WAR Projections 2011 Colorado Rockies (Part 2)

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 11:46 AM MST

Some of you may remember my FanPost from November, where I converted Bill James' 2011 Rockies projections to WAR values. However, given that several other projection systems have now released their data, I thought it was time to take a new crack at projecting the Rockies 2011 offense.

Last time I ran these projections, I didn't park-adjust the wOBA values. Given the "LOLCOORZ Effect," that was a major oversight. Also, at that time, there hadn't been the blockbuster trade for Jose Celestino Lopez or the signing of FA Ty "Chief Wiggumton " Wigginton. I included their projections and park-adjusted appropriately.

For those of you who haven't taken the WARpath yet, I recommend that you take a gander at our very own Jeff Aberle's fantastic primer on position player WAR: "WAR Lords of the Diamond (Position Players)"

For the projections, I used Bill James (again), Tom Tango's Marcels, Dan Szymborski's ZiPS, RotoChamp, and Fangraphs' FANS.

Thanks to Andrew Fisher's excellent knowledge of the online SABR world, he was able to link me to these park factors by Patriot. When park-adjusting, I made the rough assumption that half of the PA's had the home park factor, and that the other half had a neutral park factor. This isn't exact, given that higher run environments (Coors Field) also inflate the number of PA's compared to a neutral park, so we would expect more PA's at home than away. Furthermore, the aggregate road park factor isn't always neutral, but it would be nearly impossible to project the number of PA's at each park and then weight those park factors. It's just a shame that the factors were already in that form, so I doubly weighted the neutral park factor. Furthermore, the use of Patriot's factors don't mesh with most projection systems. Thus, every thing is screwed up. I adjusted the rest of the post to reflect the changes.

I showed the 2010 Rockies wOBA and Batting WAR values for reference.

So, without further babble and blather, your 2011 Colorado Rockies Position Player WAR Projections:

Ta-Da!

Observations:

~~Every single projection system sees at least some overall improvement next year. Bill "Optimist" James loves the Rockies, and Marcels (the Monkey) is a little more conservative.~~ Just kidding. Everyone except Bill James and Fans sees a downturn. Completely purple-tinted are the TEAM FANS projections, which see the Rockies as having the best hitting since the 2001 Mariners (of 116 win fame.) ~~ZiPS and RotoChamp find the happy middle ground.~~
2B is projected ~~at around 2 WAR~~ to be worth next to nothing, except ZiPS went crazy and said it would be worth ~~twice that~~ slightly more than nothing.
Poor Todd Helton. He gets no love from anyone, even his own fans.(At least I wasn't wrong here)
Chris Iannetta ~~is generally well-liked~~ isn't completely hated (from a rebound standpoint.)
Troy Tulowitzki ranges from merely ~~very~~ good (Marcels) to ~~elite~~ very good (RotoChamp) to demigod (TEAM FANS.)
Carlos Gonzalez is ~~treated fairly well, at around 4.5 WAR~~ eaten alive by BABIPs. ~~More than enough to justify his contract extension.~~

Overall, it seems like ~~the projections agree with what the Rockies did this offseason: add depth and allow the young hitters to improve/BABIP's to normalize~~ I should just leave the projections to those who do it for money. ~~I would guess that the ZiPS projections probably are the best single guess for next season. With a few breaks and better health, the Rockies look primed to make a serious run at the NL West in 2011.~~

(Thanks to Heltonfan who discovered the fundamental undoings of this exercise.)

Poll

How will the Rockies' hitting fare in 2011 compared to 2010?

>+15 WAR. Bank on Tulo/CarGo MVP's and Dex/Stew/CDI/Smith breakouts.

5 votes

+10-15 WAR. Great improvements all around lead to great success

11 votes

+5-10 WAR. A great core is supported by a few breakout performances.

20 votes

+1-5 WAR. A little more luck and scattered pleasant surprises

2 votes

0 WAR. Nothing you wouldn't expect.

0 votes

-1-5 WAR. Nagging health issues and dissapointment.

1 votes

-5-10 WAR. Complete failures from Dex/Stew/CDI/Smith.

0 votes

-10-15 WAR. BABIPs eat CarGo alive, major injuries abound.

0 votes

>-15 WAR. O'Dowd trades Rockies' lineup for Pittsburgh's.

0 votes

39 votes | Poll has closed

Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But the above FanPost does not necessarily reflect the attitudes, opinions, or views of Purple Row's staff (unless, of course, it's written by the staff [and even then, it still might not]).

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Comments

Okay, I voted 10-15...

But I bet it will be somewhere around 10, most likely lower I guess. But I suppose I may be a “type A” fan.

A couple observations of my own

1.) Bill james predicts a larger jump in war then the FANS do.

