2013 Pod Projections: Jeff Samardzija
Your voices have been heard. Tallying six big votes for the next pitcher to be Pod Projected was 2012 breakout starting pitcher, Jeff Samardzija. I owned him in all of my leagues last year after scooping him up post-draft during spring training and I know how to spell his name without looking it up! Impressive feat, I know. So what will the “Shark” do for an encore?
2013 Pod Projection Index:
Hitter Introduction
Carlos Gomez
Mark Trumbo
Brett Lawrie
Jason Heyward
Desmond Jennings
Pitcher Introduction
Kris Medlen
IP: 195
He threw 174.2 innings last year in his first full season as a starting pitcher and he will not be on any kind of innings limit this time. He is slotted in as either the ace of the staff or the number two starter behind Matt Garza, depending on which depth chart you consult. Only injury should prevent him from reaching around 195 innings.
GB%/LD%/FB%: 44%/19%/37%
This projection is similar to what he posted last year, but assumes he turns some line drives into fly balls. Since line drives have a tiny year-to-year correlation, I nearly always project a mark around the league average.
HR/FB%: 10%
He posted a 12.8% mark last season and really struggled with the long ball at home, as his HR/FB rate there was 18.5%, versus 8.8% in away parks. Did he just happen to pitch all his home games when the wind was blowing out of Wrigley? His career average now stands at exactly 10.0%. No reason to project anything other than around league average.
BABIP: .300
Like HR/FB ratio, there has to be a compelling reason to project a young pitcher with a limited history for anything other than around a league average BABIP. Samardzija posted a .296 mark last year, barely above the .294 league average mark from starting pitchers. He also sports batted ball rates very close to the league average, so really, this is as obvious a league average BABIP projection as it gets!
BB/9: 3.3
Perhaps the most difficult projection in Samardzija’s case. He came into last season with a whopping 100 walks issued in just 169.2 innings, for an inflated 5.3 BB/9. But then something seemingly clicked, as his F-Strike% suddenly jumped to just above the league average, and his walk rate fell to just 2.9. While we cannot be sure he will continue to throw strikes as frequently again this season, we could say that his walk rate itself was no fluke given the rest of his advanced metrics. Of course, I have to project a bit of regression, but I am confident that his control has legitimately improved by dramatic proportions.
K/9: 9.0
On what planet does a pitcher’s fastball not lose velocity when moving from relief to the rotation? Samardzija’s fastball averaged 95.0 miles per hour, good for second among all qualified starters, which barely budged from his previous season velocity of 95.1 miles per hour pitching in relief. And that 95.0 miles per hour was also above his 2008-2010 velocity averages, primarily coming in relief as well. His SwStk% ranked fifth among all qualified starters and fueled a strikeout rate of 9.3, higher than in any of his previous seasons with the Cubbies. Oh, and it’s a joy to watch his filthy stuff live on television from my mother’s basement. Again, have to project a slight regression, but seriously, I wouldn’t be shocked if his strikeout rate actually climbed from last year.
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 | 195 | 12 | 3.60 | 1.24 | 195 | 9.0 | 3.3 | 44%/19%/37% | 0.300 | 10% |
| Steamer | 192 | 12 | 4.08 | 1.36 | 175 | 8.2 | 4.0 | ?? | 0.288 | ?? |
| Bill James | 193 | 10 | 3.78 | 1.24 | 169 | 7.9 | 2.9 | ?? | 0.294 | ?? |
| Oliver | 132 | 8 | 4.08 | 1.35 | 123 | 8.4 | 4.1 | ?? | 0.287 | ?? |
| Fans (23) | 192 | 12 | 3.73 | 1.22 | 191 | 9.0 | 3.0 | ?? | 0.296 | ?? |
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
The version of Steamer at Razzball does include gb%/ld%/fb%. For samardzija they’ve got a 44%/20%/37% rate; nearly identical to your projection. I’m not sure if this data just isn’t provided by steamer to FanGraphs or if FG just doesn’t display those stats.
I will take the under on your projection. It is a bad defense behind him and 2nd year starters are much more likely to take a step back than a step forward in my experience. The 2nd half looks great but he also had a pretty darn easy schedule and with the Astros leaving the division all of the pitching in the NL Central suffers.
