MLB Barometer: Biggest Projection Changes

A few times a year, I like to pivot away from the traditional focus of this column — a subjective look at the players who have most impressed or disappointed in recent weeks — and zoom out a bit to take a data-based look at the player pool more broadly. This is one of those weeks, though we'll be taking a new approach this time. 

The question for this week: which players have most improved (or hurt) their projections based on their performance over the first four months of the season? We'll use Derek Carty's THE BAT X projections for this purpose, not because Derek is a few spots ahead of me in the Tout Wars NL standings (which suggests I should pay even more attention to his projections than I already do) but because THE BAT X tends to be quite willing to make meaningful adjustments based on in-season batted ball data. A more reactive projection system should make this exercise more interesting in addition to (hopefully) more informative.

I'll go position group by position group, highlighting the players whose projected wRC+ has seen the largest increase or drop as compared to his preseason projections. For pitchers, we'll use projected ERA via THE BAT (as THE BAT X exists only for hitters). We'll have plenty of names to cover, so I'll cut the introduction short this week and get down to business.

RISERS

Catchers

Sean Murphy, Atlanta: Heading into the season, THE BAT X projected Murphy to drop off slightly from the 116 wRC+ he'd managed in his four years in Atlanta. Four months later, the system is the most optimistic among the publicly available projections at FanGraphs and seems to have bought into the idea that Murphy has legitimately reached a new level of performance. Such a step in a player's late twenties isn't common, especially for someone who's been beaten up for years like a catcher has, but it's certainly not unheard of. The fact that Murphy's big improvement comes after a change in organizations makes it easier to believe that exposure to a new coaching staff has indeed unlocked something in the star backstop. That something would be power. Murphy's 23.9 percent strikeout rate and 10.3 percent walk rate are both within a percentage point of his marks over four years in Oakland, but his barrel rate has shot up to 18.0 percent, up from 10.9 percent as an Athletic.

Corner Infield

Ryan Noda, Athletics: Noda may not have the most widespread fantasy appeal, but he's been on the fringes of inclusion in this article several times, and as the largest riser in the entire league, it's time he gets his chance. Noda is exactly the sort of player who had a great opportunity to significantly outstrip his modest projections, as he debuted this season on his 27th birthday after being selected in the Rule 5 draft by a team that had tons of playing time available. He's earned every at-bat he can, sitting second on the team in plate appearances while leading all Oakland regulars in wRC+ (131) and WAR (1.7). Noda's fantasy value is league-dependent because his best strength is his 17.6 percent walk rate. His .375 on-base percentage is a real asset, but his .229 batting average most definitely is not. Considering that he's striking out 34.0 percent of the time, that average is likely close to his ceiling, and his .206 xBA suggests it's due to fall. Still, he possesses real power, as his 14.4 percent barrel rate and 45.0 percent hard-hit rate attest. Noda's park and team context remain as bad as it gets, but the projections now buy him as a legitimate big-league talent, albeit one with a lopsided skillset.

Middle Infield

Edouard Julien, Twins: Julien is a player I'm happy to see on this list, as his statistical profile through his first 55 major-league games is a mix of bright red and bright green flags. First, the bad: Julien strikes out 31.5 percent of the time, and his excellent .302/.387/.552 slash line is propped up by a clearly unsustainable .416 BABIP. Pretty much everything else about his statistical record is quite encouraging, however, and the projections clearly think the good outweighs the bad. None are optimistic about his batting average, with THE BAT the highest at .253 and ATC bringing up the rear at .233, but a middle infielder with patience (12.0 percent walk rate) and power (17.6 percent barrel rate) can be quite productive with a middling average. Once the BABIP luck wears off, Julien may settle in as someone similar to the healthy version of Brandon Lowe, who slashed .258/.343/.526 (good for a 137 wRC+) from 2019 through 2021 despite a 29.0 percent strikeout rate, with his 14.7 percent barrel rate and 10.1 percent walk rate propping up his profile.

Outfielders

Jack Suwinski, Pirates: Like many players in this article, Suwinski has improved his projections from meaninginfully below par to meaningfully above-average, something which should help him maintain his playing time as the Pirates push towards competitiveness (which admittedly no longer looks like the pressing concern it did early in the year). The 24-year-old outfielder has improved his profile to the point that Pittsburgh even gave him the chance to prove he was an everyday player and not just a strong-side platoon bat, though his 81 wRC+ and 44.2 percent strikeout rate against lefties may have ended that experiment. Even if he never moves beyond a platoon role, he's shown enough that THE BAT X is convinced he's a useful piece. In what's quickly becoming a theme of this article, Suwinski makes up for a very real strikeout problem (33.0 percent) with a high walk rate (14.5 percent) and a ton of power (19.3 percent barrel rate, 50.6 percent hard-hit rate). If that strikeout rate gets even worse, there's some risk Suwinski's whole profile will fall apart, though THE BAT X projects him to trim it to 30.9 percent going forward, which won't sink him if he keeps doing everything else he's doing.

