Biggest Changes in Projections

A month into the season, I start to feel itchy. Those slow starts are now harder to write off. Those impressive early numbers feel less early. And I start to look for data I can aggressively act on. One of the best places to look is where projections have changed. Humans can be easily fooled by random variance that looks like a pattern. Computers are better at finding the signal amongst the noise.

I pulled pre-season (PRE) THEBATX projections and rest-of-season (ROS) THEBATX projections for every hitter. I found all hitters who have projections from both systems and I looked at wOBA to see which players have had the biggest movement in their projections since the season started.

I wanted to set a threshold for what was “interesting.” Knowing a player’s projection jumped from a .200 wOBA to a .250 wOBA might mean they have the biggest gain of any player, but it doesn’t mean you should change how you value them – they are still not good enough to roster in Ottoneu or any other fantasy format. So for wOBA gainers, this is the list of biggest increases in projected wOBA for those whose ROS wOBA is a minimum of .320.

There are quite a few exciting names on here and not a ton of surprises. We all know what Elly de la Cruz is doing, but it is very exciting to see him show up here. Given the way his start has played out – still a lot of strikeouts, insane HR/FB rate, etc. – you could be excused for having doubts about how sustainable this is. We saw him explode out of the gate last year before cooling off, as well. But this suggests that while de la Cruz may not maintain a .419 wOBA all year, there are real and meaningful improvements underlying the early performance.

Jung Hoo Lee is an interesting one, as I think a lot of managers have been disappointed with his start. He was cut in one of my leagues. But he is hitting the ball hard more often than I would have anticipated and has likely put to bed – or at least calmed down – any concerns about how well his plate discipline would transfer from KBO to MLB.

The catchers (Perez, Jeffers, Sànchez, and Herrera) all have projections that are still not super exciting, except they are catchers. All four of those guys become very interesting. Jeffers and Perez should be universally rostered and probably starting at all times, while Herrera and Sànchez are both interesting backup options.

Larnach stands out as well. A post-hype (post-post-hype? how many posts do I need?) prospect, Larnach was not on a lot of radars before the season, and the projection shows why. The new projection doesn’t scream, “GO GET THIS GUY NOW!” but the way he is hitting combined with meaningful movement in his projection is enough to make me want to take a shot on him.

All in all, this is a pretty decent list of players who are interesting buy-high candidates or, at the very least, not guys you should rush to sell-high.

Looking at the biggest wOBA fallers, I also wanted to avoid players who just aren’t interesting, so I limited the list to players who had at least a .320 Pre wOBA projection.

The first thing you will notice (or at least the first thing I noticed) is that the drops are much smaller than the gains. In fact, across the 583 players in the dataset, only 85 had a decrease in projected wOBA while 498 showed an increase. I have some hypotheses as to why this might be (we are leaving behind a low offense month so the rest of the season should be higher; the environment is different than expected before the season, etc.) but those are all just guesses for now.

Rather than get caught up in why, the important thing to note is that, given we are playing a relative game (that is, a player’s value is relative to other players), a flat projection is a step back. So even though Arraez dropped by just .009 points of wOBA, he is still the biggest faller and that is worth noting.

And Arraez is an interesting one. I have generally avoided him in Ottoneu Points leagues because his path to having no value was so clear. All he does is get on base. Getting on base is super valuable for an MLB player and can be extremely valuable for a fantasy player, but if the BABIP drops or the balls in play become less frequent, what is left? His strikeout rate is up a touch and his walk rate is a career low. Add in a dip in contact quality bringing down his BABIP and he’s not useful in Ottoneu leagues. I don’t think there is anything wrong with just moving on.

Others I am worried about:

• I have already moved on from Schanuel where I had him. It’s not just that he is making such rare hard contact, it’s that he hasn’t even demonstrated that he can make hard contact. His max EV (101.6 mph this year, 103.5 for his career) just isn’t good enough for a fantasy 1B.
• Torres’s performance is concerning because we have seen this kind of floor before, except this time it comes with much worse contact quality. I am not giving up on him (I am actually trying to add him one place he was cut) but I am not excited.
• Díaz is running the second-lowest launch angle and second-highest ground-ball rate of his career. The only year he was burning more worms was the shortened 2020 season. After he clubbed 22 HR last year and hit another on literally the first pitch of his season, people were buying in on a new talent level. But he has reverted to his old ways. I was always taking the under on another 20-homer season, but I still expected him to be a solid $20 player. I would be patient, but lower your expectations to an older version of Yandy.
• Carroll has a .322 wOBA over 452 PA dating back to the July 2 last year. We also know he has had a serious shoulder injury. We also know that he had to leave a game due to shoulder soreness June 29 of last year and was out until July 2. I don’t think Carroll is just a .322 wOBA hitter moving forward. But a few months ago, I would have said there was reason to be optimistic that the .350-ish projections were pessimistic. Now, I think we have to adjust our expectations down closer to those projections and I am worried that the shoulder might be an ongoing issue.

At the other end of the spectrum, I am not at all worried about Acuña. Even with the now-lowered expectations, my expectations are still very, very high and the now-lowered projections support that.