Well, my pain may be your gain. For a future Hardball Times article I am working on, I needed to create some historic pitcher groundball rate (GB%) projections. I decided to go ahead and run the values for 2016 and make them publicly available.

Here is the basic background behind creating the projections.

• I used a three-year weighting of .7 for 2015, .2 for 2014 and .1 for 2013.
• The data was regressed some to a league average rate.
• I didn’t use any aging factors.
• The final r-squared from the projection to actual results is around .67.

With that small amount of background information, here are the projections.

I am pretty sure no one saw an eighth overall 3B ranking from the Giants Matt Duffy. Coming into 2015, he seemed to be a nice late piece in NL-only and deep leagues for the stolen bases and a decent average. The twelve home runs seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He was one of only twenty players with more than 10 HR, 10 SB, and greater than a .280 AVG in 2015. I get the feeling people don’t expect a repeat performance in 2016 and after looking over his performance I think his limited power is legit.

I will start with the easy projections, speed and batting average. The 25-year-old should be able to have a stolen base total in the low teens looking at his history.

Season: Combined SB
2012: 10
2013: 25
2014: 20
2015: 12

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• Curtis Granderson just had surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb.

Granderson underwent surgery this week at the Hospital for Special Surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left thumb, less than a week after swatting three home runs in World Series play.

Granderson, 34, injured his thumb sliding into a base in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He wore a wrap on it for Game 4, vowing that it would not affect him for the World Series.

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Robinson Cano was a usually considered a first round pick for years until he signed with the Mariners. This past season, he came in as the 7th best 2B according to our end-of-season rankings. While not horrible finish, he was consistently in the top few for several seasons. After looking over Cano’s season, I think the 2015 results will be more of the same going forward.

Several factors have been limiting Cano’s potential since leaving the Yankees. Some under his control, some not. I will start with his drop in home runs. After peaking at 33 home runs in 2012, he has hit 14 and 21 the past two seasons. While he did have just an 11% HR/FB% in 2014, he put up a 16% value in 2015 which was 3rd highest career value. His 2015 Hard Hit% was at 32.4% was almost the same as a career 32.8%. Cano’s power doesn’t seem to be taking a nose dive. His power is down for one reason, fewer flyballs and the not spacious Safeco field.

Before signing with the Mariners, he had a career 31% FB%. In his two years with the Mariners, it is 25%. I think he has got it in his head that he can’t hit the ball out of Safeco, so he isn’t trying but should. He hasn’t been affected by the stadium with 21 HR hit in Seattle and 15 away. If I was going to look at one time for Cano to improve on in 2016, I would like to see him put a little more loft on the ball.

With the decline in home runs, he will have a lower number of Runs and RBI. The drop in home runs explains some of his drop in Runs and RBI, but the biggest cause has been the anemic Seattle offense. Here are Cano’s last R+RBI totals along with his team’s overall runs scored per game over the past 5 seasons.

Season: R/G, Run+RBI

2011: 5.35, 222
2012: 4.96, 197
2013: 4.01, 188
2014: 3.91, 159
2015: 4.05, 161

A drop of 60 R+RBI is huge while even the drop of 30 from 2013 is nothing to sneeze at. If Cano gets around 25 HR, the Mariners lack of hitting talent will limit his upside.

The final noticeable change was his drop in BB% from 9.2% in 2014 to 6.4%. The cause for the drop can be attributed to a drop in his intentional walk rate. Here are his overall walk rates and non-intention walk rates for the past four seasons.

2012: 8.8%, 7.4%
2013: 9.5% 7.4%
2014: 9.2%, 6.4%
2015: 6.4%, 5.7%
Career: 7.7%, 6.4%

For people worried about a declining plate discipline, don’t. His real walk rate is in line with his previous values. Those owners in OBP leagues, the drop may be permanent and taken into account.

For 2016, I think 2015 Cano is the floor. His AVG could increase after it was at his lowest level since 2008. His power could jump by hitting a few more home runs. Also, the Mariners offense could regress after scoring the 3rd lowest amount of runs in the AL last year. I am a small bit more optimistic that his Steamer projection (18 HR, 157 R+RBI, .285 AVG) with 20 HR, 165 R+RBI, a .300 AVG. I really see this past season as a floor and he could see quite a bit more upside.

