Our closer! At the start of the year, the question was “would Mejia be the closer the entire season?”. There was the thought that the Mets might do a closer by committee between Familia and Mejia. The most likely thought before the season was to start off with Mejia and then see how it goes. Familia was the one who was projected to have better stuff but Mejia had success the previous year. Then Mejia failed three drug tests and Familia put together one of the best seasons a Met closer has ever had. How much of this did the computers see at the start of last year? First, here are the 2015 projections:
PECOTA (BP): 3-3, 1 SV, 24 G, 58.2 IP, 55 K, 27 BB, 1.34 WHIP, 4.01 ERA
PECOTA (MLB.com): 3-3, 7 SV, 66 IP, 55 K, 28 BB, 1.35 WHIP, 4.05 ERA
MLB.com: 3-2, 0 SV, 72 IP, 68 K, 27 BB, 1.24 WHIP, 3.25 ERA
ZiPS: 65 G, 65.1 IP, 63 K, 28 BB, 3.17 ERA
Steamer: 3-3, 6 SV, 55 G, 55 IP, 56 K, 23 BB, 3.55 ERA
ESPN: 5-3, 0 SV, 71 K, 1.33 WHIP, 3.00 ERA
Average: 3.4-2.8, 2.8 SV, 48 IP, 63.1 IP, 61.3 K, 26.6 BB, 1.32 WHIP, 3.51 ERA
(Originally Posted Here)
And his actual 2015 stats:
2-2, 43 Saves, 76 G, 78 IP, 1.00 WHIP, 1.85 ERA.
And of course the answer is probably what you thought: no, the computers had no idea about Familia. The saves are understandable, they were operating under the idea of Mejia. The work load seemed a little light, but I guess the computers didn’t account for how Collins uses a bullpen. Ultimately though, Familia just performed a lot better than anyone thought. His WHIP was ridiculous which led to a ridiculous ERA (and a more down to Earth FIP of 2.76).