“It is a bad defense behind him” [citation needed]
Barney is the best defender in the NL, Rizzo is well above average at first, and Stewart, for all his faults, is above average at 3rd. Castro would be the only defender in the infield to possibly project below average defense, and even he was basically average last season.
Darvin Barney may or may not be the best defender in the NL… but he plays for Arizona now.
That should read… Darwin
Huh,AZ?
FG had the Cubs ranked as the 8th best fielding team in all of baseball last year. Not sure how reliable that is but they were fear from the worst.
Barney doesn’t play for Arizona
Tony Campana isn’t the same person as Darwin Barney. They didn’t trade Barney.
Are you sure Tony Campana and Darwin Barney aren’t the same person? Like, totally sure…?
Even Castro’s defensive issues are mainly of the “young player mental mistake” variety. His good range at short should help the pitcher, and his occasional boneheaded throws won’t hurt since most will go for errors. Infield defense is the one real strength the Cubs have going for them.
Please project Max Scherzer.
Yeah Max Scherzer would be interesting.
Scherzer was my vote last week.
Hyun-Jin Ryu POD Projections…. and is there even a fangraphs page for him yet? If so, I have had trouble finding it.
Nope, so such page yet. I have added Ryu to the vote tally, but seriously, it’s pretty pointless since I don’t have any more of a clue than anyone else. Plus, I don’t have his batted ball distribution data, so no idea if he’s a ground ball/fly ball pitcher or neutral.
Thanks Mike!
Samardzija’s first/second half split was pretty stark, with his second half being MUCH better. Any indicators as to why that might be? Any thoughts on whether that will carry through into 2013?
ERA: 4.71 -> 2.58
wOBA: 325 -> 274
K/BB: 2.70 -> 4.21
This might explain some of it:
BABIP: .319 -> .260
LOB%: 68% -> 82%
I would love to see Max Scherzer or Mat Latos….
In reality Sharky just had one bad month, June.
In which he only actually had 2 really bad starts,
an 8er in 3.2 inning start @ Minn. ,
and a 9er in 4.1 inning start vs NYM.
I don’t like taking out bad starts and looking at stats…
but if you did…
I pay little attention to splits. One season is a relatively small sample to begin with, so halving that already small sample is just silly.
Actually, it wasn’t even a bad 1st half, but rather one bad month: June. He was so/so in April and dynamite in May, but then June came around and he tried to add a curve ball to his repertoire with disastrous results. After a month, he ditched it in July and continued his previous success. See here: http://chicago.sbnation.com/chicago-cubs/2012/7/5/3140096/jeff-samardzija-chicago-cubs-mlb-2012
I remember some article on this at around the 3/4 mark of the season, where his pitch selection had entered some experimental phase during that month when he really struggled. Something to do with a slider or cutter I believe.. and when he dropped that he went back to being dominant. Sorry I’m butchering the actual analysis part of this so bad but the point is, if I am recalling this correctly, that one month can be almost entirely disregarded.
How about Lance Lynn?
Scherzer
You’re all going to draft Scherzer crazy high anyway, why do you need a projection that you can either celebrate or jeer
Signed, a dude who’s going to draft Scherzer high anyway
I agree, nothing anyone says is going to make me want Scherzer any less.
I vote for Johnny cueto. Steamer is way down on him while the fans project him to be elite. PECOTA Oliver and bill James have him as solid to average, certainly not worth where he is being drafted. Is he good enough to be the ace on my staff, or worth passing up to get a samardzija 3 rounds later?
Scherzer is exactly who I want to avoid this year. It might hurt to let him go, but that’s the best move.
Last year he was drafted in the 11th round of my 12-team league. Great upside and not a huge price. Now that he’s put up 2012 he’s getting drafted at a point where the inherent risk of a pitcher is greater than his upside.
Key is to find the 11th rounder this year who will do what Scherzer did last year, no?
maybe doug fister and max scherzer can alternate ADP each year.
I think this article is about that very 11th rounder
@Ashman…bingo!
The article i read said he was playing around with a curve in June, and it stung him. Take June away, and you’ve got a 3.01 era with a 1.09 whip with some very large k numbers.