I really do enjoy PECOTA day even though it’s ultimately kind of silly. Still, the reason I like PECOTA (and ZIPS) isn’t that they might be right or wrong, it’s that they give you a baseline to judge actual performance. If the Brewers are better than PECOTA thinks I can point to something like Wily Peralta exceeding his projection, and I like being able to do that.
PECOTA is also one of BP’s biggest selling point, so I’m not going to just print the Brewer projections here. That’d be stealing. What I will do is tell you whether PECOTA is higher or lower on any individual player.
Nori Aoki
ZIPS – .288/.342/.395, 7 HR, 31 2B
PECOTA – Higher
Rickie Weeks
ZIPS – .252/.344/.443, 22 HR, 22 2B
PECOTA – Higher, just barely.
Ryan Braun
ZIPS – .302/.371/.540, 33HRs, 37 2B
PECOTA – Higher, just barely.
Aramis Ramirez
ZIPS – .280/.338/.494, 23 HR, 32 2B
PECOTA – Lower, but basically even.
Mat Gamel
ZIPS – .261/.332/.440, 11 HR, 17 2B
PECOTA – ZIPS likes him better per play, PECOTA thinks he’ll play more.
Jonathan Lucroy
ZIPS – .274/.328/.421, 12 HR, 20 2B
PECOTA – Lower
Carlos Gomez
ZIPS – .249/.300/.418, 13 HR, 16 2B
PECOTA – Lower
Jean Segura
ZIPS – .278/.325/.402, 9 HRs, 20 2B
PECOTA – Much lower
Corey Hart
ZIPS – .278/.329/.485, 27 HRs, 30 2B
PECOTA – Lower
Yovani Gallardo
ZIPS – 194 IP, 199 SO, 70 BB, 3.80 ERA, 3.57 FIP
PECOTA – Lower
Marco Estrada
ZIPS – 121 IP, 114 SO, 34 BB, 4.09 ERA, 3.69 FIP
PECOTA – He’ll pitch more, and worse.
Mike Fiers
ZIPS – 134 IP, 124 SO, 48 BB, 3.9 ERA, 4.10 FIP
PECOTA – More innings, very slightly worse.
Chris Narveson
ZIPS – 87 IP, 72 SO, 33 BB, 4.86 ERA, 4.37 FIP
PECOTA – More pitching, much worse.
Wily Peralta
ZIPS – 153.1 IP, 135 SO, 90 BB, 4.58 ERA, 4.42 WHIP
PECOTA – Lower
Mark Rogers
ZIPS – 109.1, 80 SO, 85 BB, 4.69 ERA, 4.91 FIP
PECOTA – Way less, and worse. This one makes no sense to me. PECOTA thinks Rogers strikes out way more than he walks, but still assigns him a higher ERA and FIP in fewer innings. Just weird.
John Axford
ZIPS – 66.1 IP, 83 SO, 32 BB, 3.53 ERA, 3.37 FIP
PECOTA – A little lower.
So there you have it. PECOTA looks like it accounts for the Hart injury which explains some of the differences in the offensive end. To me it looks like the systems diverge wildly on younger players (Segura and Peralta in particular) and the innings breakdown among starting pitchers. ZIPS doesn’t think Narveson starts, and that Marco won’t throw that many innings. PECOTA doesn’t think Mark Rogers lasts very long.
If you want to know more details, you’ll have to fork over some money to Baseball Prospectus. You can find the Brewers’ full ZIPs projections here.
