All Free Agent Fantasy Team: Playing Around With Projections-Off the Radar

This two week period was a pretty quiet period for The Kraken, my All Free Agent Fantasy Team. With 96.66 million of the 103 million dollars available spent, I won’t be signing anymore players on non MiLB contracts, saving the money for when I need it during the season. I did make four minor league free agent signings though.

Signed:

Travis Ishikawa: MiLB conract

Zach Braddock: MiLB contract

Cody Ransom: MiLB contract

Hisanori Takahashi: MiLB contract

This means I still have 11 open roster spots that I will fill with minor league contracts.

I wanted to look at my team using the “Bill James Projections” available on Fangraphs. If the “Bill James” projection wasn’t available, I used the “Fans projection” for the given player. If those weren’t available, I just ignored them and didn’t include them in the projections below.

For pitchers, the projections listed both a FIP and an ERA, so I did projections off them both. League average in 2012 was 4.01 ERA/FIP or about .45 per inning. So I just multiplied .45 by the amount of innings the pitcher was projected to throw minus the amount of runs (or FIP runs) that the pitcher was projected to give up. It is extremely simple, but it gives us a look at an estimated wins above average (WAA) for the pitching staff.

Hiroki Kuroda: .519 FIP WAA,  1.131 eWAA

Jeremy Guthrie: -1.25 FIP WAA, .33 eWAA

Bartolo Colon: -.29 FIP WAA, -.49 eWAA

Scott Baker: .355 FIP WAA, .355 eWAA

John Lannan: -.2 FIP WAA, -.324 eWAA

Scott Feldman: -.1 FIP WAA, -.16 eWAA

Projected Rotation of -.966 FIP WAA, .842 eWAA

Relievers:

I didn’t adjust for role (and obviously not leverage), so the relievers will most likely be overrated.

Jason Grilli: .413 FIP WAA, .256 eWAA

Oliver Perez: -.36 FIP WAA, -.3 eWAA

Ryan Madson: .73 FIP WAA, .47 eWAA

Shawn Camp: .26 FIP WAA, -.075 eWAA

Carlos Torres: .131 FIP WAA, .001 eWAA

Bullpen: 1.174 FIP WAA, .352 eWAA. Total Pitching: .208 FIP WAA, 1.194 eWAA.

Now projecting hitters, I will look at the wRC totals in the projections compared to what an average hitter would have in the same amount of plate appearances the hitter is projected to have. These are not positionally adjusted. There were .114 weighted runs created per each plate appearance in the Majors in 2012. I can’t project defense using the projections, so we will just ignore it for now and basically assume I will be average (though I think my collection of players will be better than average defensively). We can project baserunning value, and I will do it using the projected speed score and add it to the offensive totals by using the formula I laid out here. Obviously catchers will be underrated because the speed score is unadjusted.

Catcher:

David Ross: .248 O-WAA. -.56 speed score wins. -.312 WAA

Geovany Soto: .314 O-WAA, -.44 speed score wins. -.126 WAA

Bobby Wilson: -.328 O-WAA, -.8 speed score wins. -1.128 WAA

-1.566 WAA

1st Base:

James Loney: .119 O-WAA, -.44 speed score wins. -.321 WAA

-.321 WAA

2nd Base:

Marco Scutaro: .204 O-WAA, -.34 speed score wins. -.136 WAA

Jeff Keppinger: .308 O-WAA, -.56 speed score wins. -.252 WAA

-.388 WAA

Shortstop:

Maicer Izturis: -.228 O-WAA, -.04 speed score wins. -.268 WAA

-.268 WAA

3rd Base:

Eric Chavez: .16 O-WAA, -.78 speed score wins. -.62 WAA

Jack Hannahan: -.35 O-WAA, -.62 speed score wins. -.97 WAA

-1.59 WAA

Outfield:

Ryan Ludwick: .588 O-WAA, -.54 speed score wins. .048 WAA

Melky Cabrera: 1.21 O-WAA, .04 speed score wins. 1.16 WAA

Juan Pierre: -.77 O-WAA, .24 speed score wins. -.53 WAA

Andres Torres:-.237 O-WAA, .24 speed score wins. .003 WAA

Nate Schierholtz: .151 O-WAA, .02 speed score wins. .171 WAA

Nate Mclouth: -.024 O-WAA, .12 speed score wins. .096 WAA

Dewayne Wise: -.4439 O-WAA, .34 speed score wins. -.1039 WAA

Brian Bogusevic: -.225 O-WAA, .1 speed score wins. -.115 WAA

.7291 WAA

Overall -3.40 WAA for position players.

The lack of speed my team has in general is really hurt by the aggressive speed score ratings. I think my defense should be pretty good, but asking for 3 wins or more may be pretty tough. Overall, once you add my pitchers and my position players (without defense), my team projects to have a -2.206 WAA or a 80-82 or 79-83 season. This means I will have to get production from my non-projected players (most of my MiLB free agents), defense, and have a few guys that outperform (Oliver Perez should easily outperform his projection for example). Next time, I plan to take a look at the defense and how the team projects there.