If you’re interested, Dan Szymborski published his ZiPS projections for the current Yankees roster over at FanGraphs today. The graphic above includes the WAR projections. Just to be clear, projections are not predictions. The system is just spitting out an estimation of each players’ current talent level. I wouldn’t take the projections to heart even though ZiPS has been the most accurate of the various systems (on a macro scale) for a while now. Just look at ’em for fun.
Some quick observations: Holy cow that infield is awful. ZiPS has Ellsbury hitting 14 homers, which would be awesome. The system likes Dean Anna and J.R. Murphy (both 1.6 WAR) but hates Brett Marshall (-3.1 WAR (!)). I wonder if any other player projects that poorly. After David Robertson, the current bullpen is just about replacement level or worse. ZiPS thinks Derek Jeter is toast (0.4 WAR) while Alex Rodriguez has a tiny something left in the tank (1.0 WAR).
As the disclaimer in the ZiPS post says, don’t add up the projected WAR total and use that to come up with an expected 2014 win total. The system doesn’t work like that. If it did, the Yankees would be pretty screwed. Click the link to scroll through the individual projections if you’re so inclined.