2019 Pod vs Steamer — SB Upside
We continue the 2019 Pod vs Steamer series, moving onto stolen bases. I will use the same process as I did with home runs and identify the guys the Pod Projections (the best non-aggregate projections in 2018!) are forecasting upside for versus the Steamer projections.
However, instead of extrapolating the projections over 600 at-bats, I’ll go with 650 plate appearances, since a walk could lead to a stolen base, whereas it cannot lead to a home run.
| Player | Pod PA/SB | Steamer PA/SB | Pod SB – 650 PA | Steamer SB – 650 PA | Diff – 650 PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dee Gordon | 14.1 | 18.0 | 46 | 36 | 10 |
| Billy Hamilton | 12.6 | 15.1 | 52 | 43 | 9 |
| Byron Buxton | 21.0 | 27.6 | 31 | 24 | 7 |
| Jose Altuve | 26.4 | 36.2 | 25 | 18 | 7 |
| Jonathan Villar | 16.3 | 18.8 | 40 | 35 | 5 |
Well gosh, this exercise certainly failed to produce any sleepers! We essentially have a list of the expected league leaders. Let’s discuss anyway.
As a projectionist who ultimately forecasts about 600 players, it’s very difficult to remember all the injuries from the previous season and how it may have affected the player’s performance, and then determine what kind of influence such injuries should have on my projection. So I’d like to thank commenter asuray who reminded me that Dee Gordon broke his toe last year and his pre- and post-injury splits prove it severely hampered his BABIP and willingness to run. As a result, I updated my projection, and now I am far more bullish than Steamer, which is completely unaware of the injury and its effects. This is one of the many advantages a human projection system has over a computer.
After never exceeding a 10.9 PA/SB, Billy Hamilton disappointed with a career worst 16.4 mark in 2018. It wasn’t a sudden inability to get on base either, as he always owned that flaw, and his OBP of .299 was identical to 2017 and actually tied for his second highest mark. So that means I’m projecting quite the rebound, but it would still represent his second worst PA/SB. Why such optimism? Because the Royals are not afraid to run, and heck, they have to given their weak offense.
Woah, hold your horses, I’m actually bullish on one aspect of Byron Buxton’s fantasy output?! I don’t believe it. I’m actually below Steamer’s OBP forecast, which makes this stolen base optimism quite surprising. I’m not sure why Steamer is so down on the PA/SB, as Buxton posted a 17.6 mark in 2017 and no one thought that was a fluke. Why? Because Buxton might very well be the fastest man in baseball, as he sits atop the Statcast Sprint Speed leaderboard.
Wow, Steamer is way down on Jose Altuve’s steals total and it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. This is yet another injury rebound situation, except that Steamer is projecting Altuve’s PA/SB mark to increase again this year to set another career worst. Prior to 2018, Altuve had never even posted a mark above 23.9. My conservative mark would still represent the second worst mark of his career.
Jonathan Villar ran wild after arriving in Baltimore and it’s a very Hamilton-on-the-Royals type situation. Why give him the red light? The offense stinks, so run Jonathan, run. He posted a 19.9 PA/SB mark on the Brewers, but an 11.2 mark with the Orioles. That’s a huge difference. My PA/SB projection is actually a bit worse than his career mark, while he’s only been in the Steamer projected PA/SB mark range once, at 19.0 in 2017.
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.
Hey Mike, good stuff as always! Do you have a formalized xSBs similar to your xhr and xk and xbb measures? Or is your sb projection process more informal?
Or should I just buy your book 😉 ?
Ha, well by all means, buy my book! But, there’s no formal xSB metric. Instead, I turn it into a ratio that I haven’t ever shared here, and use historical marks as my guide to use for my projection. It’s basically a stolen base attempts per stolen base opportunity, but simplified since I don’t have all the data required to actually calculate the denominator with 100% accuracy.
Awesome, thanks for the explanation. As a longtime avid reader (and believer) of all of these x-everything articles (I still prefer x pa/sb over pod pa/sb, name-wise), I was thrilled to see your success in Mr. Cheatsheet’s 2018 review as well.
Thanks!
I appreciate this article being posted. The other ones led to interesting results with some potential significant usefulness. This one, however, as you noted, did nothing other than produce, more or less, a projected leaderboard. I wonder if the differences can all be chalked up to what seems to be the inherent moderation of all computer projected stats (i.e. the computer models rarely project very high or low outcomes, probably because they go with the 50% outcome all the time, even though, obviously, that is not what always happens).
Absolutely that would be the thought. However, last year, you might recall that I was very pessimistic overall on hitters’ SBs versus Steamer. I’ll be publishing my SB Downside article tomorrow, so I’ll see if it looks like the mid-tier I’m down on versus Steamer again.
That makes sense, and could be for the same reason—I wonder if the computers give positive regression to guys who just stop running due to age, etc., that a human would know better—for example, someone like Machado.
I’m curious how you see Turner’s projection. Davey Martinez mentioned wanting him to try to steal 70-75 times, and he looks as though he’ll be the lead-off hitter (with Eaton hitting behind him, which seems like a good fit) vs. the majority of his games batting lower last year. But even Trea doesn’t sound as though he would approach that number of attempts, and it would be crazy to expect 162 games. All that said, projection systems all suggest a decline from last year and not sure what I think about that.
I ignore those kind of managerial comments. I’m at 14.8 PA/SB, which is an improvement from last season’s 17.2 and more optimistic than Steamer at 16.1.
Buxton also basically never gets thrown out, which is a big thing. Can’t recall exactly where I read it, but Altuve stopped stealing when he was changed in the order, by percent, something of that nature. Also I realize Altuve is short so he starts quicker most likely, but his speed isn’t very impressive (142nd in MLB) and he is sitting out currently with, despite what they say is likely an oblique.
Surprised Deshields didn’t make this list. Steamer has him at the lowest GP of all predictions and just bringing his PA up a little puts him above Streamers 19. 25-30 bags doesn’t seem unreasonable with a healthy season.
Games played is moot for this exercise, since I’m extrapolating the projection to 650 plate appearances. This is funny — Pod projects Deshields to steal 33.2 bases in 650 plate appearances and Steamer 33.1! Can’t get much closer than that.
I’m asking this in the desperate hope that he’s not going to be listed in tomorrow’s laggards article…
Where does your SB projection for Albies land?
Ha, I’m at 37.6 PA/SB, compared to:
2018 – 48.9
Steamer 2019 – 41.0
Looks like I’m high man on the totem pole of all the projection systems, with the exception of the Fans of course. But even being high man only yields a difference of an extra steal or two.
I think this all depends on place in the batting order. I for one hope Acuna (or if you are invested in Albies) hit directly in front of Freeman, as they aren’t going him to steal with Freeman at the plate, as holding the runner on is going to buy him a bigger hole. At least that was their tendency last year.
*dont hit directly in front