Alas, we have come to both the final 2016 Pod Projection recap and the last review of my 2016 preseason articles! We arrive at Raisel Iglesias, whose projections were all likely to be wrong, because we all figured he’d remain in the starting rotation. Instead, he ended up making just five starts, missed a month and a half with a shoulder injury, and then return as a reliever. He even ended up recording six saves! But let’s see what I projected and what actually transpired anyway.

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Alas, we have reached the end of our Steamer and I reviews and I left the best for last…just kidding. Though I was surprisingly far more bullish on Sonny Gray than Steamer was, his season was an unquestioned disaster. So we certainly know whose forecast was better before even beginning our deep dive! But let’s get to the two projections sets anyway and compare what Steamer and I were expecting versus what actually transpired.

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Time to talk a little Kyle Schwarber

I touched on it yesterday, but Schwarber’s fantasy value is going to fluctuate a ton depending on each league’s settings. In all my keeper leagues, he is getting the Utility tag because he didn’t make the minimum five games played last year (just two games in the outfield). I can’t emphasize enough, know your league settings. Most leagues require five starts until a player is eligible at a position, so I see him getting outfield eligibility the first or second week depending on the schedule and weather.

For him to get the five games at catcher to gain eligibility, let me say I am skeptical of him catching just one game, let alone five. Just to make sure I wasn’t off kilter, at least on this subject, I ask my Twitter followers when they thought he would reach the five games.
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Johnny Cueto: Sabermetric Anomaly

I am on a mission, to try to explain why some pitchers don’t fit into normal molds. I created pERA to help explain the advantages pitchers who have a mix of high and low groundball pitches experience. I tackled the Robbie Ray/Michael Pineda group of pitchers who can only throw their fastball for strikes. The next pitcher whose production can’t be explained by the above methods is Johnny Cueto. He just a hard player to figure out and here is why.

• Over the past six seasons, his ERA-FIP is the 4th lowest (-0.59) among all starters with at least 600 IP. The other pitchers surrounding him are low ground ball pitchers (and R.A. Dickey) who will see their BABIP suppressed because flyballs and popups are easy outs. Cueto’s 48% GB% is by far the highest among the ERA-FIP leaders until Doug Fister says hi at #22. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s return to reviewing my Pod Projections, this time diving into popular preseason sleeper, Taijuan Walker. Though he posted a poor 4.56 ERA in 2015, he had been a heavily hyped prospect and averaged over 94 mph with his fastball. So that made him a favorite target with serious breakout potential in 2016. In April, he made his newly minted owners proud, as he posted a microscopic 1.44 ERA and 2.69 xFIP. But then the wheels fell apart and he ended up missing time due to a foot injury. Sadly, the strong April wasn’t enough to keep his ERA from finishing above 4.00, and now he gets to start 2017 on a new team and in a new league. Let’s what what I projected for 2016 and how it compared to his actual results.

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Let’s take a short break from my Pod Projection recaps (only two left!) to review another Steamer and I, where I identify players I’m far more bullish or bearish on than Steamer is. Carlos Rodon was a heavily hyped prospect after being selected as the third overall pick in the 2014 June Amateur Draft. He jetted through the minors so quickly, you would swear he never actually made an appearance. In fact, he recorded a total of just 34.2 minor league innings before making his Major League debut in 2015. It was an excellent debut, at least from an ERA perspective, so expectations were high.

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Hyun Soo Kim signed with the Orioles before last season on a two-year deal. He struggled mightily in spring training and because of the nature of his contract, the major league team was forced to roster him. After just 17 plate appearances in April, he became a decent semi-regular in the lineup. The left-handed hitter got on the strong side of a platoon with Joey Rickard or Nolan Reimold being the other half.

He became a decent fantasy option in daily transaction leagues by posting a .329/.410/.454 in until July 10th when he went on the DL with a hamstring injury. After the injury, he hit only .275/.353/.386. The second half numbers are decent numbers, but not as good as before the injury.

With the new StatCast data, I examined it to determine if there was a drop in Kim’s exit velocity around the time of the injury. Using a 10-day rolling average, the available data may not look like it but the rolling average generally stays around 7 mph of the overall average. Additionally, there was  no huge pattern change around the time of the injury.

The problem is that StatCast is not able to collect all the available data as documented at FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. The missing data is normal weak groundballs or high infield popups. I am not going to regurgitate the reasons and the exact details from the previous articles but I am going to take a step forward in accounting for the missing data.

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Jose Ramirez: 2017 Projection

Jose Ramirez was an afterthought for most people coming into the 2016 season. He had struggled early in 2015 (.176/.243/.235 in the first half) and was demoted and Francisco Lindor got called up. He came back in the season’s 2nd half and has been a different hitter ever since. His second half improvement went unnoticed because of the bad first half stats bringing down his value.

I read back through news reports to see if he was dealing with an injury or a change in approach while in the minors and could not find anything. Instead, I will throw out a bunch of stats showing the change without knowing the reason. First, here is his 2015 average exit velocity from baseballsavant.com.

Before getting demoted, his average batted velocity was below league average (84.8 mph) and after coming back it hovered around league average (87.9 mph). Besides hitting the ball harder, he went to a more line drive approach with his swing.

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At last, we come to our final outfielder Steamer and I review. Today, I’ll recap my Steamer and I battle over Michael Conforto, which pit my Pod Projection against the Steamer projection system. I was surprised to learn that I was significantly more bullish on Conforto than Steamer was, as I felt he was actually overvalued in fantasy leagues, though mostly due to his expected lineup slot toward the bottom of the Mets order. Let’s see what we expected versus what actually transpired.

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Onward and forward we move with the Steamer and I series recaps, pitting my Pod Projection against Steamer! Today, I’ll review how we forecasted Yoenis Cespedes. Unlike Mike Trout and Yasiel Puig who I previously recapped, I was actually significantly more bullish than Steamer on Cespedes. Let’s find out exactly what each system was projecting versus how Cespedes actually fared.

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