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Twins PECOTA Projections: The Hitters

Matt Braun

By Matt Braun
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Matt Braun GCL Twins

Matt Braun

Twins Daily Contributor
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What did our mighty machine overlord spit out about the 2023 seasons of several Minnesota Twins hitters?

Image courtesy of Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

On Tuesday, Baseball Prospectus—one of baseball's leading analysis site—released their PECOTA projections for every player in MLB. PECOTA predicts nearly everything; minor stats like caught stealing, hit by pitch, and triples emanate from its crystal ball along with more crucial numbers like slugging and BABIP. For this article, we will focus on DRC+ and WARP.

Below are Minnesota’s likely opening day position players (plus Royce Lewis) along with their position, DRC+, WARP, and player comp. You can read more about DRC+ here, but to oversimplify, it’s a play off Fangraphs’ wRC+ that also considers inputs like pitcher quality and play outcome relative to the stadium; a hit off Jacob deGrom is worth more than a hit off a position player, after all. 100 is league average, with each point in either direction standing as a percent in relation to the average. If that doesn’t make sense: Byron Buxton’s 119 projection means he will be 19% better than the average hitter. WARP is Baseball Prospectus’ version of WAR; 2.0 is considered an average player.

574572138_Screenshot2023-02-14120449.png.2d0871554314fb05ae8e263c80790beb.png

Note: These are the 50% projections, meaning each player has a coin flip’s chance of beating or falling behind their projection. 

Alright! We have some zesty numbers above. I’m struck by Jorge Polanco standing as an equal with Carlos Correa (they were ranked 44 and 45, respectively) as they share an identical DRC+ projection. Cody Christie wrote that Polanco is Minnesota’s most underrated player, and he may be correct. Correa’s projection appears surprisingly tepid, given that he’s bested a 117 DRC+ in his last two seasons.

The next surprise is Joey Gallo. Despite Gallo owning one of the most extreme profiles in baseball, PECOTA sees his 2022 as something of a fluke, and the machine hands him a generous 107 DRC+ projection. I think the Twins would be glad to receive that kind of production from Gallo. His comp is spot-on.

Now, on to some disappointments. Nick Gordon’s 86 DRC+ appears low, but PECOTA is typically suspicious of high strikeout/high BABIP players. It’s a tricky balancing act—any drop in power kills his entire profile—but it’s not impossible for him to succeed; Gordon will need to prove himself again in 2023. 

Then, Trevor Larnach. I scrolled through about 1500 players before finding Larnach munching on algae at the bottom of the list, impressing no one with an 85 DRC+. He suffers from a similar ailment as Gordon: producing with a compromised strikeout-fueled skillset, but he also lacks the playing time to prove his system works. 

To end this article, we’ll go over a few fun projections. PECOTA loves what Yunior Severino cooked up in the minors last season, handing him a 97 DRC+ despite just a handful of games in the high minors. Jose Salas—part of Minnesota’s return for Luis Arraez—earns a 0.7 WARP projection despite a putrid offensive line; the machine must love his defense. PECOTA sees something in Jair Camargo’s profile; he earned a 0.4 WARP projection despite traveling in the same boat as Yunior Severino. 

And finally… 36-year-old ByungHo Park has a 99 DRC+ projection. Legends never die.

Any other numbers catch your eye? Are there any projections not covered in this article you would like to know about? Leave a comment and start the discussion. 

Note: Baseball Prospectus tinkers with PECOTA until the start of the season; these numbers were taken on February 14th and may not match future projections. Also, if you question PECOTA's value, Rob Mains wrote about how successful the machine is and where it fails.


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jkcarew GCL Twins

jkcarew

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You forgot the biggest ‘disappointment’ in the projections.  If a healthy Kirilloff is a 93 DRC+/wRC+ guy, he has almost no value…and the middle of the batting order will be even thinner than feared.

Also, if you consider Gordon a disappointment at 86, how do you feel about Farmer at 87… a guy most here consider to have been brought on as a right-handed ‘bat’.

My bet is that if Correa and Buxton both have full-ish seasons, Correa will have the higher DRC+/wRC+.

These suggest the defense, staters, and bullpen all need to be good for this team to contend. Probably correct.

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Matt Braun GCL Twins

Matt Braun

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14 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

You forgot the biggest ‘disappointment’ in the projections.  If a healthy Kirilloff is a 93 DRC+/wRC+ guy, he has almost no value…and the middle of the batting order will be even thinner than feared.

Also, if you consider Gordon a disappointment at 86, how to you feel about Farmer at 87… a guy most here consider to have been brought on as a right-handed ‘bat’.

My bet is that if Correa and Buxton both have full-ish seasons, Correa will have the higher DRC+/wRC+.

These suggest the defense, staters, and bullpen all need to be good for this team to contend. Probably correct.

Kirilloff actually received a much healthier 107 DRC+ projection when they corrected some issues with minor league walk and homer numbers.

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jkcarew

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1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Gallo = Dunn.  I did not like Dunn either.  

If Gallo were ACTUALLY as good as Dunn offensively I’d be very excited. Dunn had several years way, way better than Gallo’s best year. Dunn’s career OBP higher than Carlos Correa’s.

Gallo way more flexible/useful defensively…by a mile. The Gallo/Dunn comp kinda lazy, IMO. (I realize you’re not making the comp, just reacting to it 🙂)

12 months ago, Joc Peterson would have been the perfect comp…then Peterson had one of his best seasons, and Gallo had one of his worst.

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Rod Carews Birthday

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There are a number of players on the Twins that are very difficult to predict (Kiriloff, Larnach, Gallo, et al) due to previous injury or wide variation in performance.  At the 50th percentile, many of the Twins players don't look that great but neither do other teams' players.  It is the team whose players exceed the projections that will be successful.  The law of averages says that half of these guys will outperform their projections and half will underperform.  The degree is what will matter.  If the underperformers hit their 45th percentile and a couple of the overperformers hit their 95th percentile the overall numbers look pretty decent.  If the opposite happens, look out.  We're in trouble.  I'm betting on a team win total in the upper 80's, but hey. . . I'm an optimist.  I would love to know what the Pecota projections were in 2019.

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