Twins PECOTA Projections: The Pitchers

[Matt Braun]

What else does the machine have to say about the 2023 Twins, specifically how the pitchers will perform?

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff-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 holds, quality starts, and losses emanate from its crystal ball along with more crucial numbers like FIP and groundball rate. For this article, we will focus on ERA, FIP and WARP.

You all know what ERA is. FIP is similar to ERA—you read it exactly the same—but it only considers walks, strikeouts, and homers. WARP is Baseball Prospectus’ version of WAR.

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

I find these numbers more fascinating than the hitter ones. First, nearly every pitcher in MLB is set to beat their FIP according to PECOTA, something I don’t understand and have not found an answer for. I’d love to soliloquy about Minnesota’s excellent defense, but doing so may be incorrect. 

Anyways, perhaps the most surprising result is the first: Pablo López is the Twins’ best starter by a few ticks. The machine pegs him as netting the 33rd-most pitching WARP in baseball, hanging out with other quality arms like Dustin May and Chris Bassitt. Joe Ryan isn’t far behind him.

PECOTA hammer home another point; the starting rotation is a quality assortment of high-floor starters—all five arms are projected to be in the top 80 of MLB by WARP—that lacks a true ace. There isn’t a black hole, however.

Now we move into the bullpen. Jovani Moran earns a healthy projection, one that sees him as one of the best relief arms in the game and essentially tied with Caleb Thielbar as the second-best option for Rocco Baldelli. Emilio Pagán, everyone’s favorite punching bag, receives a hearty premonition from the machine, perhaps a sign that his underlying measurables are indeed favorable. The only notable surprise to me is Jorge López, although it makes sense that PECOTA is leery of his performance given his struggles with the Twins.

To end our journey with PECOTA, a few other notable projections: Louie Varland receives a 4.01 FIP—usable, but not outstanding. The machine sees some value in both Patrick Murphy and José De León—two pitchers Minnesota signed to minor league deals—as they net 0.2 WARP projections.

Note: Baseball Prospectus tinkers with PECOTA until the start of the season; these numbers were taken on February 15th 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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[Matt Braun]

And the comps are:

Pablo López - Bret Saberhagen (Fun!)

Joe Ryan - Kyle Hendricks

Sonny Gray - Roger Clemens (This was 1995 Clemens, one of his worst seasons)

Tyler Mahle - Homer Bailey (Hahahahahahahaha)

Kenta Maeda - Don Sutton

Jhoan Duran - Jeurys Familia

Jovani Moran - Paul Fry

Caleb Thielbar - Randy Choate

Emilio Pagán - Brad Brach

Bailey Ober - Anthony DeSclafani

Jorge López - Hector Noesí

Griffin Jax - Shane Greene

Jorge Alcalá - Robert Gsellman

Chris Paddack - Scott Baker (The machine has jokes)

Trevor Megill - Stefan Crichton

[Muppet]

I look forward to Emilio Pagan being MLB's most improved player in 2023. 

 

[danielp19653]

Man I would gladly take a full roster of pitchers all sitting around or below a 3.5 ERA, I don't know how that would be feasible but would love to see it. Feels like second half of last year may have been valued a little heavy based on Pagan and Lopez's reliever projections. 

[miracleb]

Everyone of them seems aggressive on the ERA.  I would take the over on almost everyone of them.  Something seems "off."   Did they change the schedule and we play the Tigers and Royals 84 times this year??

[Parfigliano]

Maeda=Don Sutton?  HOFer Don Sutton?  OK sure.

[Unwinder]

Seems like this model is pretty high on our fielding. I won't be complaining at all if we get this kind of performance.

[LA VIkes Fan]

I would be thrilled if the pitching pitched to its anticipated FIP, much less the anticipated ERA. If the Twins pitch like this in 2023, we will win more than the predicted 80-85 games. I guess a guy can dream.... 

[Matt Braun]

36 minutes ago, Parfigliano said:

Maeda=Don Sutton?  HOFer Don Sutton?  OK sure.

It should be noted that this was a 35-year-old Don Sutton, one who was still great, but not as consistently dominant as his younger self. 

[DJL44]

Everything is so regressed in the predictors that you will rarely see an outstanding season or a terrible season.

[mikelink45]

I believe it is our favorite holiday - April 1.  Come on - Pagan?  All in the threes or better?  And this is with the shift being gone.  

