Whose success or failure has surprised you most this year?

[Oz27]

With the season winding down and interest in the games themselves pretty low, I thought it might be interesting to look at how our hitters have performed compared to how they were expected to perform ... both by projection systems and how we saw it. 11 hitters on this team have 200 or more plate appearances. I have included each of them below, together with their preseason PECOTA projection and actual performance. For those who don't know, PECOTA is the projection system developed by Nate Silver and sold to Baseball Prospectus. Wikipedia has a decent PECOTA entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PECOTA

Anyway, here are the numbers -

Bandy PECOTA: .647 OPS; Actual: .678

Perez PECOTA: .641 OPS; Actual: .550

Cron PECOTA: .720 OPS; Actual .802

Marte PECOTA: .704 OPS; Actual .748

Pujols PECOTA: .783 OPS; Actual .780

Giavotella PECOTA: .671 OPS; Actual .662

Petit PECOTA: .614 OPS; Actual .653

Escobar PECOTA: .672 OPS; Actual .759

Simmons PECOTA: .676 OPS; Actual .682

Trout PECOTA: .927 OPS; Actual 1.001

Calhoun PECOTA: .751 OPS; Actual .768

(note: all of the 'actual' figures are totals prior to the 9/27 game v Oakland)

To summarize, PECOTA underestimated Bandy, Cron, Marte, Petit, Escobar, Simmons, Trout and Calhoun. It overestimated Perez, Pujols and Giavotella. Most of the differences are pretty small and some are minute, the only really big ones are Perez, Cron Escobar and Trout. PECOTA typically underestimates Trout because he almost breaks the system; it basically assumes players won't be that good because such a low percentage of major league baseball players actually are that good. But the rest were probably pretty close to the consensus preseason predictions.

So, who did better than you thought and who did worse? The two I am most surprised by are Escobar and Cron. Escobar seemed like a really strong regression candidate prior to the season. His 2015 success appeared to be fueled by a crazy-high .348 BABIP and there wasn't anything that could explain that adequately for me. He had a low line drive rate and a far-from-impressive hard contact rate, which made a high BABIP hard to explain. But sure enough, he has put up similar numbers with a similar BABIP despite unspectacular batted ball numbers. Maybe he has been pretty lucky two years in a row or maybe he is doing something to create that high BABIP that I'm just missing. As for Cron, I wasn't optimistic of him reaching the above average DH level he has reached in 2016. In hindsight I gave up on him a little too quickly. He's walking a little more and striking out a bit less and his results have improved. He is making harder contact but not by much (his average exit velocity is up 0.8 MPH). I don't buy him as an .800+ OPS hitter going forward, but he can still be pretty valuable producing a little below that level.

So, out of the hitters, who has surprised you the most this year both positively and negatively?

[ten ocho recon scout]

Cron. I wasnt expecting much, same as simmons. Pujols after he got going was a nice suprise too.

[NrM]

Pujols surprised me the most. I thought he was pretty much finished. Turned out to be somewhat productive.

Cron also exceeded expectations. 

[Angel Oracle]

Simmons since mid-June has been the most pleasant surprise.

[Oz27]

3 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Pujols surprised me the most. I thought he was pretty much finished. Turned out to be somewhat productive.

Cron also exceeded expectations. 

Yeah that's true. His second half was awful last year and it was natural to fear that his decline was stepping up a notch. For now he has actually leveled off, his OPS in the past four years has always been between .767 and .790. It'll still drop off pretty quickly at some point, but at least it hasn't yet.

Albert is funny in that he is either overrated or underrated by everyone. The traditional stat community dramatically overrates him because of his high RBI total even though that is driven largely by factors outside of his control (the 525 runners who have been on base for his PAs leads the league by a whopping 39 and his OBI% is 82nd in the league). But the sabermetric community has probably come to underrate him, viewing him as a one-dimensional slugger who isn't even that good a hitter anymore and no longer has any positional or defensive value while having a terrible contract. I'm guilty of that sometimes. The truth is somewhere in the middle. He is still a productive major league hitter who has been surprisingly durable for the past three seasons. But he is still a below average player, who is only a DH and has a terrible contract.

[Troll Daddy]

Cowart surprised me the most. Kid can't hit a lick! Sorry, I don't have saber metric stats to prove it but I did see it with my own eyes. 

 

[Angels#1Fan]

Simmons has been a surprise to me.

Hopefully this year isn't a fluke and he continues to hit well.
 

[Troll Daddy]

16 minutes ago, Angels#1Fan said:

Simmons has been a surprise to me.

Hopefully this year isn't a fluke and he continues to hit well.
 

Simmons is a contact hitter and is good at putting the ball in play. I would like to see him hit less ground balls and more line drives. He's probably thinking the same thing. If his hits aren't finding the holes ... his average will suffer. 

 

[TroutField]

I was worried about Simmons after the first half but had to tell myself he was injured and playing on a new team in the AL. His second half has been amazing. 

Escobar was very surprising, I thought the move to the AL plus the Angel's luck he was going to nose dive and hit like .230 with bad defense. His OBP has been a huge boost to this lineup. 

 

As for Cron, I rememeber talking to a guy in spring training about him being the key to a playoff appearance. He was the key to the offense getting going early in the year and being productive but he struggled and so did the Angels. His 2nd half has been great though so hopefully he can carry it over to next year. 

[Dick B Back]

5 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Simmons since mid-June has been the most pleasant surprise.

Agreed.

