Fantasy First Base Rankings: Steamer Projections for 2015

Projecting player stats for the upcoming season, for me, has always been a gut feel. I usually look at other project systems like ZiPS, Steamer, Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster, but I usually look at what the player has done in the past and come up with my own projection. No formulas or spreadsheets,

Sometimes I have been on target, while other times, I have been way off. Attempting to predict how a player is going to perform is not an easy task. Projecting anything for which you have no control over is very hard. Just ask the weather forecasters after the failed "snowmageddon" here on the east coast a week ago.

One of the more well known projection systems out there is ZiPS, which is created by Dan Szymborski, and published over at FanGraphs. Another projection system which FanGraphs publishes for all to see is the Steamer projections. I am going to publish the Steamer projections here for each position we cover in our Consensus Rankings Series to help you prepare for your drafts and keeper league decisions in the coming weeks and months.

Here is more on Steamer from both the Steamer Projections website and from FanGraphs:

Steamer Projections is a projection system for baseball player statistics. The system was created and is maintained and operated by Jared Cross, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom. Dash and Peter just graduated from college and are both former students of Jared - a high school science and statistics teacher. The three creators share a deep passion and interest for baseball and the statistics that are intrinsic to the game.

The project began in the Fall of 2008 at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, New York. Saint Ann's offers its students an independent research program where they may embark on collaborative projects motivated by personal interest together with a teacher. The Steamer Projections system is the result of this program.

What began as an explorative academic pursuit soon became a passionate and time-consuming endeavor as we quickly began to expand and improve our system - and increase the requisite amount of work - as our skill and knowledge of the intricate process of statistical projection improved.

Now we are in the midst of working on the seventh iteration of our system, which has released a full set of projections for MLB players for each of the past five seasons by the end of March. We are still constantly tinkering on and tweaking Steamer Projections in the hope of making it ever more accurate and efficient. We are also investigating possible business partnerships with fantasy sports websites and MLB teams to leverage the predicative power of our system.  You can find our full pre-season and daily projections at www.fangraphs.com and at www.razzball.com.

Steamer - This uses the playing time projection from our (FanGraphs) depth charts. These are temporarily using playoff rosters, so there may be the occasional weird playing time allocation. Playing time may be updated on a nightly basis.

So let's take a look what the Steamer projections have in store for the first baseman we ranked earlier this week. I did not include stolen bases since the majority of first baseman do not run.

Quick Thoughts

Maikel Franco, Phillies

If Franco can meet the Steamer projections, he could win rookie of the year. I have to say those are optimistic, but as a Franco owner, I would be pretty happy if he can come close to that projection.

Eric Hosmer, Royals

Steamer project Hosmer to return to the hitter he was before 2014, and I completely agree here. He just won't be an MVP caliber hitter that some thought he could be a few seasons ago.

Freddie Freeman, Braves

I think you all know my thoughts on Freeman by now, but I will say Steamer appears pretty optimistic he can hit a career high 24 home runs this season.

If the following hitters meet their Steamer projections, I would be pretty happy if i owned one, or more, of any of them:

Mark Trumbo, Diamondbacks

Prince Fielder, Rangers

Steve Pearce, Orioles - his projection seems optimistic to me

Adam Lind, Brewers

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