April 3, 2015

2015 NL West Preview

The division previews continue with the NL West. I try to get a handle on the wins for the core of the team. That includes the starting position players, the starting rotation, and the closer. I use a combination of the STATS, Inc. depth charts and the CBSSports depth charts, along with news stories to determine those groups. For wins, I use FanGraphs WAR from 2014, making conservative guesses for players not in the majors in 2014. As a rule of thumb, add 50 to the core WAR to get to a season win level. You can see the spreadsheet with the data here.

Los Angeles Dodgers

  • Position Player WAR: 24.4
  • Pitcher Total: 16.0
  • Core Total: 40.4

The Dodgers moved a number players in the off-season but still look like a powerhouse. I like that number of wins above replacement. There are veterans likely to decline. Jimmy Rollins, Howie Kendrick, Adrian Gonzalez and Juan Uribe account for about 15 WAR, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them produce between 12 and 14 this season. On the other hand, Joc Pederson, Yasmani Grandal, and Yasiel Puig all have upside that should at least balance out decline by the veterans. I would probably bet the over on the 24.4 by that group.

The pitching side has less upside. Juan Nicasio gets listed as the fifth starter with Hyun-jin Ryu injured, and a healthy Ryu would post better than a -0.5 WAR. Clayton Kershaw is coming off a stretch of high level pitching, and he many not be able to maintain a sub-2.00 ERA three seasons in a row, so a boost from Ryu returning may be canceled by a bit of regression by Kershaw. Nonetheless, the Dodgers pitching remains the best in the division, and this will be a tough team to beat for the NL West title.

San Francisco Giants

  • Position Player WAR: 20.8
  • Pitcher Total: 8.6
  • Core Total: 29.4

I’m using Hunter Pence in the offense, since his injury likely won’t cause him to miss too much of the season, and the 4.6 WAR is probably a good number for him and Nori Aoki.

The Giants pretty much stood pat after winning the World Series. They were forced to replace Pablo Sandoval, but they didn’t lose that much as Sandoval posted a 3.0 WAR in 2014, Casey McGehee coming in at 1.4. It’s still a solid squad with the bat and glove, as long as they keep Buster Posey in the lineup. They even have some upside now that Brandon Belt is healthy.

The rotation is a different matter. The team stood pat there as well, despite an injury to Matt Cain, another poor season from Tim Lincecum, and aging players in Tim Hudson and Jake Peavy. The hope is that Cain returns to form, Peavy continues to pitch as he did after the trade from Boston, and Lincecum finds a little of his former success. That’s a lot of hope.

San Diego Padres

  • Position Player WAR: 8.7
  • Pitcher Total: 13.8
  • Core Total: 22.5

The Padres revamped the team under their new general manager A.J. Preller. The come into the season with a strong rotation. Ian Kennedy, Andrew Cashner, and Tyson Ross return, all solid starters. Ross and Cashner are beyond the age where they are likely to be great, but they are solid three-war pitchers. James Shields takes the ace slot, with Brandon Morrow filling out the five. Morrow doesn’t have a great track record of staying healthy, so I suspect he’s holding space until some young prospect is ready to move to the majors. There is upside in the fifth slot.

The outfield is brand new, with Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton taking over. While these moves were hailed, the three only combined to produce about five and a half WAR in 2014. I suspect they’ll need to be close to twelve WAR this season for the Padres to be competitive.

As good as the outfield can be, the infield is an offensive black hole. Maybe Yonder Alonso bounces back from a bad year, but there is no reason to believe the other three infielders are going to hit. They are not prospects, they are young veterans who have enough playing time under their belts that Padres fans should not expect much more from them.

The Padres were smart to be active this winter. It created buzz for the fans. I suspect the team will be better than in 2014, but not good enough to make the playoffs with this lineup.

Colorado Rockies

  • Position Player WAR: 15.8
  • Pitcher Total: 4.4
  • Core Total: 20.2

The Rockies in a way are a mirror image of the Padres. The offense is strong, led by superstar Troy Tulowitzki, and plenty of upside from a healthy Carlos Gonzalez. There are plenty of solid players surrounding them to make the position side of the equation competitive.

The pitching side, unfortunately, is going to be dependent on three starters blossoming. Eddie Butler earned his way into the rotation with great control numbers in the minor leagues, 2.7 BB per nine. His 7.2 K per 9 innings is adequate given his low walk rate, but in the majors, those two should move closer together. He will need a strong defense behind him. Christian Bergman is similar, with lower walk and K totals. He’s also a bit older, so there will be less upside, as he’s likely to be as good as he’ll ever be. Tyler Matzek blows batters away, but showed little control in the minors. He might be the Bobby Witt of this generation.

There’s a chance all three play well, and Jorge de la Rosa returns healthy. But de la Rosa posted only a 1.5 WAR in 2014, so no matter how you slice the Rockies rotation, they need a lot to go right for the team to win.

Arizona Diamondbacks

  • Position Player WAR: 8.6
  • Pitcher Total: 3.7
  • Core Total: 12.3

Update: I’ve updated this to include the Trevor Cahill trade.

This is a poor team. While Aaron Hill might bounce back from his negative WAR 2014 season, I don’t expect the same from Mark Trumbo. It seems they could replace Mark with a minimum salary spare part from some organization and do better than an out machine whose power disappeared.

I suspect there is some upside in the pitching with Jeremy Hellickson and Archie Bradley, but how much? Maybe there’s another seven WAR in the core is everyone is healthy and playing at their best. That puts them in line with the Rockies and Padres. This team is unlikely to break 70 wins in 2015.

Probability of winning the division

The Dodgers are a very strong team with little competition:

  • Dodgers 60%
  • Giants 20%
  • Padres 10%
  • Rockies 9%
  • Diamondbacks 1%

I hope I’m wrong about the Padres, it would be nice to see a three-team race in this division.

5 thoughts on “2015 NL West Preview

  1. John Perricone

    Did you forget about Madison Bumgarner? I’d guess he’s a 4-5 WAR. If you add him to the rotations 8.6, the team looks a whole lot better.

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  2. Larry Faria

    It’s too bad you use WAR, since it over-weights defense, doesn’t account for past reduced performance due to injury, and can’t quite get a handle on team depth. As a result, you’ve probably over-rated both the Dodgers and Giants, over-rated the offense of the Rockies (they can’t hit at sea level), seriously under-rated the Padres due to reduced offense because of calculated defense, and possibly under-rated the Diamondbacks, both offensively and pitching-wise (their pitching could be poor to good, a real unknown). Someday, enough people will agree with Bill James that individual defense may be unquantifiable, and cause a re-examination of WAR formulas. It’ll take a while longer for people to stop taking single measures like WAR, OPS, OPS+, etc. seriously.

    ReplyReply
  3. David Pinto Post author

    Larry Faria » I like to use WAR more as a guide. While individual players might vary quite a bit, a group of players will likely vary less. A better year by Matt Kemp might be balanced by a worse year for Justin Upton. What I try to look for is where WAR is going to be way off, like a zero for Matt Cain or Prince Fielder.

    Sometimes, everyone goes down, or everyone goes up. In those cases, I’m going to be flat wrong. I can live with that.

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