Dan Szymborski has posted his 2012 Reds projections over on the Baseball Think Factory site. I really like these projections since they have the projected numbers for just about every player on the roster.
I’ve taken this years Reds projections for all of the players expected to see playing time this coming season and prorated their projections based on their expected role. I then totaled up a full seasons worth of AB (5500) and IP (1450). I calculated Runs Created for hitters and Runs Allowed for pitchers then used the Pythagorean theorem to predict the Reds record for the upcoming season. The following are the results.
2012 Zips Projections Pyth. WP W L 52% 84 78 Player AB BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ RC Devin Mesoraco 315 0.248 0.322 0.432 0.754 100 44 Ryan Hanigan 273 0.267 0.358 0.355 0.713 92 35 Joey Votto 544 0.294 0.402 0.529 0.931 148 116 Brandon Phillips 603 0.279 0.331 0.436 0.767 104 87 Zack Cozart 414 0.253 0.304 0.398 0.702 86 50 Wilson Valdez 201 0.253 0.298 0.336 0.634 70 20 Scott Rolen 311 0.260 0.315 0.441 0.756 100 43 Juan Francisco 265 0.267 0.297 0.480 0.777 104 38 Chris Heisey 395 0.258 0.317 0.446 0.763 102 56 Ryan Ludwick 412 0.250 0.322 0.413 0.735 104 55 Drew Stubbs 434 0.240 0.317 0.388 0.705 88 53 Jay Bruce 546 0.260 0.340 0.474 0.814 116 88 Miguel Cairo 211 0.265 0.328 0.403 0.731 95 28 Todd Frazier 181 0.242 0.307 0.423 0.730 94 24 Willie Harris 104 0.228 0.336 0.354 0.690 89 12 Pitchers 299 0.142 0.176 0.183 0.359 10 Total 5507 0.255 0.319 0.419 0.738 736 Player ERA IP R WHIP ERA+ Mat Latos 3.38 191.7 79 1.17 119 Johnny Cueto 3.63 173.3 77 1.29 110 Homer Bailey 4.28 157.7 82 1.33 94 Mike Leake 4.42 159.0 86 1.31 91 Bronson Arroyo 4.84 169.3 100 1.33 83 Jeff Francis 4.72 118.3 68 1.39 88 Ryan Madson 3.00 60.0 22 1.15 132 Sean Marshall 2.74 72.3 24 1.12 147 Nick Masset 3.60 70.0 31 1.31 111 Bill Bray 3.46 52.0 22 1.23 116 Jose Arredondo 4.13 55.3 28 1.46 97 Aroldis Chapman 3.87 47.7 22 1.48 104 Logan Ondrusek 4.13 55.3 28 1.38 97 Sam LeCure 4.37 69.7 37 1.31 92 Total 3.99 1451.6 707 1.30
The 736 R and .738 OPS are eerily close to the 735 R and .734 OPS the Reds put up last season. These numbers would have placed them as the 2nd best offense in the NL, same as they were last season.
The 3.99 ERA and 707 RA are only a slight improvement over last seasons 4.16 ERA and 720 RA. These numbers would have bumped the Reds from the 12th to 11th in the NL last season.
The Pythagorean projected record of 84-78 is five games better that last seasons 79-83 mark, but only one game better than last seasons Pythagorean W-L of 83-79.
Note that there was no ZiPS projection for Ludwick yet, so the projection above is a guesstimate from his 2011 ZiPS projection and his Bill James 2012 projection. The only player projection above that really stood out to me above was Drew Stubbs. ZiPS does not project any kind of breakout for him and I can see Heisey getting more time in CF if Stubbs does bat at this level.
When looking at the starting pitchers, I’m a little perplexed at Mike Leake’s projection. I thought it might be more around a 3.90 ERA. Bronson Arroyo is projected to bounce back a little, but not as much as we might have hoped.
I included Chapman in with the relief pitchers since I really don’t see him cracking the rotation. Even if he does, he is not going to be able to pitch there all season; it would be too big of an innings jump from one season to the next.
Overall, I was a little surprised at the results. Going into this, with all the improvements made over the winter, I expected the pitching staff numbers were going to improve dramatically and that the W-L projection would be approaching the 90 win mark. That’s the beauty of this game though, the numbers don’t tell all, they just help point us in the right direction. I look forward to seeing how it plays out this season.