• My major accomplishment this week was to get the 2015 disabled list information finalized for public use. Let know if any of the information is incorrect or missing.

• Edwin Encarnacion had hernia surgery as soon as the Blue Jays were out of the playoffs. Reports say he will be 100% for spring training.

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Anthony Rizzo ended up as the #3 overall first baseman according to Zack Sanders end-of-season rankings. Looking over Rizzo’s stat line about everything lined up with expectations. The 31 home runs and .278 average are well within expectations. A few additions around him in the lineup boosted up his counting stats. The only change in his stat was a huge jump in stolen bases to 17. In his previous four seasons, he only had 16 stolen bases total. I am going to examine Rizzo today especially the chances of his stolen base total staying up.

Not Stolen Base Information

The 26-year-old’s stats were in line with expectations, if not a bit better. One item which improved was his 19% K% in 2014 (and it is near his career average) dropped to 15% in 2015. Rizzo went with the approach of swinging more (44.5% to 46.8%) and making more contact (79.7% to 83.1%). If a few more of these batted balls fall in play, he could push a .300 AVG.

I could even expect his Run and RBI total to increase as the rest of the Cubs grow and mature. The team’s wRC+ has gone from 81 in 2012 to 96 this season. The 2012 to 2014 teams averaged 609 runs a season with the 2015 squad scoring 689 runs. With Rizzo hitting in the middle of the lineup, he could easily top 100 Runs and 120 RBI.

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Yes, the 2016 projections are available thanks to Steamer. Well, they are kind of available. The projections’ playing times are all set to 600 PA for hitters, 200 IP for starters and 65 IP for relievers. There is no middle ground right now. The playing time estimates will be included from our depth charts once the postseason is over and the hot stove season is well under way.

I have gone ahead and included the Standard Gain Points value I calculated from the 2014 NFBC leagues from the 2014 season to give the players an overall rank. I will eventually get around to calculating the 2015 SGP values, but these numbers will give owners an initial estimate of the player’s value at the set playing time values.

Here are the hitters and pitchers tables and the values can be download with the link after both tables.

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• Well, I have taken the Tommy John surgery information Jon Roegele (mainly) and I (a small bit) and created a Tableau graph (full page view) out of the year-to-year values. I know it is simple, but it is the most common way I have seen the information.

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Stephen Vogt was a nice sleeper coming into 2015, especially since the Athletics stated they were going to use him as a regular catcher. He quickly got catcher eligibility in mid-April and his value jump some. His value skyrocketed in early May when he hit 5 home runs in nine days and was producing at a league leading level. This production didn’t continue and he saw quite a bit of drop off over the season’s second half. Going into 2016, Vogt’s projected production should probably be about the same as his overall 2015 production.

The 30-year-olf Vogt came into the season as a catcher play in deeper leagues without much major league experience. He seemed to perform decently in 287 PA in 2014 with 9 HR and a .279 AVG. He was mainly a platoon option but was looking at more playing time between catching and playing first base. Here are David Wiers preseason thoughts on Vogt.

Best used as a platoon player against right-handed pitchers, Vogt does offer value in that role. Don’t make the mistake of simply extrapolating and nearly doubling his 2014 counting production, but Vogt could be a sneaky pickup late in the draft or off of the waiver wire.

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This past season may end up going down as the year of the prospect. So many good rookies got their promotion to the majors like Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Noah Syndergaard, and Lance McCullers. It is time to look at finding the next batch of rookies. By using just a handful of minor league stats, I have created basic prospect rankings for 2016.

I have played around with prospect rankings for a while and just recently publish my 2015 ZOBRIST rankings which looked at older potential hitter breakouts. I have had some personal player rankings using just the player’s stats, but nothing worth publishing. Well, I finally took the few step forward by stealing some ideas from a couple of my fellow writers. First, I was able to add position values to the rankings after helping Carson Cistulli work on his minor league WAR values. The final piece came after reading a recent article by Tony Blengino at ESPN where he gives credit to the player’s age compared to the level’s average age.

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