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Blue Jays 2014 ZiPS Projections

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 5:44 pm
by Graham's Cracker
Just posted today on Fangraphs's and I wasn't sure where to share

From their top-five position players (Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie, Colby Rasmus, and Jose Reyes) the Blue Jays are projected to extract 16.4 wins, according to ZiPS. A convenient number, that, for the sake of constructing an Intriguing Narrative, on account of it’s precisely the number of wins produced by all Toronto field players in 2013. If the club can manage to surround their five best hitters with not-worse-than-replacement-level players, the reasoning goes, then they’ll be at least as valuable as last year.


The reader should also note that the fifth spot in the Blue Jays’ rotation appears very much there for the taking. “Who will it be?” a certain sort of reader might wonder. “Ideally, Marcus Stroman,” ZiPS is answering implicitly.


one doesn’t find much in the way of rookie-eligible talent projected by ZiPS to produce much in the majors. Except Marcus Stroman, that is. Or maybe Sean Nolin. And maybe Andrew Burns, finally.


http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2014-zips-projections-toronto-blue-jays/

When comparing with the other teams in the ALE - not surprisingly - the Jays biggest holes are SP and 2B. I think I'm on the go get Nick Franklin bandwagon.

Re: Blue Jays 2014 ZiPS Projections

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 8:41 pm
by satyr9
Projections usually make me feel better, not so much with these. I should take heart that the lineup and starting 9 is really solid. I will say, those are much higher numbers for the C's than I would've given. I wonder how many other lineups have 8 above 100 OPS+ hitters in them by ZIPS, I'm guessing it's not many.

But I can't get optimistic. I've come around a bit on letting Stroman/Drabek/Hutchison/Nolin battle for 5-8 instead of 6-9, but if that then I'd dearly love to turn Happ into something better. The whole team starts to feel so much better without Happ IMO. Dickey/???/Buehrle/Morrow/Youth, that looks like a rotation right? I can't put it together with a kid and Happ that looks like anything other than a dog's breakfast. That is not to say that Ubaldo (it will not be Santana, I promise that) really gets me there either. Basically, I think we have to accept that last year has basically pooped on our glasses, it'll be hard to get excited until they start winning games.