One of my favorite things to do at the conclusion of the baseball season is to look back at predictions made by popular outlets and experts. It’s why I hold onto those MLB Preview Issues from Sports Illustrated for 8 months. Of course, this year was a tough one for prognosticators, but every year is because baseball is the physical embodiment of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Knowing this full well, my preseason preview for the Rockies was predicated primarily on Dan Szymborski’s projection system, ZiPS. We know that we can trust the projection systems on a big picture level, but that doesn’t mean they are infallible (just ask the 2015 Royals). That’s why I thought it would be interesting/instructive/cathartic to look back at what ZiPS said about our Rockies in 2015 and compare to reality (thanks to valued internet commenter Dan Hampton for the idea).
For simplicity, we’re only going to look at the players previewed back before the season. We’ll look at their ZiPS projection from before the season next to their actual statistics and decide whether they outperformed, underperformed, or hit their projections. We’ll start with the hitters, and follow up with the pitchers later. Of course, we’ll leave some room for some performances I didn’t anticipate.
Note: We’re looking at OPS+ here to summarize overall offensive output, rather than more comprehensive statistics like True Average or weighted runs created plus because that is the stat used by ZiPS and in my preview. With that disclaimer out of the way, onto the numbers!
When the Rockies signed Nick Hundley last offseason, people weren’t even sure he’d be the everyday catcher. In the end, he turned in his most productive season since 2011 in San Diego and turned into a favorite of those running the Purple Row twitter account, as well as many other fans. Much as I’d like to wax poetically on the improvements of Hundley, Scott Strandberg of Fangraphs has already done that for me, and I encourage you to check out his awesome piece about Hundley’s outlook next year. Regardless, let’s acknowledge that the Bridich regime got this right, as Hundley has already paid for his contract, even in limited time.
Verdict: Outperformed
Well, that did not go very well. Granted, his batting line wasn’t too far off projection but the power all but disappeared and, two separate trips to Albuquerque later, Wilin Rosario has turned into one of the biggest liabilities on the roster. Unfortunately for the Rockies. The strange bit here is that, despite falling pretty close to his projection slash line, his overall offensive production fell way below projections. Overall, I think it’s best to call this an underperformance, as few could have predicted Wilin would have fallen off this much. I think the pronunciation guide on Baseball-Reference sums it up:
Verdict: Underperformed
This one is as simple as it is disappointing: injuries. Justin Morneauwent down with a recurrence of concussion symptoms back in May and many feared that his career would be coming to an end. Instead he reappeared after roster expansion and hit .338/.423/.471 in 68 at bats. This was very encouraging for fans, and for Justin. “You always wonder after a long layoff how you’re going to react when you come back,” he said during the last home stand in September. “To have a good finish and to finish healthy was the whole purpose of going through the rehab and trying to fight to come back, so it’s nice to be out there and play. It’d be nice if you were fighting for a playoff spot but I’ve proved to myself that I can be healthy and still contribute.” Justin had a short tenure in Colorado (the Rockies bought out his player option) but it was a memorable one. We wish him all the best wherever he ends up next.
Verdict: Injuries, inconclusive
In some ways DJ LeMahieu greatly outperformed expectations this year. He achieved career highs in hits, runs, extra base hits, RBI, stolen bases, batting average, on-base percentage, walk rate, and wins above replacement. He also set a career high in BABIP, which partially explains the breakout. If you take out his scorching April (.406/.446/.522 with .450 BABIP), he hit a more close-to-projection .285/.343/.366, which harkens back to the reasons why we can trust the projections on the whole. Regardless, because Rockies fans had come to accept the glove-for-bat trade off with DJ, this was pure gravy (and a huge improvement on his OPS+ of 75 last year.
Verdict: Outperformed
We’ve already looked at Nolan Arenado extensively, albeit with PECOTA rather than ZiPS, and we’ll spend plenty of time this offseason digging into his season more. It’s clear that he had a fantastic season but we can see here that, save for his power surge, performed pretty closely to what was expected of him. Nonetheless, it was an MVP-caliber season (non-Bryce Harper division) from Nolan in his third season, so hopefully there’s more to come. For now, because he so far blew those last 3 numbers beyond projection, I’m going to give him credit for outperforming ZiPS.
