Yesterday, FanGraphs released the 2018 ZiPS projections for the Seattle Mariners. Along with Steamer and PECOTA, ZiPS is one of three highly regarded projection systems publically available. I’ve written some form of this post four years in a row now, so you probably know what to expect. But for the first time since 2015, ZiPS is actually more optimistic about the Mariners than Steamer.
First, let’s get all the details out of the way. No projection system is perfect. But with more data and different projection models, we can become more confident in our assumptions and estimations.