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2019 Projections for Freddie Freeman
Honestly, I am offended by some of the WAR totals that Fangraphs have put out for Freddie’s 2019 season, particularly Steamer’s 4.3 fWAR prediction.
I understand that you usually want to stay somewhat conservative when projecting a player’s upcoming season, but what justifies claiming Freeman will have basically a 1-win dropoff from 2018 to 2019?
The guy has shown zero signs of slowing down. His periphials are fine. What gives?
So we’ll just focus on the ZiPS projections, as it’s closer to what I think all of us expect Freddie to post in 2019, at the minimum.
ZiPS Projection
The magic number for ZiPS is 4.6 fWAR, a regression from last season, but still an All-Star season. According to ZiPS, this is what we should expect from Freddie in 2019:
- 149 games
- .297/.389/.520
- 26 home runs
- 90 RBI
- 39 doubles
- 140 wRC+
- -7.5 defensive-WAR
Basically, you’re looking at 2018’s numbers except ZiPS sees a drop in defensive-WAR from last year’s -4.3 to a value of -7.5 Def. I’ve never fully understood why Freddie gets such a bad rating at first base, other than the position being a hard one to put up a high total in. Freddie Freeman is just fine on defense.
One note regarding ZiPS projections: I don’t see Freddie sitting out 13 games unless he’s hurt.
You probably will never find a projection system that will predict a player to play every game, and I know the Braves have already said they’ll do a better job of resting players, but no way Freddie Freeman sits on the bench for 13 games. Nope.
Other than that nitpicking, I don’t see anything wrong with the ZiPS projection above. Like I said, Freddie is a fine defender so he possibly runs a higher Def than ZiPS predicts, which in turn, will bump his total fWAR up a notch to maybe 5.0 fWAR.
All in all, it’s generally agreed that Freeman will have another stellar season for the Braves.