Whats the Deal With Ryan Zimmerman?

By: brockforbriglio.com

It only took Zimmerman 269 MiLB PAs to earn a Sept. call up, after being lured away from UV with a $2.9M signing bonus in 2005.

Given his outstanding college resume, and his dominance in the Eastern League (a league known for its difficulty against batters) expectations were very high on the 20 year old prospective star.

In his ‘06 rookie season, Zimmerman didn’t disappoint. He had an outstanding rookie campaign with both the bat, and glove, falling just short of Hanley Ramirez for NL ROY:

PA

Line

OPS+

UZR

AGE

682

.287/.351/.471

114

+3

21

Things weren’t all Cake & Ice Cream in 2007, though; the year he was suppose to start making pitchers look silly. He excelled with the glove; improving his defense by 19 runs (UZR +22), but took a surprising step backwards with the bat (266/.330/458) in 722 PA.

It probably had more to do with the decrease in line drives he hit, from 21% to 16%, because the rest of his batted ball data, and rate stats were in line with his career norms. There was only a -.008 difference from his real OPS, to his predicted OPS, so there isn’t any indication he was un lucky.

Why did he hit 5% less line drives in 2007? This is where a good scouting report would come in handy (maybe Saber-Scouting, the fine new scouting/sabermetric blog could help us out?)

2008 Outlook:
PECOTA projects his best season yet (.292/.357/.492) with an impressive 58% improve rate.

He’s on the right side of the age curve, and is likely to increase his skills for the next 2-3 seasons. His LD% should creep closer back to his rookie levels, but it’s hard to say for sure. His new ballpark is expected to bode well for HR hitters as well.

Fantasy Outlook:
PECOTA projects: 96R/.292/24/98RBI/8, which makes him a $21.59 value (45th overall) He’s being drafted 88.38 overall according to Kelly’s ADP report.

He’s somebody I was targeting in my dynasty league, but lost him by 3 picks. Either way he figures to be a lot more expensive in 2009.

The idea behind Brock for Broglio is a fantasy baseball resource first; general MLB commentary second. In my opinion, there’s a lot of cross over between the strategy in the real game, and the game we emulate as general managers through our monitors. You can read more about the idea behind Brock for Broglio here. For now, I’d like to Thank You in advance for your attention; it is my hope I can earn it long term. I look forward to sharing future baseball dialogue with you.

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