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.
Edwin Diaz really struggled last year for the Mets. That’s an understatement. The dominate closer on the Mariners came over an pretty much struggled with the long ball right away. Maybe it was the juiced ball. Maybe it was the stitches and his slider. Maybe it all just snowballed in his head. It was just frustrating for him last year. Díaz’s stuff was still electric last year, as evidenced by his 15.4 K/9. He would strike out the side but allow go-ahead homers in the same inning.
2019 Stats: 66 G, 58.0 IP, 5.59 ERA, 4.51 FIP, 1.379 WHIP, 73 ERA+, 15.4 K/9, 2.95 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)
As expected, projections see him returning to Earth this year, which makes sense. His stuff is too good for him to be that bad again this year. It makes no sense to move him, at his lowest baseball value in his career. Hopefully he can put things together in the right order this year and get his confidence back. If he puts up a year shown by the projection lines, the Mets will be in good shape. It is interesting to note how the vast majority of the projections are grouped together with him being dominate and ESPN and BR are the outliers. ESPN is usually bullish on players putting up the best seasons of their careers. BR is usually the exact opposite but they’re numbers are far off the rest.
It will make for a good review in the fall, that’s for sure.