[Cory Engelhardt]

I'm over here just hoping for a Mahle extension. 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

I like it.  That puts all five of the pitchers in our projected starting rotation in the top 80 pitchers of MLB.   Maybe our #1 starter isn't Cy Young, but having all five to be projected in the top 50% is pretty awesome.  As much as Pecota was maybe a little bearish on the offense, it seems to be bullish about the starters (and the relievers look pretty good also).  I'm going to avoid getting too excited about this in the same way that I avoided getting too depressed about the offense.  Let's play baseball!

[stringer bell]

Wow. This is almost beyond what an optimist could predict. If all of those numbers would come true, the Twins should have a great chance. 

[jkcarew]

The only thing meaningful I take from this is that our best starter comes out at around the 33rd best. So, basically…and on average, every team in the league has almost exactly 1.0 starters better than the Twins best starter. Now, we know in the real world this means some teams have more than one better (let’s call them “contenders”) and some have none (“tankers”). Twins are right in between…this is SUCH a Classic Minnesota Twins factoid. 

[jkcarew]

4 hours ago, Matt Braun said:

It should be noted that this was a 35-year-old Don Sutton, one who was still great, but not as consistently dominant as his younger self. 

Fwiw…my 2023 PECOTA comp comes out as 1936 Babe Ruth.

ZiPS has me at 1961 Ted Williams.

[Major League Ready]

12 hours ago, jkcarew said:

The only thing meaningful I take from this is that our best starter comes out at around the 33rd best. So, basically…and on average, every team in the league has almost exactly 1.0 starters better than the Twins best starter. Now, we know in the real world this means some teams have more than one better (let’s call them “contenders”) and some have none (“tankers”). Twins are right in between…this is SUCH a Classic Minnesota Twins factoid. 

No doubt this team would be better with a true ace.  However, one pitcher does not make a baseball team.  Having one better pitcher is not nearly as important as the group in aggregate.  Our strength is we have 6 good starters and depth behind them.

[JD-TWINS]

Not sure what is driving the forecast??…..only really have a good understanding of ERA. Pretty sure if our Staff has a cumulative ERA of 3.30 we are going to be awfully difficult to beat!!!

WARP of 14 plus seems positive as well.

[D.C Twins]

Great staff for the regular season.... post season is where the lack of an elite pitcher comes back to haunt.

[dxpavelka]

15 hours ago, jkcarew said:

The only thing meaningful I take from this is that our best starter comes out at around the 33rd best. So, basically…and on average, every team in the league has almost exactly 1.0 starters better than the Twins best starter. Now, we know in the real world this means some teams have more than one better (let’s call them “contenders”) and some have none (“tankers”). Twins are right in between…this is SUCH a Classic Minnesota Twins factoid. 

I've spent the whole off season mentioning the fact that our starters are deep but not particularly overwhelming.  The one guy who could change that is Duran and we'll likely never see him in that role.

[joefish]

10 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

I've spent the whole off season mentioning the fact that our starters are deep but not particularly overwhelming.  The one guy who could change that is Duran and we'll likely never see him in that role.

I wish he was given a shot at starting.

[dxpavelka]

2 hours ago, joefish said:

I wish he was given a shot at starting.

The ace we've looked for since Santana left could be right under our noses. 

[ashbury]

As others have said, those ERA look systematically too good, especially when compared to those WARP numbers.  A starting pitcher with an ERA in the low-3's?  Most WAR-type numbers would be a lot higher.

[DJL44]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:09 PM, jkcarew said:

Fwiw…my 2023 PECOTA comp comes out as 1936 Babe Ruth.

Better than 1950 Babe Ruth

[DJL44]

On 2/17/2023 at 4:35 PM, Rod Carews Birthday said:

As much as Pecota was maybe a little bearish on the offense, it seems to be bullish about the starters (and the relievers look pretty good also).

My guess is PECOTA is predicting a low run scoring environment for 2023.

[Nashvilletwin]

Reasonably above or below ERA or FIP won’t be the key to the success of our five pencilled in starters (and by extension quite possibly the success of the team) this season.

The key is going to be their innings pitched. 

[ashbury]

Not really encouraging.  b-r.com (first Google hit I found) explains WARP as having a baseline of about 25 wins if a team was composed of all 0-WARP players, i.e. replacement level.  You need about 50-60 WARP, team wide, to achieve a .500 record.  Given the WARP projections for the batters and now the pitchers, this isn't a sunny forecast.  Very odd given the favorable ERAs - it doesn't "add up," at all.

[milkytoast]

Average ERA last year was 3.98 which means that EVERY SINGLE PITCHER on this list is projected to be above average! Wow! Even if you look at FIP, every pitcher besides Jorge Lopez, Jax and Megill are slated to be above average.