Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.
We are done with the hitters! On to the pitchers! The first pitcher we are going to take a look at is Dellin Betances, newly signed off an injury year to bolster the bullpen. We have to give credit where it’s due – we talked a lot this off-season about if the Mets were serious about competing and spending money they Betances should be a risk near the top of their list. The Mets took the risk and we couldn’t be more excited.
2019 Stats: 0.2 IP, 2 K
2018 Stats: 66 G, 66.2 IP, 2.70 ERA, 2.47 FIP, 1.050 WHIP, 1.7 WAR, 2.15 DRA
(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)
For the most part projections look spot on Betances, that programs who projected him look at him having a full season, worse than he has been but way better than what the Mets had at the back of their bullpen last year. With questions around the 2019 years of Diaz and Familia, Betances feels like a must have to pair with Lugo.
We don’t know what to expect for Betances in reality, coming off an injury year is always a mystery. It would be completely terrible luck though for all of Familia, Diaz and Betances to not pitch in 2020 like their career numbers suggest.