2.) Ty Wigginton is the only player that Rockies Fans projected lower then Fans in general…. Hmmm

As for Todd Helton, its sad to see those projections, as I wholly think that another 2009 type 4 WAR season is well within the realm of possibility for Todd. It may be close to his absolute ceiling at this age, but if he stays healthy it doesn’t seem so unlikely that he could play at the level he did only two seasons ago. For all the talk about the success to the 2011 Rockies being the success of Smith/Stewart/CDI/Fowler, it seems that a healthy bounce back from the ToddFather would help more than anything. A bounce of ten WAR only from offense may seem like alot, but if Todd could just perform at his 2009 level in 2011 (and seeing as he had essentialy zero WAR last year) that would be a bounce of 4 War right there in one player. The remaining six divided up between Smith/Stewart/CDI/Fowler/Lopez would not be unreasonable whatsoever (especially with the horrible luck of Smith and Iannetta, and the fact that almost anyone should be able to do substantially better than Barmes offensively). If Helton, on the other hand, has a repeat of 2010, then that 10 WAR jump is, needless to say, unreachable.

So here’s for hoping Helton can pull off a Konerko!

by SurfaceThought on Feb 21, 2011 4:40 PM MST reply actions

Bill James is notoriously optimistic, especially for hitters.

Yea, I agree that it’s sad to see Helton’s projections like that. But, honestly, he just isn’t at “impact” level anymore. Best case scenario is that his aggressive offseason will allow him to regain bat speed and turn on a few more pitches. If he can be a .380 OBP guy with low strikeouts, I’ll be happy.

I think that Iannetta just hasn’t had any good BABIP fortune since 2008. He didn’t hit many line drives last year, but his BABIP has no business being down at .212. If he can become even half the player he was in 2008, that’s a 2.5-3.0 WAR year.

Smith was criminally unlucky with BABIP last year too. IMO he is our 3rd best hitter, perfect for the 2- or 5- hole. A full year from him could be a .290/.370/.480 line with 25+ HR’s.

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 6:57 PM MST up reply actions

10-15

simple regression (staring at you, CDI) should be a big boost, and smith and stewart are better than we saw last year.

but hey, trading for some of pittsburgh’s lineup wouldn’t be so bad (staring at you, andrew mccutchen) 3 CFs = <3

you still have to play the game, no matter how shiny liriano's FIP is
tulo and bambino - september kings

the only organization of humans responsible for more evil in the universe than the philadelphia phillies is the boston red sox

by papality on Feb 21, 2011 6:38 PM MST reply actions

Only McCutchen.

He out-WARred his entire team last year.

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 6:59 PM MST up reply actions

whoever plays 3rd

tabata? alvarez? one of their young guys might be nice if stewart cant make the cut
although we do have arenado coming before long. boy if stewart blossoms that will be some dilemma. shouldnt be too hard to send hurdle-era guys back to him, though.

you still have to play the game, no matter how shiny liriano's FIP is
tulo and bambino - september kings

the only organization of humans responsible for more evil in the universe than the philadelphia phillies is the boston red sox

by papality on Feb 21, 2011 7:03 PM MST up reply actions

If Stewart blossoms

it’s the best-case scenario. Then we can move Arenado to 1st.

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 7:21 PM MST up reply actions

oh yeah

i forgot that brandon belt pick in 09 was in the mirror universe, not the real one

you still have to play the game, no matter how shiny liriano's FIP is
tulo and bambino - september kings

the only organization of humans responsible for more evil in the universe than the philadelphia phillies is the boston red sox

by papality on Feb 21, 2011 7:28 PM MST up reply actions

Don't crush my dreams man!

BTW I never welcomed you to PR:

Welcome to PR.

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 7:31 PM MST up reply actions

yeah they're not going to trade Pedro Alvarez for anything.

and Jose Tabata is an outfielder.

Learn about Batting Metrics
Learn about Pitching Metrics

by Andrew Martin on Feb 23, 2011 10:04 AM MST up reply actions

Thanks for doing this..

it must’ve taken you a lot of time to put it together. It’s nice to have all of this info in one place.

Colorado Rockies Players on Twitter

by Charlie77 on Feb 21, 2011 6:44 PM MST reply actions

I'm not a spreadsheet whiz, so my greatest tool is Ctrl-C Ctrl-V

Thanks. I have been wanting to do this, but I gave up because I had no park factors. Then ATF saved me =)

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 6:46 PM MST up reply actions

This

It was nice to be able to compare and see where everyone both with and without a rooting interest for the Rockies stands on the 2011 season.

38 more days until the Rockies Home Opener!!!!!!!

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Feb 22, 2011 8:05 AM MST up reply actions

Unfortunately, these numbers are way too high

All of them. Two problems, both park factor-related:

1) The PF column in Patriot’s spreadsheet isn’t Home/Away, it’s (Home/Away+1)/2, in other words, the fact that half the games are played on the road is already accounted for there, so you’re double-counting.

2) ZiPS and Bill James and others aren’t using Patriot’s (five-year, heavily regressed) park factors, they’re using something a lot closer to the multi-year PF as found on B-Ref. In the ZiPS projections, Dan writes that he’s projecting based on the NL having a 4.14 ERA… if you back that out and look at his ERA and ERA+ projections for Rockies pitchers, he’s using a 1.13 PF for Coors. I have it at 1.14 right now. Others should be in that same ballpark. Patriot’s 1.08 is crazy low.