Verdict: Outperformed
Many Rockies fans still have a sore spot here, but for the sake of completeness, in the name of science, we persevere. And what we see is that our beloved Tulo endured his worst season since his disastrous sophomore campaign in 2008. Surely a portion of this can be laid at the feet of that broken scapula toward the end of his season in Toronto but it wasn’t exactly up to standard before the trade. Still good, but not up to the superstar standard he had set for himself. Some will be rooting for this continued downslide, others will be pulling for a recovery. As Tulo continues his career on the wrong side of 30, we’ll have to find out which it is from afar.
Verdict: Underperformed
Much like Morneau, Corey Dickerson didn’t spend a lot of time on the field for the Rockies, missing the end of May, most of June and July, and all of August. “I feel like I know who I am as a player. Unfortunately, I got hurt.” Corey said in September. Looking at the projections and the actual numbers, it’s probably safe to say we all know, generally, who Corey is as a player. As for what we can expect from him. “I expected big things this year and there’s not going to be the slightest of doubt that I’m going to expect the same things next year going into the season.” I’m tempted to give ZiPS credit for hitting so close on the overall numbers, but the lack of playing time due to injuries means he gets the same verdict as Morneau.
Verdict: Injuries, inconclusive
Isn’t it nice to think that Carlos Gonzalez had a much better year than expected? Well you probably think that because of the 40 home runs and the full season of playing time (injury plagued seasons do wonders for one’s expectations). As it turns out, ZiPS had higher expectations for Cargo than I remembered, expectations that some might have considered optimistic early in the season. So why do we still feel like he did pretty well overall? A strong finishing kicks helps, as he was certainly weighed down by a very slow start, bottoming out on May 13th with an .188/.245/.297 line. After that point, he hit a robust .289/.342/.594, closer to his projection than his full season numbers. Do we bet on a Cargo upswing next season? His .284 BABIP nearly matched his career low of .283, set last season, which might point to yes. But did he outperform or underperform his projection? Difficult to say when just looking at these numbers, but it looks to me that most of his outperformance stems from staying on the field, which has been the major knock on Cargo for some time. In light of that, as well as said finishing kick, I’m calling this one in his favor.
Verdict: Outperform
Back in the preseason I offered the opinion that Drew Stubbs and Charlie Blackmon would/should split time in an outfield platoon. Let’s just say that it’s probably a good thing I’m not in charge. The less said about Stubbs (and his 42.9% strikeout rate), the better. Godspeed, Sir Whiffsalot.
Verdict: Underperformed
Charlie Blackmon had a breakout season in 2014. Of course, it was well documented that after his crazy April, he had a .269/.314/.401 line, which wasn’t far off his initial projection. So expectations were a little low, but ZiPS had a little optimism baked in. By the end of the season Blackmon was the 4th most valuable member of the Rockies. By his own estimation he was “much more consistent this year” as opposed to last, and his month-to-month splits bear that out.
Verdict: Outperformed
ZiPS is a little tricky on some of the guys who are buried on the depth chart, as playing time estimates don’t always come out as we’d expect (case in point: ZiPS pegged David Dahl, who started the season in Double-A, to play in 103 games in 2015). As such, it’s easy to get confused about his projection here. However, it’s pretty clear that Ben Paulsen blew his modest expectations out of the water this year. His below average walk (6.5%) and strikeout (26.0%) rates are cause for concern, but it will be interesting to see how the Rockies choose to deploy Paulsen as time goes on.
Verdict: Outperformed
Recap
Outperformed: 6
Underperformed: 3
Inconclusive: 2
Surprisingly, the Rockies this season did very well on the offensive side. Most of the primary position players outperformed their median projection, whether that was due to increased playing time (Gonzalez, Paulsen), modest steps forward (Blackmon, LeMahieu) or career-best performances (Hundley, Arenado). There were players who disappointed, to varying degrees (Tulowitzki, Rosario, Stubbs) and two players who gave encouraging performances in limited duty (Dickerson, Morneau). This begs the question: if the Rockies had so many encouraging performances by their hitters, how could the offense (team OPS+ of 89), and the team (94 losses), be so bad? (Hint: Drag plays a Factor)
The projections don’t get every player right every time; they are not created with information from the Gray’s Sports Almanac. They are, by design, limited on the extremes (think Stubbs, Arenado). But notice how ZiPS, which Dan Syzmborski publishes free of charge, managed to peg certain aspects of a player’s performance very closely, even while missing overall. This is part of the reason why, in the aggregate, projections are trustworthy, even if they are not “gospel truth.”
Next we’ll tackle the pitching side of the equation and find out more about why this team lost 90+ games.
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