Julio Urias has a 2.82 career ERA and 2.61 in 499.1 innings over the last five seasons. FanGraphs’ Steamer projection system has him at 4.05 next season. Clayton Kershaw’s ERA in 2022 was 2.28, and he’s had two seasons in the last 14 years over 3.00. Steamer has him at 3.53. Tony Gonsolin’s career ERA is 2.51; Steamer says it will be 4.39.
I could go on and on. For some reason, the Steamer projections for the Dodgers pitchers are more of a steaming pile, if you know what I mean. So it’s not surprising that in a “power ranking” based on those projections, the Dodgers fall short. ESPN put together projected records based on Steamer, and LA is only projected for 89.7 wins, the ninth-most in baseball.
But even the piece’s author, Bradford Doolittle, was surprised by the low projection Los Angeles got.
Why surprising? At this point, I almost take it for granted that the Dodgers will end up ranked first in almost any kind of projection-based ranking that I do. What the forecasts can’t capture is the Dodgers’ uncanny ability to get acquired players to produce at a level a tier or two above what the numbers suggest.
Doolittle mentions Noah Syndergaard and JD Martinez as two players Steamer doesn’t project well (112 wRC+ for Martinez, 4.84 ERA for Syndergaard). He doesn’t mention the inexplicably low projections for others.
So yeah, a projection system that thinks every Dodgers pitcher is going to suck is probably going to project the Dodgers not being as good as they have been. In a way, it’s kind of impressive that even though the projections say every single Dodgers pitcher is going to be worse than Ryan Pepiot was last year, LA is still projected to have the ninth-best record in baseball.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess the pitching won’t be as bad as Steamer projects. Will Julio lead the league in ERA again? Maybe not, but I’d put him closer to his 2.16 from 2022 than the 4.05 Steamer projects. And the Dodgers probably won’t win 111 games again, but I’d wager they’ll do quite a bit better than 89.7.
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