Five Takeaways From ZIPS SF Giants Projections

ZIPS released their projections for the SF Giants next season and Marc Delucchi finds five big takeaways from their estimates.

Dan Szymborski over at FanGraphs has begun sharing his annual ZIPS projections for all 30 MLB teams. On Monday, he released his projections for players who had last played in the SF Giants organization. Given how early we are in the offseason, there remains plenty of time for things to change. However, it’s also a useful tool for understanding where the players currently under team control stand.

While many of the projections are in line with their previous performances, a few things stand out. Here are five takeaways (three positive and two negatives).

5 SF Giants ZIPS Takeaways:
#1 Logan Webb (Positive)

Giants fans are rightfully anxious about a lot of their starting rotation. If Logan Webb, the lone player under 25 to start for the team last season, could reach his prospect ceiling, it could go a long way towards solidifying the unit. However, in 19 starts (21 games) over the last two seasons, he has posted a 5.36 ERA.

Still, ZIPS remains incredibly optimistic about Webb’s future. His top comp, Jake Westbrook struggled to find his footing in MLB early in his career, but eventually found his footing as an effective mid-rotation starter. His career went on to span 13 big-league seasons where he pitched 1747.2 innings to a 4.32 ERA (4.17 FIP). He never struck out more than 6.7 batters per nine innings, but still was consistently effective by limiting walks and home runs. While Webb’s strikeout projections are far superior to Westbrook’s, when adjusting for the play of the era, they become far more similar than it might appear on the surface.

A deeper look at Webb’s numbers explains where the projection is coming from. While Webb has struggled to limit runs thus far, his FIP has been at least a run below his ERA in both 2019 and 2020. Over his career, it estimates his performance more in line with a 4.15 ERA. Given his solid strikeout and walk rates, if his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) drops from his exorbitantly high career .340 value, there’s reason to believe more success is ahead. Given the dearth of starters currently on the roster or in the upper minor-leagues, a strong projection for Webb is a welcome sign.

5 SF Giants ZIPS Takeaways:
Positive: Kevin Gausman

Last offseason, ZIPS was all-in on Kevin Gausman, projecting his next five seasons as better than Madison Bumgarner’s. After Bumgarner signed a five-year, $80 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Gausman had to settle for a one-year, $9 million prove-it deal with the Giants that seemed absurd. A year later, it looks pretty prescient.

ZIPS is once again betting on Gausman to be a strong option. With that said, it’s not a believer in his ability to be an ace or two starter. Instead, he’s projected to hold a 3.93 ERA (3.61 FIP) and produce 2.5 WAR. It may not be what the Giants will need to be competitive right now, but if they can find some depth or a top-end arm elsewhere, he’s an obvious foundation piece in a strong rotation.

Over his career, Gausman has been a solid mid-rotation arm. In 985.1 career innings, he’s held opponents to a 4.26 ERA (4.06 FIP) and posted a 3.16 strikeout-to-walk ratio. If it were not for an abysmal 2019 season, when he posted a 5.72 ERA, he probably would have received a sizable long-term deal last offseason. Of course, after his bounceback 2020, rather than pursuing a longer-term deal on the open market, Gausman accepted a qualifying offer with the Giants to return on a one-year, $18.9 million deal.

If ZIPS once again projects Gausman’s season well, he will enter free agency next season with a strong nine-year resume. None of his years have been as dominant as some scouts expected when he was the fourth overall pick by the Baltimore Orioles in 2012, but in seven of the nine seasons he’s been a solid mid-rotation arm and that should finally get him his first sizable long-term deal.

5 SF Giants ZIPS Takeaways:
Negative: The Rest Of The Starters

Outside of Gausman and Webb, Sean Hjelle is the only pitcher projected to produce more than 1.0 wins above replacement in 2021. Hjelle is one of the Giants best pitching prospects and was considered a quick-moving prospect when he was drafted, but he also was one of the organization’s few top prospects to not appear at either the alternate site over the summer or instructional league in the fall.

Hjelle has been working and developing on his own, but no one has heard much from the seven-foot-tall righty all year. He very well could be ready to pick up right where he left off in 2019 and be on the verge of earning a big-league spot. However, there are far too many unknowns for the Giants to bank on it.

Assuming Hjelle still needs more time to develop in the minor leagues, the next best-projected starter on the roster is Anthony Banda, who re-signed with the Giants on a minor-league contract this offseason. After him, Johnny Cueto and Rico Garcia are tied, projected to produce 0.8 WAR over about 100 innings each. Since the Giants moved Garcia to the bullpen last season, it says something about their lack of depth that he currently projects as their fourth or fifth-best option.

Cueto’s underwhelming projection should not come as a big surprise. He’s nearly five years removed from his last well-rounded season in 2016. For what it’s worth, ZIPS’ projection estimates him to have a 4.66 ERA in 2021, which would be his best ERA in a season since 2018. While it’s obviously a far cry from what the Giants hoped when they signed him to a six-year, $120 million contract in 2015, that would make for a passable fourth or fifth starter.

No one expects the Giants to enter next season without adding some more starters. However, if anyone was still holding out hope that there was enough left in the organization to form a passable rotation, ZIPS reaffirms what everyone else already knew, there is not. It’s just that simple. If the Giants want to be relevant in 2021, they still need multiple substantive additions to their starting rotation.

5 SF Giants ZIPS Takeaways:
Positive: Mike Yastrzemski

Some fans might be underwhelmed by Mike Yastrzemski‘s projection, but it’s important to remember two things. First, projection models are naturally conservative. Since they build off expected values, which are formed from averages of previous performances, they naturally tend towards the middle of the pack. Secondly, Yastrzemski was a fringe Quad-A player that seemed likely to leave baseball without ever making significant contributions at the big-league level less than two years ago.

Now, ZIPS is projecting him to hit 22 home runs, produce a .261/.341/.477 triple-slash, and 3.2 WAR in 2021. It may not be the MVP-caliber performance he posted this year, but it’s easily an above-average big-league starter. On Opening Day in 2019, the Giants starting outfielders were Connor Joe, Steven Duggar, and Michael Reed. If fans had known one above-average starter would come out of that trio, it would have been a win. Most probably would have predicted it would be Duggar, but the fact that it was a career minor-leaguer who few fans had heard of at that point should not make a difference.

When Farhan Zaidi was hired as the Giants president of baseball operations, one of the most common asks from fans was one simple thing: find the next Max Muncy. Muncy was a solid prospect with the Oakland Athletics who could never find consistent success. Then, after joining the Dodgers, produced 10 WAR in two seasons. If you pace Yastrzemski’s 2020 season over a 162-game campaign, he has produced roughly 9.5 WAR since debuting in 2019.

Muncy regressed mightily this season, but no one doubts that he’s an above-average everyday player. Giants fans should prepare for the same thing with Yastrzemski. Even if his numbers take a step back from his .297/.400/.568 triple-slash this season, he clearly looks like an above-average everyday player by both the eye test and statistical tools like ZIPS. That’s a mission accomplished.