Apparently Baseball Reference has 2023 projections posted for each player... they predict pretty much every starter to regress... 2023 Projections 2B Altuve - .273 BA, .822 OPS, 23 HR LF Brantley - .284 BA, .771 OPS, 8 HR DH Alvarez - .288 BA, .913 OPS, 29 HR RF Tucker - .272 BA, .831 OPS, 25 HR 1B Abreu - .277 BA, .800 OPS, 20 HR 3B Bregman - .257 BA, .784 OPS, 18 HR SS Pena - .255 BA, .722 OPS, 17 HR C Maldonado - .193 BA, .614 OPS, 14 HR SP1 Valdez - 13-7, 3.16 ERA. SP2 Javier - 8-6, 3.12 ERA SP3 Garcia - 12-8, 3.59 ERA SP4 McCullers - 7-4, 3.33 ERA CL Pressly - 3-3, 18 SV, 3.38 ERA 2022 Actuals 2B Altuve - .300 BA, .921 OPS, 28 HR LF Brantley - .288 BA, .785 OPS, 5 HR DH Alvarez - .306 BA, 1.019 OPS, 37 HR RF Tucker - .257 BA, .808 OPS, 30 HR 1B Abreu - .304 BA, .824 OPS, 15 HR 3B Bregman - .259 BA, .820 OPS, 23 HR SS Pena - .253 BA, .715 OPS, 22 HR C Maldonado - .186 BA, .600 OPS, 15 HR SP1 Valdez - 17-6, 2.82 ERA SP2 Javier - 11-9, 2.54 ERA SP3 Garcia - 15-8, 3.72 ERA SP4 McCullers - 4-2, 2.27 ERA CL Pressly - 3-3, 33 SV 2.98 ERA
I have a hard time believing the Astros won't have one guy hitting above .290. I have a hard time believing the Astros won't have one guy with more than 30 HRs.
That is not what these projections are saying. These are median outcomes. The things about mewdian projections is that half the guys should exceed them with several exceeding them by quite a bit. Projections just don't know which guys are going to have good years for themselves and which guys will get hurt.
On the top of projections, this is a helpful post regarding the usefulness of Stuff+ (now available on Fangraphs) as an ERA estimator. Seems that it could be about as valuable as FIP and in a complimentary way. Guys who perform well in both are a good bet to perform well in the future. http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/predictiveness-of-the-tools-of-pitching
