What Does Bill James Think of the 2015 Indians?

One of the most exciting parts of the baseball off-season is trying to predict how well a player will do in the upcoming season. Bill James publishes his annual player projections in his book The Bill James Handbook. Below are his projections for the Indians 2015 hitters.

You may notice that there are far too many at bats given to all the Tribe hitters and there is no way that many players can have that many at bats throughout the season. James’ reasoning for this is that he wishes to project what he believes a younger player would do if he were to be given full-time at bats, even if it is another year before he earns significant playing time. This is why you see both Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez receiving significant playing time despite the fact that they will likely be playing the same position.

This is also the reason Zach Walters is projected to play in 123 games and have 449 at bats. Walters’ projections are perhaps the most surprising of all the Indians’ hitters. Tribe fans saw first hand the type of power Walters has when he hit six home runs in his first 13 games with the Indians, making it clear he is  capable of hitting 22 home runs in a season. The only problem is, with the roster as it stands, there really isn’t a place for him to play.

Whether or not Jason Kipnis will bounce back has been discussed amongst Indians’ fans all offseason. Well Tribe fans, you can rest easy because Bill James says he will. While his projected stats aren’t quite as good as his All-Star 2013 campaign, they fall between his solid 2012 season and his superb 2013 season, which I suspect most fans will be okay with as long as it is better than last year.

James also believes Nick Swisher has at least one more above average season in him. Nothing would make me happier than to have Swisher play something close to a full season and hit 19 home runs along the way. However, it is worth noting that James projected Swisher to hit 22 home runs, drive in 73 runs, hit .250, and have a .441 SLG last year, so you may choose to take this projection with a grain of salt.

Overall, James is pretty positive about the Indians’ hitters in 2015, the same cannot be said about his projections for the Tribe’s pitching staff. To provide some background explanation for his projections, James considers the innings pitched projection to be accurate if it is within 12%, plus 12 innings. To put this into context, Felix Hernandez was projected to pitch 222 innings last season, while his actual innings pitched was 236, this would be considered accurate under James’ projections. ERA is accurate under these projections if is within 10%. Jason Vargas was projected to have a 4.01 ERA last season. His actual ERA of 3.71 is within 10% and is considered accurate.

Despite the starting rotation’s success in the second half of last season, there is still some uncertainty in how well the staff will do in 2015. James does not have very high expectations for many of the Tribe’s projected starters. Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar are all projected to have good but not great seasons. However, Trevor Bauer, T.J. House and Gavin Floyd, the pitchers competing for the final few spots in the rotation, are not projected to have very good seasons at all. In the case of Bauer and House, both are projected to have worse seasons than they did in 2014.

James is pretty high on the Indians’ bullpen for 2015. If Cody Allen, Bryan Shaw and resident senior citizen Scott Atchison have the seasons James’ predicts, the Tribe could have the makings of their very own Herrera-Davis-Perkins type of trio that worked so very well for the Kansas City Royals in 2014.

The important thing to know when looking at any of the popular projection compilations is that they are simply well-educated guesses. Bill James would be the first to tell you that his projections are wrong quite a bit. But, he’s also right quite a bit, which is why he is so revered. As a fan, I wouldn’t read too much into these projections, no one can completely predict what will happen throughout the course of a given season. But these are fun to look at to get a sense of how well the experts think players will do in the upcoming season.