For our third Pod Projection review of the season, I will recap what was predicted and what actually happened for George Springer in his sophomore season. Refresh your memory by checking back on my original Pod Projection post.

Heading into 2014, Springer ranked as one of the top prospects in baseball and didn’t disappoint upon his arrival to Houston. He did exactly what his minor league record suggested he might — strike out a lot, supplement those swings and misses with a strong walk rate, and display immense power. Unfortunately, his season was cut short by a quadriceps injury, but naturally, expectations were high for 2015.

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The Steamer and I reviews continue this week, which pits a player’s preseason Pod Projection against his Steamer projection. Today, I’ll review 2014 breakout Corey Dickerson, who unfortunately saw his plate appearance total cut in half due to various injuries. I was far more bullish on his prospects than Steamer was.

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Last winter, the Cardinals paid a steep price to acquire one season of Jason Heyward. The club is poised to let Heyward walk via free agency. My colleagues at MLBTR predict a 10-year, $200 million contract. Luckily for St. Louis, there’s very little pressure to bring Heyward back. That’s because Stephen Piscotty and Randal Grichuk had successful seasons.

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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 outfielders.

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 outfield 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.

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For our second Pod Projection review of the season, I will recap what was predicted and what actually happened for rookie Yasmany Tomas. Refresh your memory by checking back on my original Pod Projection post.

As a Cuban rookie with no minor league data to work with and limited statistics to analyze from his work in Cuba, Tomas was a challenge to forecast. Essentially, everyone was really just taking an educated guess and it was more like a 3rd grade education than grad school level.

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Taylor was one of 16 players with at least 14 HR and 16 SB in 2015. The group included luminaries like Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Manny Machado, Mookie Betts, and Ryan Braun and obviously Taylor’s inclusion doesn’t mean he’s destined to reach their heights. In fact, his .640 OPS was easily the lowest of the bunch (Brett Gardner .742) and it netted a 72 OPS+, 30 points lower than second-worst (Charlie Blackmon 102).

Working in his favor is the fact that Taylor was just a rookie and second-youngest by age at 24 (third-youngest overall as Machado and Betts were both 22) so his deficiencies are understandable. Plus, he played just 20 games at Triple-A before reaching the majors. The biggest difference in Taylor’s game compared to the entire rest of the group is that he strikes out a ton. His 31% strikeout rate was the highest of the 16 players and Justin Upton was the only other one to top 25%. The swing-and-miss wasn’t new for Taylor, he had a 25% rate in 2189 minor league PA.

I’d feel much better about a 2016 breakout if he didn’t whiff so much, but let’s see if there are reasons for optimism.

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When I wrote about Paul Goldschmidt earlier in the offseason, part of my analysis focused on when he would be available in the first round. I assumed Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Clayton Kershaw would absorb the first three picks, leaving Goldy as the consensus fourth overall selection. However, there are a handful of players I could justify taking ahead of Goldschmidt. His teammate, A.J. Pollock, is one of them.

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When the 2013 season ended, Jay Bruce was 26 and coming off of three straight 30-homer seasons. Sure, he struck out a bit much, and had some issues defensively, but he was a young man in his prime, a bankable asset, an easy way to inject power into your lineup. Since then, he’s slashed .222/.288/.406 with 22 homers per 600 plate appearances over two seasons.

What happened?

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For the first time this year, I decided to compare my Pod Projections to Steamer and discuss the players we disagreed on most. Of the hitters we both projected, it was clear I was much more optimistic than Steamer on the whole. However, for Giancarlo Stanton I was actually significantly more pessimistic.

In the review of this series, I will be including my original Pod Projection and Steamer counting stat projections extrapolated over the same number of plate appearances that I had projected. However, I included Steamer’s actual PA projection in that column. Also included are the player’s 2015 stats, plus the counting stats extrapolated over the number of PA I projected.

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Bryce Harper finally did it. It was over five years ago when he was drafted #1 overall by the Nationals. This past season, the 22-year-old became the top fantasy player with one of the best seasons ever. He will not even be 25 next season, so the only direction he can is up, right? Actually, it’s better to tap the brakes on the Harper love, especially when it comes to his power.

Let’s start with a few facts on Harper everyone should know:

1. He is young.
2. He was probably the most hyped hitting prospect ever.
3. He had a great 2015 season.

In an early industry draft, Harper was taken #1 overall. Even with the above facts, I just can’t take him #1 for two reasons.

Reason #1: Mike Trout Read the rest of this entry »