Inevitably, some players with excellent 2017 seasons will fail to perform up to the same level of play in 2018. Whether we call it regression to the mean or curses stemming from being on the covers of magazines, cereal boxes or football video games, staying at the very top of the food chain is no easy tax. There are more temporary Mike Trouts than permanent ones. Here are our picks for the 10 players most likely to have significant declines in 2018:
Aaron Judge, New York Yankees. Let's be clear about one thing: Just because Aaron Judge makes this list doesn't mean he won't be a star in 2018. In fact, I'm pretty sure he will be a deserving All-Star this season -- it's just that I don't think he repeats his 1.049 OPS, which ended up at 8.1 WAR, second in the league to Jose Altuve.
One of baseball's biggest myths is the sophomore slump. Excellent rookies don't actually have any historical tendency to underperform their second-season projections. What actually happens is the product of selection bias; players who outperform expectations tend to be the ones most likely to stay in the majors in their rookie years, as well as their second. But what people tend to do is take that rookie season as a baseline expectation, no matter what came before.
In Judge's case, in 2016 he was a Triple-A repeater (he'd initially hit .224/.308/.373), then hit a solid-but-not-amazing .270/.366/.489 in most of a full year in Triple-A before a rough cameo with the Yankees. Now, he's not that player anymore, but we don't really know if his "true" ability is that of an eight-win player. We didn't know that of Mike Trout, either, his second year. "Last year" is a terrible projection system, even for young players.
ZiPS projects a .253/.364/.552 line from Judge with 43 homers and 112 RBIs, leading to a 4.8 WAR season. That's still a great season, but I agree with the computer here that it's more along what should be our expectation of him at this point. He's still not a perfect hitter; while he's excellent at identifying pitches, when he went into his post-All-Star funk last year, he essentially shrank his strike zone and became too passive with low pitches.
Andrew Cashner, Baltimore Orioles. Before Cashner last season, the last qualifying pitcher with an ERA+ better than 130 and a strikeout rate under five batters a game was Joe Saunders in 2008. Since the 1994 strike, only nine pitchers have accomplished this feat and none of them maintained those lofty ERA+ numbers. While some of those pitchers survived -- such as Kenny Rogers, Brad Radke and Rick Reed -- Cashner's walk rate was worse than that of anyone else in the group by nearly 40 percent.
With Cashner now and Yovani Gallardo previously, the O's appear to be developing an oddly specific fetish for former promising young pitchers who lose their strikeouts and have a deceptively good season for the Texas Rangers. If the Rangers acquire Jordan Zimmermann, watch out, O's fans!
Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals. Last year was Zimmerman's first full healthy season since 2013 and he responded with 36 home runs, a career high and as many as he hit from 2014 to 2016 combined. The question is, just how much should you trust a .335 BABIP from a player who will turn 34 in midseason, when that was 25 points above his career average? Not to mention a slow player with an arthritic shoulder whose performance ebbed for a good chunk of the season? As great as it was to see a comeback from a player who was one of the most underrated players in his prime, the year had a lot of the characteristics as a "last hurrah" season.
Lance Lynn, Minnesota Twins. Yes, the qualifying offer hurt Lynn's market this winter. That's far from the only reason for his soft market. While Lynn's ERA looked a lot like it did before Tommy John surgery, his 4.75 FIP did not, and the latter measure has a stronger correlation with future performance than the former. There's a silver lining in moving to the American League Central, at least, playing against what ought to be three bad offenses and the fourth division rival (the Indians) not in a hitter's park. If he had to sign a one-year pillow contract, this was a better home than with an AL East or National League West team.
Avisail Garcia, Chicago White Sox. One thing that amused me greatly while running the projections this winter was the fact that Roberto Clemente came up as Avi's top performance comp for his age-27 season. That doesn't mean that Garcia's future is projected to be comparable to Clemente's, only that they were comparable for performance reasons at this point of their careers, and that isn't as good as it sounds. Clemente was Clemente because of what he did in his 30s; for most of his 20s he was just another guy.
The bad news for Garcia, of course, is that most players with a history like his were much, much worse than Roberto Clemente. Garcia's season was pretty much fueled by a .392 BABIP. He was still the hitter that swung at bad pitches 30 percent more often than the league average while being below average at actually making contact with them. He still hit for unimpressive power and hit far too many grounders for someone built like an NFL linebacker.
That said, Garcia shouldn't be back to replacement level again for a few reasons. His hit profile still suggests that he can be a .330 BABIP hitter, and while that would have reduced his 2017 OBP/SLG into the .330/.450 range, there's also evidence that he's made progress defensively. But is he a star? Count me in the "no" column.
Zack Greinke, Arizona Diamondbacks. Like Judge, this is more a disappointment relative to 2017's lofty performances rather than actually playing poorly. Greinke still projects to an All-Star level, but a projected two-win decline is appropriately steep. But add in that little nervous feeling when he's throwing 86 mph fastballs as we head into mid-March and it gets you thinking just a little bit. Even last spring, when Greinke also worried about his velocity, he was up at 89-91 mph at this point.
Jose Urena, Miami Marlins. Sure, Urena's fastball hit in the upper 90s regularly, but it wasn't enough to get his strikeout rate above 6.0 K/9, and his 5.20 FIP was actually a step back from his 4.72 rookie year. Urena still doesn't change speeds well, and I suspect he's a lot closer to being moved to relief than an All-Star appearance as a starter.
Eric Hosmer, San Diego Padres. Well, it's an even year! OK, that's cheating. The fundamental problem with Hosmer maintaining his up seasons is that he more or less has an approach at the plate like the one Willie Mays Hayes had in "Major League" when he was successful -- lots and lots of grounders. While grounders are better for BABIP, his .316 career number is more likely than the career-high .351 in 2017. Maintaining a HR/FB (home run to fly ball) rate near 25 percent is going to be tricky after Hosmer put up an average fly ball/line-drive exit velocity that ranked 87th in baseball, between Rio Ruiz and Michael Taylor in 2017.
Andrew McCutchen, San Francisco Giants. Yes, the Giants did the right thing in getting McCutchen after being rebuffed -- despite their best efforts -- in the pursuit of free agent Shohei Ohtani and all three Marlins outfielders. But while I think Cutch still will best his miserable 2016 career nadir, homers are harder to find at AT&T Park. Having lost more than a few steps from his best years, he'll likely have trouble taking best advantage of the spacious outfield.