Predicting the future is a shadowy business, with a long history of ill repute and downright shenanigans. Things have changed in the modern era, and particularly where baseball is concerned. Projection systems are everywhere, and are constantly being tuned to improve their ability to estimate player performance.
One of most popular publicly accessible systems, is Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections for FanGraphs. They released his 2019 ZIPS for the Detroit Tigers on Monday, and it’s not pretty. Certainly there are some interesting bright spots, and ZIPS is a little more bullish on the pitching staff than the Steamer projections, released back in November, were, but it’s still a pretty grim assessment of the Tigers’ current predicament.