We continue a month plus long journey looking at as many stat projections for as many Mets players as it make sense to do so, starting with pitchers, working towards hitters. Specifically, we’ll continue with pitchers who could start this year for the Mets.
There are a lot of stat projection publications available on the internet and magazine shelves. Rather than trusting one (although if I had to pick one, it would be Baseball Prospectus), I like to average the projections together. In a perfect world, I would take data from the several years I’ve done this to figure out how to weight the projections in the average, but for now just a straight average will be fine. This tends to round out the higher/lower outliers while still allowing them to have a say in the conversation. Let’s take a look at the average projections for Robert Gsellman:
| Robert Gsellman | ||||||
| IP | Record | ERA | BB | K | WHIP | |
| 2016 | 44.2 | 4-2 | 2.42 | 15 | 42 | 1.28 |
| Projections | ||||||
| MLB.com | 145 | 9-8 | 3.85 | 46 | 120 | 1.27 |
| Steamer | 111.1 | 6-7 | 4.20 | 38 | 86 | 1.35 |
| ZiPS | 155 | 4.12 | 47 | 124 | 1.29 | |
| ESPN | 8-8 | 3.71 | 125 | 1.31 | ||
| Baseball Prospectus | 148 | 9-9 | 4.22 | 111 | 1.33 | |
| Sporting News | 86 | 4 | 4.40 | 31 | 64 | 1.41 |
| NBC Rotoworld | 113.1 | 8-5 | 3.65 | 33 | 91 | 1.26 |
| Rotowire | 142 | 8-8 | 3.80 | 46 | 125 | 1.303 |
| Baseball America | 144 | 8 | 2.69 | 34 | 91 | 1.03 |
| FBG 2017 | 125 | 9-6 | 3.39 | 41 | 119 | 1.22 |
| Average | 129.911 | 7.6-7.3 | 3.80 | 39.50 | 105.60 | 1.28 |
Robert Gsellman was one half of the duo of rookie starting pitchers who saved the Mets season last year (other one being Seth Lugo) as the Mets rotation of aces started to fall by way of the injury bug. He put together a fantastic rookie season.
Obviously the projections see him taking steps back this year, which makes sense, it would be absurd to think he go back and 2.42 again, that would be in the Cy Young conversation (also a 2.42 ERA with a 1.28 WHIP seems unsustainable throughout the course of a whole season). Looking at the numbers more closely, the projections are pretty split on Robert. Several think he is going to have a normal, middle of the rotation year, several think he’s going to be a star (surprise, surprise, it’s Baseball America). The projections are also quite splite on the amount of time he’ll see. No one see’s a full load with a glut of them sitting at 140-ish innings.
My gut says he makes more sense as the fifth starter than Wheeler, but we’ll see as the season goes on.
Sources:
MLB.com and Steamer Projections can both be found here.
ZiPS projections can be found here.
ESPN projections can be found here.
Seidler, Jarrett & BP Staff. (2017) Baseball Prospectus 2017. New York, New York:Turner Publishing Company
The Fantasy Baseball Guide (2017)
Sporting News Fantasy Baseball (2017)
Baseball America Fantasy Guide (2017)
Rotowire Fantasy Baseball (2017)
Rotoworld Fansty Baseball (2017)
Notes:
Article Written on 2/26, stats collected 2/19 and may have changed after collection. Not all sources above may have been used in this article specifically but were used in judgment calls for reliability of the data