Starting Pitchers

Note: if these seem like small improvements, remember that leaguewide ERA has jumped from 3.97 last year to 4.31 this season, something preseason projections won't have accounted for.

Zach Eflin, Rays: The knee troubles Eflin is currently dealing with (which the latest reports suggest may be minor) may have been the main reason why the Phillies let the right-hander walk rather than try to outbid the Rays and their three-year, $40 million offer last winter. If they'd known that he would pitch so well in his first 20 starts that he'd improve his ERA projection even as leaguewide ERA jumps by a third of a run, however, they may have tried to keep him despite the health concerns. Eflin has always shown excellent control, so his 3.7 percent walk rate (second among qualified starters) probably isn't the thing that's gotten the algorithms so excited. In the past, though, control was really all he had, as he'd never posted a strikeout rate north of 22.4 percent or a groundball rate above 44.5 percent outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. This year, his strikeout rate has jumped to 25.2 percent while his groundball rate has jumped to 51.7 percent. A pitcher with elite control who also misses bats and manages contact is something categorically different from a pitcher with elite control who doesn't do much else, and the projections seem to agree.

Relievers

Note: I've excluded pitchers who are rostered in zero percent of TGFBI leagues, as well as those who were projected primarily as starters prior to the season, as the conversion from starting to relief drops a player's projected ERA even if his talent remains the same. I've also excluded those who've moved away from Coors Field.

Felix Bautista, Orioles: The projections were far from unkind to Bautista heading into the year, even if they didn't expect him to get anywhere close to the 2.19 ERA he recorded as a 27-year-old rookie last year. While Bautista was outstanding in his first taste of the big leagues, his numbers in his sophomore effort are simply stupid: a 0.92 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and a 50.8 percent strikeout rate. He has a real shot at becoming the fourth qualified reliever to finish a 162-game season with a strikeout rate north of 50 percent. Since June 1, his strikeout rate sits at an even more ridiculous 54.5 percent, a figure he's paired with a 2.6 percent walk rate en route to a 0.41 ERA and 0.50 WHIP. The ERA estimators suggest he's lapping the league this year, as he leads all other qualified relievers in SIERA and xFIP by 78 and 79 points, respectively. THE BAT tells a similar story, as only two pitchers (Emmanuel Clase and Andres Munoz) are within half a run of his projected ERA, and both of them are at least a third of a run behind.

FALLERS

Note: I've excluded players ranked outside the top 450 in NFBC ADP in the final month of draft season, i.e. those who were seen as undraftable in 15-team mixed leagues.

Catchers

Alejandro Kirk, Blue Jays: Only three catchers with any semblance of fantasy appeal have seen their projections drop meaningfully this season, and Kirk's is easily the most worrisome given the hype with which he entered the season. THE BAT X was actually one of the more pessimistic on Kirk, with Steamer projecting him for an even better 140 wRC+, and it's not hard to see why the projection systems loved him. His combination of a decent barrel rate (6.7 percent) and elite plate discipline (11.6 percent walk rate, 10.7 percent strikeout rate) last season was incredibly rare. In the Statcast era, the list of players who have produced a barrel rate at least that high in at least as many plate appearances (541) while walking more than they struck out includes only Kirk, Juan Soto, Jose Ramirez, Joey Votto, Alex Bregman, Justin Turner, Carlos Santana and Jose Bautista. It was impressive company for a 22-year-old catcher, but Kirk's follow-up performance has been a flop. His strikeout and walk rates have trended slightly in the wrong direction, but more importantly, his barrel rate has dropped to 4.5 percent. His hard hit rate has plummeted from 45.0 percent to 36.2 percent, and the hard contact he's still managed to make has been pounded into the ground, as his 3.9-degree average launch angle is sixth-lowest among players with at least 250 trips to the plate this season.

Corner Infield

Bryce Harper, Phillies: It's fair to object to Harper's placement here, either because he's not yet technically a corner infielder in most leagues or because his down season has a very obvious explanation. When Harper underwent Tommy John surgery back in November, the expectation was that he would return shortly before the All-Star break, but he wound up making his season debut on May 2. The Phillies were presumably happy to activate him early on the theory that 90 percent of Bryce Harper was likely better than 100 percent of someone else, and that's been true. His .296/.386/.416 slash line is below his career .281/.389/.518 but is still good for a very productive 119 wRC+. Comparing his season line to his career mark makes it clear that Harper has only been deficient in the power department, though that deficiency has been a big one. He's homered just five times in 298 plate appearances and failed to clear the fence a single time between May 26 and July 14. Two homers in 11 games since then is an encouraging step, and there's every chance that Harper's power comes all the way back as he puts the surgery further behind him, but the projections reflect the fact that between the surgery and his age (30), there's a real chance he never quite gets there. 

