Mookie Betts, Mike Trout lead charge for ‘on pace for’ versus ‘projected for’ statistics

It’s easy to use simple multiplication to create “on pace for” statistics, especially with the hot starts of Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. But a better way is combining current stats with projections.

For some baseball fans, part of their enjoyment of the game is the statistics the players put up. We like to see guys score 100 runs in a season or hit 30 homers or plate 100 RBI, such as Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. Twenty wins by a starting pitcher was the standard for decades. It’s no longer a number that many starters reach in a season, but the reverence for a 20-game winner still lingers.

At certain points of the season, it’s easy to calculate what a player might do over the entire season. When teams have played around 40 games, we can easily multiply by four to get an “on pace for” total. Mookie Betts was on pace for 52 home runs through the first quarter of the season. His teammate, J.D. Martinez, was on pace for 132 RBI.

Now that we’re roughly one-third of the way through the season, we can easily multiply by three to get a player’s “on pace for” total. Using this method, Mike Trout is on pace for 54 home runs. Mookie Betts is on pace for 156 runs scored. Manny Machado is on pace for 132 RBI. Perhaps the most surprising “on pace for” is Ender Inciarte being on pace for 54 stolen bases. His career high is 22.

Then there are the pitchers. Six pitchers are on pace for 21 or more wins. There were no 20-game winners last season, three in 2016, and two in 2015, so six 20-game winners would be quite surprising. The last time baseball had six 20-game winners was in 2002, back when Bartolo Colon was just a wee lad of 29 (and one of the six 20-game winners that year).

Current projectins for Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, and others.

So now’s the part where I pour water all over those numbers. I’ll be Debbie Downer, Gloomy Gus, Mopey Marvin (is that a thing?). As fun as it is to multiply by some number to come up with “on pace for” totals, it’s not the best way. The best way is less fun, less exciting, less noteworthy. The right way is more sensible and pragmatic.

The right way is to combine a player’s current stats with his projected stats going forward using one of the projection sources that are out there (ZiPS, Steamer, The Bat, PECOTA, etc.). Players who are off to great starts will cool down.

Players who start slowly will get better (if allowed to continue to play). That’s how baseball works. Extreme performances, both good and bad, tend to regress to the middle.

Let’s look at some examples using these player’s current stats and their projected rest-of-season stats from the Fangraphs Depth Charts.

The “on pace for” method of simply multiplying by three has seven players on pace to hit 45 or more home runs. These players are:

• 54—Mike Trout
• 51—Mookie Betts
• 51—J.D. Martinez
• 48—Bryce Harper
• 45—Jose Ramirez, Manny Machado, Joey Gallo

Using the “rest-of-season projections” method of combining their current stats with their Fangraphs Depth Charts rest-of-season projection gives us the following home run totals for these seven players:

• 45—Mike Trout
• 45—J.D. Martinez
• 42—Joey Gallo
• 40—Bryce Harper
• 38—Manny Machado
• 36—Mookie Betts
• 31—Jose Ramirez

How about runs scored? Six players are on pace for 120 or more runs scored, led by the aforementioned Mookie Betts:

• 156—Mookie Betts
• 144—Ozzie Albies
• 138—Mike Trout
• 126—George Springer
• 123—Francisco Lindor
• 123—Charlie Blackmon

Things change when you combine their current stats and their projected stats:

• 124—Mookie Betts
• 124—Mike Trout
• 109—Charlie Blackmon
• 107—George Springer
• 105—Francisco Lindor
• 104—Ozzie Albies

Four players are on pace for 120 or more RBI:

• 132—Manny Machado
• 132—J.D. Martinez
• 126—Javier Baez
• 120—Freddie Freeman

But only one of them is projected to get to 120 RBI:

• 123—J.D. Martinez
• 110—Manny Machado
• 106—Javier Baez
• 105—Freddie Freeman