Every spring I collect several projections sources and average them together to do a meta-projection. Last year I pulled projections from Baseball Prospectus, ZiPS, Steamer, ESPN, and Baseball Reference. Coming into last year, the Mets chances relied on both deGrom and Noah Syndergaard pitching like the aces they could be. deGrom turned out a historic season. Syndergaard pitched a very good season. But how did it compare to projections?
2018 Average Projection: 151 IP, 2.96 ERA, 2.71 FIP, 1.122 WHIP, 10.4 K/9
2018 Actual: 154 IP, 3.03 ERA, 2.80 FIP, 1.212 WHIP, 9.0 K/9
So Syndergaard performed slightly, just slightly, worse than his projections. I would actually call this as an accurate prediction, only being 3.0 innings off his actual total, .07 runs off his actual ERA.
If we dive into individual projections, the story is a little different. Steamer ends up being the closest with an ERA only .07 runs off, and an FIP only .05 runs off. After that every other projection was much lower than his actual line with the exception of one, Baseball Reference, who was much higher (3.29 ERA). This averaged together made a line close to his average.
I’m not sure what this means for next year (Baseball Reference is projecting an ERA of 3.21, an increase from last year’s actual line and only a slight decrease of their projection last year). I’m curious to see how the whole suite of projections handle Syndergaard two years after his injury filled 2017.
