This off-season the writers at Pirates Breakdown will take a look at two different sets of 2016 projections for meaningful players on the roster and give you, the readers, their take on whether or not they think said player will meet, surpass, or fall below those projections. The projections for Steamer and ZiPs (created by Dan Szymborski) can be found on fangraphs.com. Last week staff writer Ethan Obstarczyk took a look at Andrew McCutchen‘s projections. This week he takes a look at backup catcher Chris Stewart.
On January 14th, rather than head to arbitration, the Pittsburgh Pirates and catcher Chris Stewart came to an agreement on a two-year extension with a club option for another season. The deal, which covers Stewart’s final year of arbitration and at least one year of free agency, could keep Stewart in Pittsburgh as the backup catcher through 2018.
The contract extension shows that management is obviously happy with the performance of Stewart in his role as the backup catcher. Stewart has almost no power with the bat, but since acquiring him from the New York Yankees prior to the 2014 season, he has been able to hit well enough and provide the starting catcher with a day off here and there.
Let’s take a look at Stewart’s statistics from the last two seasons along with the projections for 2016 from Steamer and ZiPS:
[table id=45 /]The good news: both projection systems have Stewart clubbing his first home run as a Pittsburgh Pirate and swiping a base in 2016. Now on to the not so good stuff…
Both projections see Stewart’s splits doing a nosedive. The last two seasons saw Stewart post a good AVG and OBP, but the projections see his AVG going down by over 40 points and his OBP by more than 20. Stewart’s projected slugging percentage is lower in both Steamer and ZiPS, but given that Stewart has never been a power hitter, this is not of much concern.
It appears that ZiPS and Steamer both see the last two seasons as anomalies for Stewart in terms of his batting average. Prior to his career high batting average of .294 in 2014, Stewart had never ended a season with an average over .250. I think that Stewart will bat in the .260 range, lower than in recent years but not as bad as the early seasons in his career.
I do believe that his slugging percentage for next season will be around where the projections see him finishing. Stewart will be 34 years old when the season starts, and typically players do not all of a sudden add power at that age, especially players such as Stewart who have never shown much power.
It’s interesting that Steamer and ZiPS have such a large difference in the number of at-bats Stewart will receive in 2016. His 2015 total at-bats falls almost right in between the two projected totals from Steamer and ZiPS. Given that Stewart is not a power threat, it’s hard to see him getting many at-bats outside of his weekly start when Francisco Cervelli gets the day off.
If an injury does occur to Cervelli, Stewart could see more at-bats. But it’s more likely that the Pirates would call up Elias Diaz to start behind the plate for the lion’s share of the work.
ZiPS is also more optimistic when it comes to Stewart’s WAR next season (0.6 compared to Steamer’s 0.2). To be fair, it is extremely difficult for a backup catcher to amass a high WAR due to playing time, so I am not too concerned here; at least Stewart has a positive projected WAR!
Now it’s your turn. How will Stewart do this season? Will he see more at-bats, as ZiPS projects? Will this be the season that Stewart finally puts a ball over the fence? Let us know in the comments below!
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