2015 Visualized: Shortstop

2015 Visualized: Third Base
2015 Visualized: Second Base
2015 Visualized: First Base
2015 Visualized: Catcher

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For the next few weeks, the RotoGraphs staff will devote an entire week to each defensive position, including spotlights on particular players as well as trends throughout the 2015 season. This week, we’re highlighting shortstops.

I don’t claim to be a Tableau (or data visualization) whiz by any means, but I thought it would be cool to visually represent the shortstop landscape in 2015 — with some analysis sprinkled in.

Steamer and ZiPS represent premier player projection systems; FanGraphs’ Depth Charts combines the two, and the writing staff allocate playing time accordingly. The playing time part is less important relative to the combined projections, as aggregated projections tend to perform better than standalones.

I compared projected wOBA (weighted on-base average) from the preseason to actual wOBA (1) by team and (2) by player within team. Unlike WAR, wOBA is a rate metric, so it does not need to be scaled according to playing time.

First: the difference between a team’s wOBA generated by shortstops and their projected wOBA. Blue represents the highest expected wOBA; yellow represents lowest expected wOBA. The size of the bar above (below) the line represents actual wOBA above (below) expectations.

The measurements aren’t perfect — in an attempt to simplify matters, I included only players who recorded at least 50 plate appearances officially designated as a shortstops. Moreover, many shortstops played multiple positions. Accordingly, I isolated their production at shortstops and excluded everything else. As a group, shortstops underperformed their projected wOBA by four points (.300 actual to .304 expected). So… Carlos Correa, eh? The Astros blew away the competition in terms of not only performance versus projections but also nominal performance. Correa hit a ridiculous .279/.345/.512 with 22(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) home runs and 14 stolen bases in a mere 432 plate appearances. He’s 21 years old. Granted, he’s 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, but… wow. The Red Sox generated decent production via Xander Bogaerts‘ bat, and Troy Tulowitzki contributed to general underperformance for the Rockies and Blue Jays (despite nominally performing at or better than the median wOBA). Second: the difference between each player’s actual wOBA and his projected wOBA, categorized by team, represented by the distance of each dot from zero. Colors are scaled by actual wOBA, and dot magnitude represents sample size.

You may notice that the dots don’t seem very saturated. It’s partly because a majority of individual shortstop performances in 2015 were middling in quality, but it’s also because I had to omit two key rookies: Correa and Corey Seager. Neither rookie was expected by Steamer and ZiPS to play in 2015, so they have projected baseline to over- or under-perform.

• Carlos Correa, HOU — .365 wOBA. Let me briefly discuss the “sophomore slump.” Rookie of the Year winners and candidates enduring sophomore slumps can likely be attributed to outcome distributions. Said players generate production at the right-most tail of not only the outcome distribution of all shortstops but also their own outcome distributions. It takes exceptional performance to win an exceptional award, so the sophomore slump is less a matter of poor performance as it is more realistic performance — aka regression to the mean. Correa will almost certainly endure a quote-unquote slump — Steamer projects him for 22 homers but across 648 plate appearances — but that kind of production will still rank Correa among the best, if not the best, offensive shortstop in 2016. It’s just that he can’t reasonably be expected to cross the 30-homer threshold next year, especially given his minor league production. And if he did, well, Correa would certainly elevate himself into the “generational talent” discussion rather quickly.
• Corey Seager, LAD — .421 wOBA. Seager posted the best wOBA for all shortstops who accrued at least 50 plate appearances at the position. Although most of it was generated via an inflated .387 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), the kid still oozes talent and would surprise me if he didn’t finish the 2016 season in the position’s top 10 — barring injury or a move to third base or something.
• Ketel Marte, SEA — .330 wOBA. Confession: I didn’t know who Marte was prior to his call-up. He fared well enough, flashing leather and decent plate discipline to boot. Should he keep the job, he looks like a nice candidate to net 25 steals and a batting average that won’t sink you.

They didn’t play much at the position, but the rest of the Astros depth chart — Jed Lowrie and Jonathan Villar — performed well above expectations in their small-sample production at the position. The most notable larger-sample performances include Francisco Lindor, Eduardo Escobar and Jung-ho Kang. All three exceeded expectations by large margins; a lack of information can be attributed to former top prospect Lindor and Korean import Kang. As for Escobar, I’m not so sure. Let’s say I’m not totally buying what he’s suddenly selling.

Jose Ramirez and Danny Santana, both popular sleepers in the preseason, performed miserably in small samples. Other name-brand shortstops — Jimmy Rollins, Elvis Andrus, Alexei Ramirez, Erick Aybar, Alcides Escobar, Ian Desmond, Jean Segura, Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Reyes, Starlin Castro — all underperformed to some degree during their times manning shortstop. For all the chatter about Rollins’ struggles, he didn’t miss his projected production by much. (Seager certainly exacerbated the issue, though.)

Bogaerts’ season intrigues me, as his preseason projection was actually fairly optimistic — more so than I realized. Maybe it was fantasy owners who undervalued him, given Steamer and ZiPS were both high on the former top prospect. The plate discipline gains seem real, but I think the BABIP gods fueled most of his offensive value. The batting average should dip back down, but I don’t know about the power — his ground ball rate skyrocketed this year, and it’s hard to hit home runs when you’re killing worms. It’ll be interesting to see how his batted ball profile evolves.