Five White Sox PECOTA projections more divisive than the incomplete standings

Back when FanGraphs posted Dan Szymborski's mid-lockout ZiPS projections, one prominent baseball site misunderstood the assignment. It imported the standings into a shareable graphic, but while Dan's headline included the word "lockout," Jomboy Media's post omitted it.

Perhaps the aggregator figured everybody understands how the lockout has frozen incomplete rosters in place, and everything will be due for a revision once activity resumes. To the consternation of Meg Rowley and her crew, that wasn't the case.

Baseball Prospectus tried to sidestep the fate of viral misunderstanding when it released its PECOTA projections, calling the initial estimates the "Highly Unofficial Lockout Standings."

Either way, the White Sox are in great shape. Just like ZiPS, PECOTA has the Sox winning the division by 10 games after rounding. The difference is all below deck.

1. White Sox, 94-68
2. Twins, 84-78
3. Guardians, 81-81
4. Tigers, 69-93
5. Royals, 68-84

It gets a little more uncomfortable when looking at the spreadsheet and seeing that after the six names you'd expect to see at the top of position player production, the seventh name is "Dayan Viciedo." Andrew Vaughn has no track record, Jake Burger and Gavin Sheets each have one noteworthy year, and Adam Engel's best years were shortened, which is why there are no players whose 50th-percentile WARP projection begins with a "1." ZiPS also saw a similar drop-off, but it filled in that gap with Vaughn, Engel and, in the only bearish call, Eloy Jiménez.

While it's not worth getting too wrapped up in projected standings until all teams are present and accounted for, we can start poking at some of the fixed factors within those standings, especially when they might have divergent viewpoints on the capability of a given player.

For Jiménez's muted projections and the four players straddling the divide between replacement level and average, it's worth noting the reasons why systems may be for or against a player's chances, mostly because it's fun to then pick which limb to go out on, if you're not already on one of your own.

ELOY JIMÉNEZ

It's easier to understand ZiPS coming in under 2 WAR when including the components outside offensive production. A mediocre 55 games in 2021 nullified an excellent 55 games from his 2020 line. Questions about his durability means he fails to qualify for the batting title, and his defense removes a win from the overall picture by itself. PECOTA's projection strikes me as a baseline if he's healthy enough to accrue 583 plate appearances.

PECOTA tries to make up for some of its lack of enthusiasm at the 50th percentile with more exciting upper-percentile outcomes. The middle ground puts him as the 83rd most valuable position player in the game, but he has more room for growth in his better projections than the bulk of the league.

• 50th percentile: 83
• 60th percentile: 74
• 70th percentile: 73
• 80th percentile: 68
• 90th percentile: 59
• 95th percentile: 56
• 99th percentile: 39

That most optimistic projection has him hitting .302/.368/.633, for those wondering.

andrew vaughn

Vaughn's scant professional track record led ZiPS and PECOTA into the same neighborhood in just about every regard. The question may come down to whether a system considers him more of a right fielder than a left fielder.

Jake Burger

Burger has even fewer plate appearances to draw upon (599), but unlike Vaughn, he has three seasons of nothing in between his active seasons, two of them caused by catastrophic injuries. PECOTA is basically saying that it would bet on 2021 being the peak of Burger's career. That strikes me as rather pessimistic, but I'd want to hear the odds.

Gavin Sheets

While Vaughn has as many professional plate appearances as Babe Ruth has homers, Sheets has amassed nearly 1,700 PAs, with substantial stops at every full season affiliates before his first 54 games in the majors last year. The unremarkable history before his breakout in 2021 creates a little more room for disparities. The shape of the slash lines varies, even though both lines come in under his rookie season production, and there's bound to be plenty of defensive disagreement based on where he's expected to play and how often.

Adam Engel

Engel is a fascinating case, because it's weird to see a guy with a .823 OPS the past two seasons struggle to break a .700 OPS for 2022. The problem lies entirely in another column.

If you knocked me unconscious in November of 2019 and showed me this chart today, I would:

1. Be blissfully unaware of COVID-19, and
2. Assume that Rick Renteria strictly limited Engel's playing time to lefties in between stints in Charlotte.

You'd respond by telling me that Engel has actually hit righties (.286/.356/.541) way better than lefties (.244/.298/.397) over this stretch and injuries were the lone thing holding him back, and then you'd add that Tony La Russa is managing the White Sox again, after which I'd try to knock you unconscious.

At any rate, it creates a situation where all projection systems are nowhere close to picking up on his body of work from the last two years, mostly because they don't even amount to a half season. It would've been great had Engel been able to cement his actual true talent level at some point over the course of two schedules, but instead any plan reliant on him still requires a lot of guesswork, starting with his availability.

Whenever the White Sox are able to sign free agents, here's where I'll drop this BP post saying that PECOTA is awfully fond of Michael Conforto.