[zenmaster]

Simmons and Marte.

[Tank]

you didn't mention any pitchers, but i'd have to say that weaver has pleasantly surprised me the most this season (at least for pitchers).

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

The biggest surprise this year wasn't from an Angel. IMO last years NL MVP Bryce Harper has to be the surprise in baseball. He went from the Penthouse to the Outhouse in one season.

2015 - .330/.460/.649/1.109 - OPS+ 198, WAR 9.9
2016 - .244/.375/.444/.819 - OPS+ 117, WAR 1.8

[Oz27]

5 hours ago, Tank said:

you didn't mention any pitchers, but i'd have to say that weaver has pleasantly surprised me the most this season (at least for pitchers).

Okay, let's do the pitchers too. I'll get to Weaver in a minute. I'll leave out those who missed big chunks for the Angels through injury (Richards, Heaney, Tropeano) or being traded (Santiago) and stick with players who were on the Angels when the season began because I don't think any of us had preseason expectations for the likes of Andrew Bailey. As you might expect, that makes it not a very long list. I'll do the same as before, using ERA and WHIP.

Weaver PECOTA: 3.78 ERA, 1.21 WHIP; Actual 5.06 ERA, 1.46 WHIP

Skaggs PECOTA: 4.00 ERA, 1.31 WHIP; Actual 3.82 ERA, 1.44 WHIP

Shoemaker PECOTA: 3.97 ERA, 1.26 WHIP; Actual 3.88 ERA, 1.23 WHIP

Street PECOTA: 3.34 ERA, 1.20 WHIP; Actual 6.45 ERA, 1.93 WHIP

Bedrosian PECOTA: 3.95 ERA, 1.35 WHIP; Actual 1.12 ERA, 1.09 WHIP

Alvarez PECOTA: 3.30 ERA, 1.21 WHIP; Actual 3.58 ERA, 1.54 WHIP

Morin PECOTA: 3.88 ERA, 1.29 WHIP; Actual 4.30 ERA, 1.20 WHIP

Guerra PECOTA: 3.84 ERA, 1.28 WHIP; Actual 3.27 ERA, 1.13 WHIP

 

So Shoemaker, Bedrosian and Guerra outperformed their PECOTA projections and Weaver, Street and Alvarez were worse. Skaggs and Morin both had one of the two metrics I chose better than expected and one worse.

The think that struck me most from that was PECOTA was incredibly optimistic about Weaver preseason, way more than any of us would have been. That would partly be because he is declining at a much younger age than most pitchers do so he is breaking the model in a way. By some measures he is the worst pitcher in the league and by one he is the worst pitcher ever but I probably wasn't expecting much better than that. Shoemaker was a pleasant surprise, I thought he would be worse than that. Bedrosian becoming one of the league's best relievers so quickly was a faster rise than seemed likely too. I was worried about Street preseason but I didn't think it would get that out of hand so quickly.

[Billy_Ball]

[ABC]

8 hours ago, Angels#1Fan said:

Simmons has been a surprise to me.

Hopefully this year isn't a fluke and he continues to hit well.
 

 

Simmons has performed like he does every year. He is who he is. No surprises. Even when he was considered the second coming of ____, he's never sported an OPS over .700.

[Second Base]

Marte for sure. The power as a skill was there to begin with, but it never resulted in many HR's. I'm not sure if he's made an adjustment or if pitchers just haven't figured out exactly how to get him out, but the end result is a player of Trumbo's sort of production (except this year, he's gone off).

[eligrba]

Ricky Nolasco has been a pleasant surprise. He has put together some nice starts of late. 

[DMVol]

25 minutes ago, eligrba said:

Ricky Nolasco has been a pleasant surprise. He has put together some nice starts of late. 

If he puts together 30 starts in 2017 similar to his 2016 Angel starts, he will officially be a steal....

[Troll Daddy]

4 hours ago, DMVol said:

If he puts together 30 starts in 2017 similar to his 2016 Angel starts, he will officially be a steal....

I agree ... although, the trade wasn't centered around Nolasco. 

[arch stanton]

In his time with the Twins Nolasco had BABIP of .354, .392, and this year .317. Since joining the Angels it's .258. Defense? Park effect?

[Inside Pitch]

I guess Marte because he was easily the guy I knew least about.   By least, I mean nothing other than his previous minor league numbers.

[kevinb]

55 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

In his time with the Twins Nolasco had BABIP of .354, .392, and this year .317. Since joining the Angels it's .258. Defense? Park effect?

I don't know what his BABIP was with the Dodgers but he did have a career low era pitching there. So maybe it has to do with liking where he's playing/living and park

[tomsred]

Shoemaker surprised me the most.  When he struggled in the early part of the year I thought he might get bumped back down to AAA, and then he came back so strong up until his injury.  He really picked up some of the slack of the other injured starters.  Bedrosian also found himself (finally) and was consistently very strong after the first month or so.  Of the every day players, Cron and Pujols were great plusses.

[DMVol]

7 hours ago, arch stanton said:

In his time with the Twins Nolasco had BABIP of .354, .392, and this year .317. Since joining the Angels it's .258. Defense? Park effect?

 

6 hours ago, Kevinb said:

I don't know what his BABIP was with the Dodgers but he did have a career low era pitching there. So maybe it has to do with liking where he's playing/living and park

I thought it might be a "home boy" type of effect too but his numbers are pretty similar home/road since the trade....so I don't know....I just want him to keep it up....

http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/6491/ricky-nolasco