On Projecting Franklin Gutierrez

This has come up in a couple different venues so I figured I would provide a handy one-stop thread.

It should come as no surprise that I am a big fan of Franklin Gutierrez. I loved the idea of Gutierrez when we traded for him and it took all the way to his first ever at bat as a Mariner for me to confirm that I was going to be rooting for this particular player. I would like to think he appreciated my fanhood and responded with his superb season in 2009. What might be in store for 2010 though?

Projecting Franklin Gutierrez's offensive level is not much of a debate. Last year he had a 102 wOBA+ by StatCorner and a 108 wRC+ (roughly the same stat) by FanGraphs. For 2010, Bill James and fans at large project him for a 106 wRC+, Marcel at 103 and CHONE at 100. Based on his batted ball profile in 2009 and his past success rates, I would project his 2010 wOBA+ to be around 104. It's not a very large spread and basically immaterial to our overall assessment.

Where the projections start to diverge is on two factors, defense and playing time. Playing time is easier to discuss. Gutierrez received 301 plate appearances (PA) in 2007 and 440 in 2008. That was not due to injury, but because he was still breaking into a full time role with the Indians. A computer projection is going to see those low PA totals and count that against Gutierrez going forward. I disagree. Franklin is a full time player now and given that he has no serious injury history, should be expected to play a full season.

Now that does not mean we should project him to repeat 629 PAs again. We do need to factor in some injury risk. The commonly accepted figure for position players is to give them 85% of a full season.  Even for a healthy player, you need to account for freak injuries, day to day ills and the chance for a chronic injury developing. That's about 138 games and about 550 PAs. CHONE, still accounting for the lower 2007 and 2008 totals, has Gutierrez at just 511 PAs.

Onto defense. It's tricky to project, being so volatile. Again, the standard rule of thumb is to have three full years of defensive data before you can become somewhat comfortable with establishing a range of performance for the player. We do not yet have three full years for Gutierrez, but we're getting close. Since we have well established adjustments between the outfield positions, we can count Gutierrez's time in right field into our evaluation, just making sure to penalize him 10 runs per 150 games in order to get his projected CF numbers. Even with that penalty, Franklin shines.

Over the last three years, Gutierrez has 179 defensive games logged in center field with a total UZR of 31.8 and 167 defensive games logged in the corner outfield with a total UZR of 27.9. We need to take 11.1 runs off that figure for the CF transition, but after the adjustment we have 346 defensive games in the outfield with a total UZR of 48.6 for a UZR/150 of 21. Simply put, Franklin Gutierrez has been an incredible outfielder for some time now. It's not just his 2009 season, as remarkable as it was, that boosts his numbers. It's also not just UZR. John Dewan's +/- rating has Gutierrez at +23 in CF and +30 in the corners leading to a +42 total for 2007-9.

CHONE has him projected for just +6 runs in center field next year. I get that you want to be pessimistic and conservative when it comes to defense, but there's a point where you aren't being conservative anymore, but rather just hesitant. Which is fine if that's what you want and most times I agree to err on the side of caution, but I am going to disagree with CHONE in this particular case. Even if you throw in enough league average innings to get Gutierrez up to three years worth of fielding data, his UZR/150 drops only to 16.2. Frankly, I wouldn't be remiss to peg Franklin as a +10 < x < +20 glove in center.

That's not just based off his UZR or +/-. Just go out to the park sometime and watch Gutierrez play. Focus on him. I'm not sure there's a ding in his game. His range in phenomenal, his instincts great, his hands sure, his timing (see image) solid. The scouting reports I've read back this up as well. They love him and Andruw Jones territory is not out of the question.

Now, I'm not that confident, so personally, I knock it down to +6 < x < +16. And that sums up the difference between CHONE and myself. CHONE sees Franklin as an average hitter, +6 with the glove, +2.2 for playing CF and +17 for playing time adding up to 2.5 WAR. I have Gutierrez as about five runs above average with the bat, +11 with the glove, +2.4 for CF and +19 for playing time, worth about 3.75 wins. It's a little less than I have been listing him at because no matter how much evidence I accumulate, I have a hard time putting him at that +15 glove mark. Plus I'd rather short change him a few runs than further risk observer bias.

The takeaway message is that you shouldn't dogmatically accept projections, no matter who they are from. Maybe you read through all of this and decided that, no, you still prefer CHONE's figures. That's fine. The important thing is that you consider the differing viewpoints and not blindly parrot numbers back. I think there's a legitimate case that automated projection systems are going to underrate Gutierrez for 2010. Also, he might be the best defensive player in baseball.