FanPost

How have Cleveland Indians players compared to preseason projections?

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At one point in time, before the season started, the Indians were projected to be (barely) the best team in the American League Central by FanGraphs. Not much has seemed to go right for the Tribe since then, so I thought I'd go back and see how they have performed compared to how they were projected to perform.

I've listed each player's WAR through play on August 3. Then the projected WAR, which is the figure listed on FanGraphs as of March 17, 2015. The adjusted WAR column prorates the projection to take into account that only roughly 2/3 of the season have been played, basically saying how many WAR they were projected to have at this point in the year. The final column shows the difference between each player's actual WAR so far and the projection for where their WAR would be at this stage in the season.

Firstly, the hitters:

Name WAR Proj. WAR pWAR*adj. WAR - pWAR*adj.
Jason Kipnis 5.1 2.5 1.6 3.5
Michael Brantley 2.5 3.5 2.2 0.3
Carlos Santana 1.7 2.9 1.8 -0.1
Roberto Perez 1.4 0.3 0.2 1.2
Ryan Raburn 0.8 -0.1 -0.1 0.9
Lonnie Chisenhall 0.7 2.2 1.4 -0.7
Francisco Lindor 0.6 0.5 0.3 0.3
David Murphy 0.4 0.6 0.4 0.0
Brandon Moss 0.3 2.5 1.6 -1.3
Yan Gomes 0.3 4.0 2.5 -2.2
Giovanny Urshela 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0
Brett Hayes* 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Jerry Sands* 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Jesus Aguilar -0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.1
Michael Bourn -0.2 2.0 1.3 -1.5
Tyler Holt -0.3 0.0 0.0 -0.3
Zach Walters -0.3 0.2 0.1 -0.4
Nick Swisher -0.6 0.5 0.3 -0.9
Mike Aviles -0.7 0.3 0.2 -0.9
Jose Ramirez -0.9 1.8 1.1 -2.0
Total 11.1 24.0 15.3 -4.2

*No projections listed on Indians depth chart

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there have been many Indians underperforming their preseason projections, chief among them Yan Gomes, with Jose Ramirez, Michael Bourn, Mike Aviles and Nick Swisher also all significantly worse than projected. Non-starters Roberto Perez and Ryan Raburn have both been much better than expected, and Jason Kipnis has just destroyed his projections. As a whole, the Indians batters have been about four wins worse than they were projected to be.

Now the pitching staff:

Name WAR Proj. WAR pWAR*adj. WAR - pWAR*adj.
Corey Kluber 4.6 5.0 3.2 1.4
Carlos Carrasco 3.1 2.7 1.7 1.4
Danny Salazar 2.0 2.4 1.5 0.5
Cody Allen 1.4 1.0 0.6 0.8
Trevor Bauer 1.4 1.2 0.8 0.6
Zach McAllister 1.0 0.7 0.4 0.6
Marc Rzepczynski 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.2
Cody Anderson 0.2 -0.1 -0.1 0.3
Bryan Shaw 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.0
Nick Hagadone 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1
Jeff Manship* 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1
Austin Adams 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1
Anthony Swarzak* 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1
C.C. Lee 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Ryan Raburn* 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Kyle Crockett 0.0 0.1 0.1 -0.1
Ryan Webb* -0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.1
David Murphy* -0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.1
Toru Murata* -0.2 0.0 0.0 -0.2
T.J. House -0.2 0.9 0.6 -0.8
Bruce Chen* -0.2 0.0 0.0 -0.2
Shaun Marcum* -0.3 0.0 0.0 -0.3
Scott Atchison -0.5 0.2 0.1 -0.6
Total 13.0 15.1 9.6 3.4

*No projections listed on Indians depth chart

The Indians pitching staff has been better than expected. The starting four of Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, and Bauer have all outperformed their projections, and both Cody Allen and Zach McAllister have been excellent in the bullpen. T.J. House and Scott Atchison are the largest underperformers. The pitching staff as a whole has been about three wins better than expected at this point in the season.

Looking at both the position players and pitching staff, the Indians are underperforming their fWAR projections, but not by very much, only about one win. With a projected 51.9% winning percentage, the preseason projections had the Indians with a record of 55-50 through 105 games, a seven game difference from their actual 48-57 record through 105 games. Interestingly, their projected record is not so different than their BaseRuns record (a metric that estimates a team's expected record based on the components of their offense and pitching), which is 54-51.

Is their any meaningful data here? I don't know, but it was interesting to me so I thought I'd share it. If you want to look more at the Indians preseason projections, you can do so here.

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