Each year before the season starts, we put up a projection for players thought to have a big role in the upcoming campaign. Then, once the season is over, we do a review of how the projections turned out. As you might have heard, this year was a little wacky. So, instead of doing an individual review of each player, we’re going to do one lump review. And since we didn’t have a full season, we’ll just focus on OPS for hitters and ERA for pitchers. Not all projection systems were available at the time of the original projection we did, so the composite will include between three and five forecasts.
Wilson Ramos
Composite FG/B-R projections – .756 OPS
Mets360 – .775
Actual – .684
Best – THE BAT .729
J.D. Davis
Composite FG/B-R projections – .789 OPS
Mets360 – .805
Actual – .761
Best – THE BAT .773
Brandon Nimmo
Composite FG/B-R projections – .787
Mets360 – .915
Actual – .888
Best – Mets360
Michael Conforto
Composite FG/B-R projections – .853
Mets360 – .875
Actual – .927
Best – Mets360
Amed Rosario
Composite FG/B-R projections – .728
Mets360 – .750
Actual – .643
Best – THE BAT .708
Jeff McNeil
Composite FG/B-R projections – .838
Mets360 – .915
Actual – .836
Best – ZiPS .835
Robinson Cano
Composite FG/B-R projections – .757
Mets360 – .760
Actual – .896
Best – Steamer .775
Pete Alonso
Composite FG/B-R projections – .898
Mets360 – .940
Actual – .817
Best – Steamer .876
Jacob deGrom
Composite FG/B-R projections – 2.93 ERA
Mets360 – 2.06
Actual – 2.38
Best – Mets360
Steven Matz
Composite FG/B-R projections – 4.34
Mets360 – 3.50
Actual – 9.68
Best – ATC, THE BAT 4.45
Rick Porcello
Composite FG/B-R projections – 4.62
Mets360 – 3.95
Actual – 5.64
Best – Marcel 4.99
Michael Wacha
Composite FG/B-R projections – 4.62
Mets360 – 5.10
Actual – 6.62
Best – Mets360
Seth Lugo
Composite FG/B-R projections – 3.49
Mets360 – 2.75
Actual – 5.15
Best – THE BAT 4.10
There were 15 projections done prior to the start of the season, as the ones done for Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman ended up being worthless. At the end of the year, the thought always is – why didn’t you do more of these? But inevitably you run out of steam while doing one after another. It is a bit surprising that one wasn’t done for Yoenis Cespedes. And of course it would have been fun to see ones for Dominic Smith and Edwin Diaz.
You can see links to all of our preseason projections and postseason reviews at this page. We’ve done projections since 2013.
It’s ironic that no one expected a decent year from Smith, thinking 2019 was a fluke. His highest projection OPS was from ATC at .750. His actual was .993 and was in fact over 1.000 for most of the year. I saw a writeup on Zach Plesac in Fangraphs yesterday and he threw his fastball only 37% of the time, even though he throws in the mid-90’s. I would still let Cleveland pick between Alonso or Smith for him. Also, yesterday Manfred said he doesn’t see a DH in the NL next year. Mets have a problem.
Conforto was over 1.000 too, for most of the year but slumped the last couple of weeks.
It’s not so much that everyone thought it was a fluke – Smith had a tough road to playing time with Cespedes looking like the DH and Davis getting first crack in the OF. My opinion was that Smith was going to work his way into a platoon with Davis but he got an even bigger role than that. Good for him.
Good point.
The Mets had a very good year offensively. The were #1 in wRC+, #3 in OPS and #5 in fWAR in MLB.
Yet only Conforto and Cano beat the Mets360 predictions. Looking at the Composite, Nimmo also beat the predictions and McNeil almost did. Ramos, Rosario, Davis and Alonso didn’t meet expectations yet the Mets were statistically a very good offensive team. Also, nobody had a outlier career year.
The Mets had a below average pitching staff. The were #15 in fWAR and #22 in ERA and WHIP. No pitcher beat the Met360 predictions and only deGrom beat the composite. To say the least, four of the five of the pitching staff did not meet expectations.
This winter the Mets can afford to trade some of their offense to obtain more starting pitching.