FanGraphs posted their preseason projections for the 2016 season on Tuesday, and surprisingly they have the New York Mets projected for an 84-78 record.
The Chicago Cubs tops the National League with 95 wins, followed by the Dodgers with 90, Nationals with 88, and the Giants with 86. The Mets are tied with the Cardinals and Pirates with 84.
I was curious as to what led to such a low win projection and took a closer look. It’s certainly not the pitching which they project at 3.89 Runs Allowed or the 4th best mark in MLB. That’s actually up a little from 2015, when the Mets allowed 3.78 runs per game.
If you’re wondering why the lower projection on pitching, Dan Szymborski explains that it’s the bullpen, which even with Jeurys Familia combine for only a 2.0 WAR – one of the lowest totals in MLB. Adding another dependable arm or two would certainly improve things, he adds.
On the flip side, it’s the offense where the Mets really lose some major ground. They have us scoring just 4.04 Runs Per Game which ranks as the 26th lowest in MLB. Not good. It’s actually a little lower than 2015 when the Mets scored 4.22 runs per game thanks to an incredible August and September when they led the NL in runs scored after ranking dead last from April through July.
FanGraphs also released Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections for 2016 which you can check out here.
The first thing that jumps out at you is how their computer generated projection has Michael Conforto as the Mets’ most productive player with a .255 average and .786 OPS to go with 32 doubles, 26 home runs and 86 RBI. Those are some nice numbers right there.
They also included Yoenis Cespedes in the Mets’ projection, mostly to display the disparity between his WAR total and Conforto. Here’s what they say:
“The gap between Cespedes’s forecasted win total and Michael Conforto‘s second-best mark is equivalent to the gap between Conforto’s mark and the average of the club’s 11th- and 12th-best hitter projections. In other words: for whatever Cespedes’s flaws, his strengths appear capable of compensating for them at the moment.”
I currently view the Mets as a 92 win team and I’m not buying into the idea that the Nationals will outproduce them or win more games. It’s true that the Mets don’t have that one 6-WAR player on offense, but they do have a lineup packed with a bunch of 3-4 WAR players and I believe the significance of that is lost in these preseason projection models.