Anyway, ZiPS and NEIFI match up extremely well on the Rockies’ offense, in terms of the individual player projections (ZiPS projects the team as a whole at .002 R/PA higher than NEIFI, but it also projects the league as a whole .002 R/PA higher, so for all intents and purposes, they’re identical). And NEIFI has the Rockies’ position players, collectively, projected for 17.8 WAR. No team is projecting above 25.5 WAR from its position players right now.

Basically, if you think we’re going to get 27 WAR out of our offense, either you think we’ll win 95 games without breaking a sweat or you really hate our pitching staff.

by Heltonfan on Feb 21, 2011 10:01 PM MST reply actions

That last sentence is something of an exaggeration

And it depends on which WAR you’re going by – 27 Fangraphs WAR for position players is about the equivalent of 24 NEIFI WAR. But anyway, given the differences in WAR calculations, the systematic optimism of most projection systems, etc., the only way to get any kind of trustworthy results is to repeat the exercise for the entire league. And when you do that, I’m pretty sure you’ll find that the consensus puts our offense pretty close to league average.

I don’t mean to discourage little projects like this, though, they’re good fun…

by Heltonfan on Feb 21, 2011 10:43 PM MST up reply actions

No worries, I probably realized at some point that I didn't fully understand what I was doing.

I fixed the post =)

Would you use the 1.14 factor in (Home/Away+1)/2 form? And for all projections?

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 21, 2011 10:51 PM MST up reply actions

Yes, the 1.14 is (Home/Away+1)/2

So basically, Coors inflates offense by 28%.

I looked at the updated spreadsheet… looks like you’ve got it correct now.

by Heltonfan on Feb 21, 2011 11:20 PM MST up reply actions

I just checked into this finally now

I initially got confused with that same issue when I did my WAR by position series last offseason. After the catcher and first base versions, I feared that I was using straight home/away and re-did my calculations. After sleeping on it, I realized it was right the first time. But it definitely can be very confusing with all the details involved.

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein

by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2011 11:37 PM MST up reply actions

Good work here hjrrockies

One thing that I found very interesting was the significant regression predicted for both Cargo and Tulo next season by all four non fan projection systems. Now I realize that I’m looking at this through purple tinted glasses but I’m throwing the BS flag here.

Last season Cargo’s fWAR was 6.0 while Tulo’s was 6.4 even with missing 39 games due to injury.

Now look at the WAR projections for these two in 2011…………………….

Cargo………

Bill James: 3.7
Marceles: 2.6
Zips: 3.5
Roto: 3.5

Average = 3.3 WAR

Tulo……..

Bill James: 4.7
Marceles: 3.6
Zips: 4.4
Roto: 5.0

Average = 4.4

As far as Cargo is concerned, I do expect some regression next season but a nearly 50% drop-off in production (6.0 WAR to 3.3 WAR) is quite extreme. I can understand why the computers arrived at the number they did (high BABIP/only one great season) but I don’t think these numbers are correct. To me, Cargo is a classic example of a scenario that projection systems are not going to handle very well. They see only one great season that included an enormous BABIP and automatically assume that it’s not sustainable. While last season’s BABIP of .384 probably isn’t, I feel safe in saying that Cargo is a guy who’s almost always going to have a well above average BABIP with all the rockets he hits.

With Tulo, I won’t be shy in saying that I believe all four of those numbers should be tossed in the trash. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but I’m 99% sure that these computers are using data prior to Tulo’s stance change in June of 2009 to arrive at these numbers; and if that’s the case, it’s going to produce disastrously poor results. It would be like using atmospheric conditions on Mars to try and predict Earth’s weather because Tulo truly has been living in a different world since that stance change.

Now I know that I’m the ultimate Tulo fanboy but I think I’m being fair when I say that Tulo’s numbers averaged over 162 games (or at least 150 games) since his stance change are a better indicator of what he’s going to do going forward than projection systems using data that encompasses his entire career. (I like to know what others think about this)

Anyway, I think that all of these projection systems are underrrating our two best players and if I saw these numbers in Vegas, I would bet every penny in my pocket on the over.

38 more days until the Rockies Home Opener!!!!!!!

by RhodeIslandRoxfan on Feb 22, 2011 9:15 AM MST reply actions

As much as I want to purple-tint a bit, I'm torn between my expectations and what is likely.

I don’t think Tulo will regress terribly on a rate level, but there is always the chance of injury. CarGo just doesn’t have enough MLB PA’s to impress any of the systems yet. I doubt he falls that far, but honestly it doesn’t take much to break someone’s swing.

Rocktober is not a time of year, it is a religion.

by hjrrockies on Feb 22, 2011 5:31 PM MST up reply actions

Oh wow

Did the double park weighting really change the predictions by that much? This is a little bit depressing… Seeing as only two of our players were at a level that wasn’t considered below their average last season its hard to believe that barring injury there won’t be some small improvement, but after consideration I must agree with Heltonfan that theres basically no way that we could field a 27 WAR offense.

But I sure hope we do

by SurfaceThought on Feb 22, 2011 11:43 AM MST reply actions