Wednesday, March 21, 2018

The Giants Infield

FanGraphs has a season-preview feature called "Postional Power Rankings" where they look at all 30 teams and rate them by position. The infield portion is complete and I thought we might look at the results. I really like the Giants infield and I believe if all goes well they could generate 18 WAR (Buster 5, Belt 4, Panik 3, BCraw 3, Longoria 3, for example). If you follow the links and read the summaries you'll see that FanGraphs rates the TEAM by position but I only looked at starters. BCraw (3.1) rates higher than Addison Russell (2.8) but the Cubs have Javier Baez (0.7) backing him up so they get the #8 spot at 3.5 because Kelby Tomlinson is only projected for 0.1 WAR and thus the team comes out at 3.2 WAR.

Catcher: Giants are rated #1 with Buster at 4.3 WAR.
First base: Giants are rated #6 with Brandon Belt at 3.3 WAR.
Second base: Giants are rated #10 with Joe Panik at 2.6 WAR.
Shortstop: Giants are rated #9 with Brandon Crawford at 3.1 WAR.
Third base: Giants are rated #17 with Evan Longoria at 2.8 WAR.

That's 16.1 WAR. I'm willing to say I may be over-projecting Buster a bit and perhaps Belt but I also think I'm under-projecting BCraw and even Longoria. Regardless, this is a core team strength and if they stay healthy I believe they will exceed FanGraph's projections. We'll take a look at the starting pitcher projections when they come out.

--M.C.

6 comments:

obsessivegiantscompulsive said...

The pitching projections will be all over the place. Both injuries and adjustments.

Bumgarner should be back to his 5+ goodness from before, but we don't know about the others. I think Cueto should be back closer to his prior performances than 2017, but it was not reassuring that he basically just said, "trust me", in noting that he did nothing about the blisters but thinks it won't be a problem in 2018. He has done well enough in spring, so we'll see. Shark has had a horrible spring, and his fWAR is higher than his bWAR because his results have not been up to his peripherals. We need a breakout year from him. He could easily be +1 as well as -1 WAR from projections.

Stratton should be much higher than projections. With an elite curveball and spinrate, he should at least be average 2.0 WAR, if not better. Meanwhile, it looks like either Blach or Holland in the last rotation spot. Holland if he can get back to his early 2017 goodness (8-2 per Game Score wins), he'll generate at least 2.0 WAR as well in that spot. Blach, who knows, he's been up and down.

The bullpen will also be all around. Melancon back to normal or struggling. Same with Smith. There's 1+ WAR swings for both between prior goodness and struggling. For some reason, Strickland is projected low, when he's averaged 0.8 for 3 straight seasons and is only 29 for the season. Plus, he's getting rave reviews on his new Smoltz-infused slider, so it could be higher. Dyson has been up and down this spring, trying to return to throwing with his lower body, in order to get back to what he was doing before. If he's back, that adds almost one WAR, just looking back to his season where he was a great setup guy. And Osich has been looking reborn as well, he looks like he'll be forcing his way into the bullpen, even though there is no space once Smith returns, I see the Giants doing a lot of 10-day DL for relievers to give them some rest during the season with Osich doing so well, or even trading someone.

So the pitching will be tough to analyze.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I've decided not to post about the bullpen projections. I won't do the outfield ones either. Too much turnover and uncertainty. I thought FG's infield assessment was pretty fair and I'm curious about their take on the rotation.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I'm going to pencil in Bum for 5+ WAR. If we can get 6 out of the next two guys (say 3.5 Cueto and 2.5 Samardzija) I think that's pretty good. I like Stratton as well and think 2 WAR is a fair projection.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Samardzija has been getting lit up this spring, is it a physical issue? This makes me think so.

M.C. O'Connor said...

That was supposed to be a link:

https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Giants-starter-Samardzija-has-shoulder-pain-12774988.php

M.C. O'Connor said...

Shark to start season on DL with muscle strain.