How Many Runs Will The Tigers Allow in 2019?

It was a lot more fun making projections for the Tigers staff when they had Justin Verlander (Photo credit:GiveMeSport)

Now that I have projected the Tigers runs scored total for 2019, the next step is to estimate how many runs they will give up.  Compared to run production, run prevention is more difficult to predict because pitcher's arms are so fragile and their performance so volatile.  I undershot the Tigers eventual run total in each of the last four seasons:

2014 65
2015 129
2016 30
2017 194
2018 6

After being off by 194 runs in 2017, I was about to give up on this process, but last year was a lot better.  Before the 2018 season got under way, I wrote that the Tigers would allow 790 runs.  They went on to surrender 796 runs.  So, I was off by six runs giving me hope that my formulas have some utility.  

General Manager Al Avila made a couple of moves during the off-season to add pitching depth.  Most notably, he added two starters - left hander Matt Moore and right hander Tyson Ross.  Neither is likely to be good or even average, but they will give the Tigers innings which will keep them from rushing young pitchers into major league action.  It was also hoped that righty  Michael Fulmer would come back healthy, but he will miss the season due to Tommy John surgery.  

Their rotation to start the season will consist of  Moore, Ross, Matt Boyd, Jordan Zimmermann and rookie Spencer Turnbull which sounds like a Randy Smith rotation from the mid 90s.  It is hard to even predict how long any of the starters will remain in the rotation.  If they fail, the first two replacements would likely be Daniel Norris and Blaine Hardy.    
  
For the projection, I first estimated innings pitched in 2019 for the seven starters listed above and key bullpen pieces at the beginning of the season (Table 1).  In order to forecast runs allowed, I used three-year averages on three measures from 2016-2018 all adjusted for projected innings this year:

• Runs Allowed.

• Base Runs - estimate of what runs allowed should have been based on base runners, total bases and home runs.

• Runs Allowed according to FIP estimate of what runs allowed should have been based on strikeouts, bases on balls, hit batsmen and home runs.

For example, Boyd allowed an average of 105 runs per 180 innings (his projected 2019 total) from 2016-2018.  He also allowed 105 Base Runs and 91 FIP Runs.  The average of the three numbers above (105, 105, 91) was 100.  That comes out to an Earned Run Average of about 4.66 which seems about right for him.  

I projected the rest of the pitchers moving them up or down from their three-year averages if I think they are going to get better or worse this year.  In particular, I'm guessing that reliever Joe Jimenez  will do better than his three-year average.  I made a big adjustment for Turnbull because it doesn't make much sense to base a projection on just 16 past innings.

Summing it all up, I am projecting 823 runs allowed which is worse than last year when they had Fulmer plus a surprisingly solid season from Mike Fiers.  That combined with 690 runs scored yields a differential of 133 runs or thirteen wins below .500.  Thus, my prediction for the season is a 68-94 record.  This would be better than their 98 losses in 2017 and 2018, but not because of their pitching.         

Table 1: Projected Runs Allowed By Tigers Pitchers in 2019

Pitcher	Proj IP	RA	BSR	FIP Runs	Comb*	Proj Runs	Proj ERA
Matt Boyd	180	105	105	91	100	100	4.66
Jordan Zimmermann	160	111	109	90	103	103	5.41
Matt Moore	150	92	87	78	86	86	4.80
Tyson Ross	150	94	79	80	84	84	4.72
Spencer Turnbull	140	96	59	44	66	80	4.78
Daniel Norris	100	57	61	47	55	55	4.59
Blaine Hardy	85	42	44	40	42	48	4.73
Joe Jimenez	65	50	35	26	37	30	3.86
Shane Greene	65	34	29	28	30	30	3.90
Other	345	.	.	.	207	207	5.02
Totals	1,440				811	823	4.78

*Average adjusted for projected innings in 2019.
 Data Source: Baseball-Reference.com