Middle Infield

Trea Turner, Phillies: The $300 million deal Turner signed with in December was always going to look dicey (from a team perspective) near the end of its 11 years, but the Phillies presumably figured they would get a few years of peak performance at the front of it, syncing up nicely with their pennant-winning core of players in their early thirties who may not have many more chances left. Instead, Turner has fallen off a cliff at the plate. THE BAT X already projected a small decline from his 128 wRC+ in 2022 and his 147 wRC+ from the prior two seasons, but his .245/.297/.384 line (82 wRC+) represents a massive disappointment. His quality of contact is in line with his career marks, but he's suddenly striking out 23.9 percent of the time, up from 18.5 percent in 2022 and 16.1 percent in 2020-2021. A  player who runs a lot while making a ton of nearly-average contact is a star, as we've seen from Turner for most of his career, but a player who runs a lot while making a nearly-average amount of nearly-average contact is rather ordinary. A sudden spike in chase rate seems to be the main culprit, as is often the case in the first year of big contracts. Those looking for reasons to remain in on Turner could point to the fact that his chase rate is just 28.0 percent since the break, down from 40.9 percent in the first half.

Outfielders

Steven Kwan, Guardians: Kwan is an interesting test case for what makes a player's profile risky. He burst onto the scene last year as a very valuable real-life player, with a strong glove and a .373 on-base percentage helping him to 4.4 fWAR (32nd among all hitters) despite his modest six homers. Decent speed (19 steals) helped prop up his value in fantasy, where his glove becomes largely irrelevant. He's remained fairly valuable this season, with his 15 steals helping offset a drop in batting average from .298 to .271, but the projection systems have gotten skeptical. His contact quality last season was truly bottom of the scale, with both his hard-hit rate and barrel rate finishing in the first percentile. He made up for it with a 9.4 percent strikeout rate, a mark which trailed only Luis Arraez among qualified hitters, but his strikeout rate is up a couple ticks (11.1 percent) this year while his barrel and hard-hit rates have somehow gotten even lower. It's still mostly working out for Kwan, but his 101 wRC+ indicates that his offensive profile hangs on a knife's edge. He's given no indication that any iota of power is on the horizon, and it's a lot easier for his strikeout rate to keep rising towards the mid-teens than it is for him to cut it even smaller. Kwan with a nine-percent strikeout rate is a star, and he's still quite good at 11 percent, but Kwan with a 13- or 15-percent strikeout rate may be merely a light-hitting part-timer.

Starting Pitchers

Alek Manoah, Blue Jays: Plenty has been written on Manoah throughout this season, but he's worth another paragraph here to note just how much damage his awful season has done to his projections. THE BAT's adjustment might be the most dramatic (in part because it's been quicker to adjust to the new scoring environment), but he's up 0.60 runs per ZiPS and up 0.70 per ATC and Steamer. Manoah was demoted all the way to rookie ball after struggling to a 6.36 ERA, 1.90 WHIP and 48:42 K:BB in his first 13 starts, and while he showed signs of life by striking out eight Tigers in six innings of one-run ball in his return to the majors in early July, that may have been a mirage. In his first two outings since the break, he owns a 7.56 ERA, 1.80 WHIP and 6:9 K:BB. The projection systems were already more pessimistic on Manoah than you might expect for a 25-year-old who'd just posted ERAs of 3.22 and 2.24 in his first two seasons, as they looked more at the mediocre peripherals which led to unimpressive ERA estimators like his xFIP, which came in at 4.17 and 3.97 over his first two years. Of course, even 4.17 or 3.97 would be significantly better than his current ERA, but when the projections were already skeptical, it's easy to see why his downturn this year would lead to a rather extreme adjustment.

Relievers

Giovanny Gallegos, Cardinals: The stars were aligned for Gallegos to be a great sleeper pick this season. He'd saved 14 games in back-to-back seasons, so the Cardinals clearly trusted him in the ninth inning, and last year's breakout closer Ryan Helsley had health questions and a very short track record. Helsley's health has indeed proved problematic, as he's been out with a forearm strain since mid-June, but Gallegos has earned zero saves in his absence, with Jordan Hicks earning eight and Chris Stratton one. That's a credit to Hicks and the way he's stepped forward, but the Gallegos we saw over his previous four years with St. Louis would have provided stiffer competition. From 2019 to 2022, Gallegos rode a 32.0 percent strikeout rate and 6.6 percent walk rate to a 2.84 ERA. This year, his walk rate (5.3 percent) is even better, but he's striking out just 24.1 percent of opposing batters, leading to a 3.86 ERA. He's lost half a tick on his fastball, and Stuff+ (which looks at velocity and other factors like movement and release point) suggests both of his primary pitches have taken a big step back:

This version of Gallegos has still managed to save eight games, but he's unlikely to add many more to that total unless his stuff returns.