2013 Pod Projections: Chris Sale

Next stop on the Pod Projections train is last year’s breakout starter Chris Sale, who spent his first season in the White Sox rotation. While I cannot claim credit for expecting him to be that good, I was a huge fan heading into the season. But after a more human second half that included a 4.03 ERA and a significant innings increase, what should we expect as a follow up?

2013 Pod Projection Index:

Hitter Introduction
Carlos Gomez
Mark Trumbo
Brett Lawrie
Jason Heyward
Desmond Jennings

Pitcher Introduction
Kris Medlen
Jeff Samardzija
Max Scherzer

IP: 190

This estimate is right about what he posted last season, as it would be quite optimistic to project that he will reach the 200 innings pitched plateau.

GB%/LD%/FB%: 48%/19%/33%

One of the reasons I was a big fan of Sale’s was because of his strong ground ball rate. Unfortunately, last year he allowed an inflated rate of line drives, which took away some of the ground balls he would normally be inducing. I assume that high LD% was just a one year blip and when it declines, those balls will turn into grounders.

HR/FB%: 10.5%

According to our park factors, U.S. Cellular Field is one of, if not the, best ball parks to hit home runs in. That might help explain Sale’s career 11.4% HR/FB rate, though that rate isn’t that much worse at home than on the road. The disparity certainly isn’t as large as I expected. Either way, I have to project a slightly higher HR/FB rate than I typically hand out due to the park.

BABIP: .300

He’s a ground ball pitcher and it will take more than 286.1 innings of better than league average BABIP marks to convince me Sale has a skill here.

BB/9: 2.8

Somehow Sale was able to limit his walk rate to just 2.4, despite a F-Strike% well below the league average. When these two metrics don’t come anywhere close to matching, something has gotta give. Sale’s walk rates have never been good in the past, so I would bet his walk rate is the one that rises. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it jumped above 3.0 like Steamer is projecting.

K/9: 8.8

Sale’s average fastball velocity dropped a much larger degree than expected for a typical reliever to starter conversion. However, his SwStk% was still excellent. My main concern is what I presented in my last article a couple of months ago, where I examined his velocity decline as the season rolled on. If you check his monthly splits, his August K/9 was actually his best, while his Sept was third best. So clearly that velocity drop did not affect him. But it’s still a warning sign and so I am hesitant to project a repeat or increase over his 2012 strikeout rate.

Below is my final projected pitching line, along with a smattering of other projection systems for comparison.

System IP W ERA WHIP SO K/9 BB/9 GB%/LD%/FB% BABIP HR/FB
Pod 190 13 3.31 1.19 186 8.8 2.8 48%/19%/33% 0.300 10.5%
Steamer 181 12 3.66 1.25 173 8.6 3.1 ?? 0.292 ??
Bill James 198 14 3.09 1.11 214 9.7 2.6 ?? 0.293 ??
Oliver 140 11 2.95 1.14 134 8.6 2.4 ?? 0.296 ??
Fans (22) 199 15 3.25 1.14 201 9.1 2.5 ?? 0.295 ??
ZiPS 175.2 14 3.43 1.18 174 8.9 2.7 ?? 0.299 ??

**If you enjoy my Pod Projections, then check out the eBook I just published, Projecting X: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance. Head over ProjectingX.com for more details!





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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Scott
11 years ago

Any thoughts on injury risk? High slider % or something? History of elbow pain? Good recent studies on IP increases?

Guy
11 years ago
Reply to  Scott

His mechanics doom him for a major elbow injury in the near future

semperty
11 years ago
Reply to  Scott

I’m a big fan of following Verducci’s list of pitchers with injury risk. He looks for pitchers younger than 25 who increased at least 30 IP from one year to the next. This year Sale tops the list as he jumped ~120 IP.

Scott
11 years ago
Reply to  semperty

Verducci effect has been disproved time and time again.

Violent delivery guarantees injury? Mark Prior’s perfect mechanics say hello.

There’s gotta be something better out there.

Stan Gable
11 years ago
Reply to  semperty

Bunk theory, sure, but he has great hair.

Byrne
11 years ago
Reply to  semperty

Prior didn’t have perfect mechanics. He had the Strasburg inverted W and regardless, his decline wasn’t due to his mechanics. He wasn’t the same after he jacked up his shoulder in that collision with Marcus Giles. Taking a liner directly to the elbow off of Hawpe’s bat didn’t help either.

Scott
11 years ago
Reply to  Mike Podhorzer

Those are my current thoughts exactly. What I’m wondering is if the pervasive idea that he is an injury risk will suppress his value to the point that he becomes undervalued. Much like the mechanism for finding value in older guys that you recently wrote up.

I’d love to trust the numbers in a case like this, but it seems the only number is JZ’s spreadsheet, and as much as I love the guy, that’s not much to stake such a high draft pick on.