Free Agent Fantasy Team Update: Defensive Projections
By clinthulsey
Endy Chavez is the latest addition to the All Free-Agent Fantasy Team. Photo by David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
As I promised last time (when we used offensive and pitching projections), in this update I will do some simple defensive projections on my all Free Agent Fantasy team and see if we can estimate a final win total for the team we have been building since the beginning of the off-season. First, the only signing in the past two weeks was:
Endy Chavez: MiLB contract
So I still have ten open spots on my roster, so I will try to find 10 more minor league contracts. This week, I decided to put the spreadsheet of my team up on Google Docs. You can download the spreadsheet here (I will update it everytime, and I will also upload the screenshots in future posts).
Defensive projections are always difficult, but it is generally understood that 3 years of defensive data is a good sample of data and should reflect the true talent of the defender. So for each player, I took the last 3 seasons of defensive data of all 3 major defensive metrics (FRAA, UZR, and DRS) and used the average per season (so the total of the 9 numbers divided by 3 and then divided by 3 again). This is a crude projection, but this is what I will use.
Sept. 17, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves catcher David Ross (8) takes the field during the seventh inning against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
David Ross: .39
Geovany Soto: .36
Bobby Wilson: .27
James Loney: .20
Travis Ishikawa: .06
Brandon Allen: .05
Marco Scutaro: .06
Jeff Keppinger: -.24
Mike Fontenot: -.09
Maicer Izturis: -.01
Cody Ransom: .07
Eric Chavez: -.11
Jack Hannahan: .49
Ryan Ludwick: -.36
Melky Cabrera: -.59
Endy Chavez: -.18
Juan Pierre: -.38
Andres Torres: .73
Nate Schierholtz: -.11
Nate Mclouth: -.72
Dewayne Wise: .07
Brian Boguesevic: .33
Jason Bourgeious: -.07
Mitch Maier: -.09
Rich Thompson: -.03
As a total, my team projects to be almost exactly average defensively (.01 wins). This means, to finish our projection, the Kraken still grades out to be a 79-80 win team, slightly below average. It will be really hard to make upgrades at this time, but hopefully some things open up during the seasons and I can improve my team and a few players over perform. Of course, some of the worst players will never actually play in the Majors in 2013 or I can just release them, this selection bias may add a few wins for me my team, but we will have to see and adjust the projections as we go along.