FANS vs the Depth Charts: 2016 Hitters

Last year, I performed this very exercise, in which I compared FANS projections — projections generated by fans — to the Depth Charts projections — a composite of Steamer and ZiPS with playing time allocated by generally informed FanGraphs staff. I intended to highlight the largest discrepancies and offer a quick take on them.

I explain my interest in FANS during the inaugural of this exercise. Said interest pertains largely to anticipated versus most likely outcomes for a player and how those disparities manifest themselves in price distortions on draft day.

This time around, instead of discussing five National League outfielders at length, I’ll focus on the largest differences between FANS and Depth Charts projections in playing time, home runs, stolen bases, wOBA and WAR for a couple of players per category. I’ve set a personal goal for no more than three sentences per player so I don’t spend all day doing this. Because I could, and nobody wants that.

P.S. The number (#) listed after “FANS” indicates the number of fans who submitted projections for a particular player.

P.P.S. All projections are current as of March 12.

Playing Time

*At my discretion, I have omitted names of recently injured players, such as Aaron Altherr, for whom their FANS projections will be vastly overstated.

Joey Gallo, TEX 3B/OF
FANS (11): 378 PA
Depth Charts: 84 PA

The Rangers are well-equipped — or, well-equipped enough — at the corners and in the outfield to make the 22-year-old somewhat superfluous in 2016. While FANS likely overestimates playing time because the projections were submitted before Desmond’s signing, I think it’s also probably a result of high expectations for a former first-rounder with allegedly Giancarlo Stantonian power. It’s possible that injuries could open up playing time for him, but the Rangers would be best-served to let him marinate in the minors a little longer with the hope that he’ll shore up contact skills that can charitably be called “pretty bad.”

Corey Dickerson, TBR OF
FANS (14): 587 PA
Depth Charts: 294 PA

FanGraphs thinks Dickerson and Desmond Jennings will likely form a platoon in left field, and that makes a ton of sense given their strengths: Jennings has posted a career 129 wRC+ versus lefties, and Dickerson has posted a career 139 wRC+ versus righties. It’s a bummer to see a burgeoning slugger get traded from hitter-friendly Coors Field to a part-time role in Florida, but honestly, this is how teams should optimize the talent available to them. The two could be legitimate assets (who could very likely outperform their projections) in part-time duty, even if it takes extra effort by the fantasy owner to extract that value.

Home Runs

Adam Duvall, CIN 1B/OF
FANS (6): 23 HR per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 30 HR per 600 PAs

Seven home runs is not a small difference, and I’m surprised readers — who, anecdotally speaking, seem more enamored with Minor League power than plate discipline, from my experience — are so low on Duvall for 2016. The power is legitimate — he swatted 36 home runs per 600 PAs in Triple-A the last two years — but on-base concerns are legitimate, too, thus reminding this author of a post-Diamondbacks Mark Reynolds. He may not see a full season’s work, and readers already expect it, but he could be a sneaky, albeit empty, source of power in deep mixed and NL-only leagues.

Mark Reynolds, COL 1B/OF
FANS (5): 20 HR per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 31 HR per 600 PAs

Promise you I had no idea Reynolds was on this list; I was just kind of perusing and his showed up a few slots after Duvall. Reynolds’ difference is greater than Duvall’s, which, I guess, is the product of a somewhat down year in terms of fly ball rate (FB%) and home runs per fly ball (HR/FB). I would split the difference, but that’s prior to a move to Coors Field, where power plays up — NL-only owners, take notice.

Stolen Bases

Jarrod Dyson, KCR OF
FANS (11): 50 SB per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 60 SB per 600 PAs

Dyson only seemed less effective on the base paths in 2015 relative to 2014. However, his pace was only five steals off — and, given his age, we shouldn’t expect it to increase — but for it to fall off by roughly 20 steals seems like a stretch. I side with the Depth Charts, which projects Dyson closer to 30 steals than 25 in a half season’s work — which may sound trivial until you acknowledge that, for a one-trick pony, every marginal gain in that trick matters immensely.

Aaron Hicks, NYY OF
FANS (11): 21 SB per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 13 SB per 600 PAs

A perennially lauded prospect, Hicks finally, finally, found his groove in 2015; always one to flash decent power and speed, a discerning eye and merely OK contact skills, Hicks started to pull it all together. It’s a shame he’s buried in New York, but that’s baseball’s brittlest outfield, so he should earn a chance to shine again at some point in 2016. I’m willing to split the difference again, as I doubt that, at 26, Hicks’ stolen base rate actually increases, but I don’t think it will fall off as precipitously as the projections think, either.

wOBA

(More of a catch-all for widest gaps in projected triple-slash lines.)

Curt Casali, TBR C
FANS (5): .333 wOBA
Depth Charts: .290 wOBA

Tampa Bay’s backstop situation could be considered fluid right now, and Casali stands a chance to win a bulk of the work if he can repeat his 2015 small-sample power display. While there’s a pretty big disagreement regarding his power — understandably so, given it blossomed overnight — the biggest disparity resides in his BABIP (batting average on balls in play). With a career .243 BABIP through 197 Major League PAs, there’s merit to the Depth Charts anticipating that a slow, pull-happy catcher will not be an above-average contact guy despite a solid hard-hit rate (Hard%), like the readers think he’ll be.

Travis Shaw, BOS 1B
FANS (9): .358 wOBA
Depth Charts: .315 wOBA

Shaw’s not a particularly sexy prospect, but he acquitted himself well in 2015, swatting 13 homers in less than half a season. ZiPS and Steamer are torn on Shaw, too — the latter thinks he’s about league average, the former thinks he’s about 14% worse. However, neither expect him to be anywhere as good as what’s expected by the fans, who anticipate much of the same power, better plate discipline and a most robust BABIP. (Fourth sentence: He’ll inevitably be Hanley Ramirez’s injury replacement, but I don’t think he’ll be a priority waiver target except in much deeper formats.)

WAR

Kelby Tomlinson, SFG SS
FANS (10): 3.2 WAR per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 0.3 WAR per 600 PAs

Needless to say, Giants fans are super jazzed about Tomlinson as Joe Panik’s backup. They are enamored by the absurd .382 BABIP, and while he’s fast enough, and ground-bally enough, and perhaps even line-drivey enough, to maintain a lofty BABIP, I think the .344 BABIP that fans expect might still be a bit unreasonable. The good news is he should develop into a decent bat (sans power) with solid speed, but I think he’s currently closer to a .270 hitter than a .290-or-better hitter.

Franklin Gutierrez, SEA OF
FANS (12): 3.8 WAR per 600 PAs
Depth Charts: 0.9 WAR per 600 PAs

I’ve been trying to figure out why someone, let alone multiple people, on Twitter would actively discuss Franklin Gutierrez. But I get it now: dude has hit 25 home runs in his last 340 PAs — which date back to 2013, mind you — and that’s pretty crazy. Small-sample caveats aside, his hard-hit rate matches Edwin Encarnacion’s hard-hit rate (Hard%) since 2013, but his HR/FB also outpaces Encarnacion’s by more than 10 percentage points, too — an easy indicator that his recent pace is unsustainable. (Fourth sentence: Should he see more playing time in Seattle’s outfield, he could make for a so-so replacement that demonstrates 20-homer power, but it will be at the expense of selling out his batting average.)

An Observation

Fans always tend to be more bullish than the computers, and it’s always fun to try to understand why. Are there any Steamer/ZiPS/Depth Charts projections you think are particularly strange? Completely off?