Projecting the 2013 Nationals, Part 3: Offense

Now we come to the fun part of the inning: how many runs does the home team score? The model projects that the 2013 Nationals will score 693 runs.

Assuming that an everyday position player will get about 600 plate appearances, and assuming that the plate appearances of the two catchers, Suzuki and Ramos, are divided evenly, we end up with a table that looks something like this:

	Player Name	4-year total PA	4-year total wRC	4-yr moving avg wRC/PA	Projected PA	Projected wRC	Team Total wRC
	Jayson Werth	2803	425	0.151623260792009	600	90.97
	Ryan Zimmerman	2844	426	0.149789029535865	600	89.87
	Tyler Moore	171	26	0.152046783625731	150	22.81
	Bryce Harper	597	86	0.144053601340034	600	86.43
	Adam LaRoche	2622	361	0.13768115942029	600	82.61
	Denard Span	2671	334	0.125046798951703	600	75.03
	Wilson Ramos	613	76	0.123980424143556	300	37.19
	Ian Desmond	1849	214	0.115738236884803	600	69.44
	Danny Espinosa	1428	164	0.11484593837535	600	68.91
	Roger Bernadina	1150	121	0.105217391304348	150	15.78
	Chad Tracy	845	85	0.100591715976331	100	10.06
	Kurt Suzuki	2703	274	0.101368849426563	300	30.41
	Steve Lombardozzi	448	42	0.09375	150	14.06
	Stephen Strasburg	83	3	0.036144578313253	150	5.42
	Drew Storen	2	0	0	0	0.00
	Dan Haren	240	19	0.079166666666667	150	11.88
	Craig Stammen	90	3	0.033333333333333	30	1.00
	Jordan Zimmermann	166	4	0.024096385542169	150	3.61
	Zach Duke	226	1	0.004424778761062	30	0.13
	Tyler Clippard	14	0	0	0	0.00
	Gio Gonzalez	84	-5	-0.05952380952381	150	-8.93
	Ross Detwiler	97	-9	-0.092783505154639	150	-13.92
	Ryan Mattheus	1	0	0	0	0.00
	Rafael Soriano	0	0	0	0	0.00
	Bill Bray	0	0	0	0	0.00
							692.7806858275

As excited as we’ll all be to follow Bryce Harper in his quest to beat Mike Trout’s insane age-20 season, it’s instructive to look at this table. Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman are projected to get 91 and 90 wRC respectively. Harper is expected to do great things–86 wRC–but it’s worth noting just how much a healthy Werth and Zimmerman mean to the Nationals line-up.

Notice also that the line-up is remarkably deep. Let’s look at it from the point of view of a possible batting order:

1. Denard Span, wRC 75.03
2. Jayson Werth, wRC 90.97
3. Bryce Harper, wRC 86.43
4. Adam LaRoche, wRC 82.61
5. Ryan Zimmerman, wRC 89.87
6. Ian Desmond, wRC 69.44
7. Danny Espinosa, wRC 68.91
8. Wilson Ramos, wRC 37.19; plus Kurt Suzuki, wRC 30.41

Those first five batters, however you order them, are pretty impressive. That should make for a much deeper line-up than we’re used to seeing here in DC.

So, what does this all mean? Tune in next time as we discuss how this all fits together in Part 4.

Projecting the 2013 Nationals, Part 2: Pitching and Defense

In Part 1, we announced the starting line-up. Let’s see how many runs the pitching allows in 2013. My model conservatively estimates that in 2013, Nats pitching will account for 609 runs scored against the Nats, but defense will “save” 18 runs. Thus, the model conservatively predicts that 591 runs will be scored against the 2013 Nationals.

Here’s the table for pitching:

	Pitcher Name	Projected IP	4-Yr Moving Avg xFIP	Projected Runs Allowed	TOTAL RUNS ALLOWED
	Stephen Strasburg	180	2.56	51.20
	Gio Gonzalez	190	3.81	80.43
	Jordan Zimmermann	190	3.71	78.32
	Ross Detwiler	180	4.44	88.80
	Dan Haren	190	3.37	71.14
	Rafael Soriano	70	3.6	28.00
	Drew Storen	70	3.46	26.91
	Tyler Clippard	70	3.54	27.53
	Ryan Mattheus	70	4.48	34.84
	Craig Stammen	110	3.96	48.40
	Zach Duke	90	4.34	43.40
	Bill Bray	65	4.19	30.26	609.25

You will notice that my initial guesses for innings pitched for starting pitchers are quite low. We’ll tweak those later, but for now, I’m going to assume that these are good enough to go by.

A similar table of the defensive statistics would be tedious to recount, so let me sum it up with a few general notes:

• According to these projections, the three biggest defensive assets on the 2013 Nationals are Ryan Zimmerman, Denard Span, and Danny Espinosa.
• Ryan Zimmerman should save 7.6 runs–best on the team. The high number of defensive runs saved here underscores just how important it is for the Nats to keep him healthy.
• Danny Espinosa has been the target of a lot of fan frustration lately, especially given his struggles at the plate. His defense, however, is outstanding. The model projects that he will save 5.2 runs.
• The newest addition to the Nats defense, center fielder (and noted icthyophobe) Denard Span, is projected to save 4.6 runs. Bryce Harper had a UZR of 9.7 as a center fielder last year, so just looking at that, you might think that Span is a lousy center fielder compared to Harper. You’d be wrong. UZR is notoriously unstable–we need at least 3 years of data to get a good sample. Span actually posted a UZR of 9.0 as a center fielder for the Twins in 2011; likewise, as Twins CF in 2012, he posted a UZR of 8.5. As you can see, the projection for Span seems very conservative–but it takes into account some bad defensive years for Span (2008 and 2009). I would expect Span actually to outperform this projection.

Right, that wraps up the top of the inning. Tune in to Part 3, where we’ll discuss how the offense looks.