No one knew if McNeil was going to be able to cut it defensively in the outfield. There was also the question of what would happen if he didn’t run an ultra-high BABIP like he did in his rookie season. Most of the projection systems had him under 500 PA and with an OPS around .750 or so. ZiPS was the outlier, with 605 PA but still saw the same production as it had McNeil with a .756 OPS. So, compared to the big boys, this was a successful prediction. But McNeil still outperformed this by a healthy amount. This forecast was in the final batch and there were no projections from the comments section.
Brandon Nimmo
Forecast – 650 PA, .265/.375/.450, 11 HR, 52 RBIs
Actual – 254 PA, .221/.375/.407, 8 HR, 29 RBIs
Nimmo missed a lot of time last year with the bulging disc and played a month when he should have been on the IL, which didn’t help his final numbers at all. When he came back in September, he put up a .261/.430/.565 line in 93 PA. That .995 OPS came with a .302 BABIP, which is extremely impressive. Just imagine what the Mets would have been like if Nimmo was putting up those numbers in the middle of the year, rather than the dreck that Lagares and Keon Broxton produced in his place. The best part about the Mets360 forecast was the .185 ISO, compared to his actual .186 in the category. Chris F. predicted a 115 OPS+ for Nimmo in the comments section and his final mark was 112.