ZiPS Projections: No. 1 Starter

Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections are a good measure of what to expect from players in the upcoming baseball season. We'll take a look at the Rangers' projections on a position-by-position basis. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Today we'll look at the projections for the Rangers in the No. 1 starting pitcher role, which is without a doubt Yu Darvish, one of the few true aces in the game these days.

Darvish: 26 starts, 173 2/3 innings, 3.06 ERA, 11.24 K/9 IP, 217 strikeouts, 65 walks, 17 home runs allowed

In Szymborski's writeup, he mentions Darvish is obviously a year older and factored in some regression, but did say Darvish basically pans out as still being the league's best strikeout pitcher, which definitely isn't a far-fetched idea.

The 26 starts would mean Darvish would either skip a few starts or possibly have yet another trip to the disabled list coming at some point in 2015. The ERA would match last season's mark, when he only threw 144 1/3 innings in 22 starts.

These aren't just ridiculous eye-popping stats, but they're still really dang good, and if Darvish can put up those numbers he'll win a lot of games for the Rangers.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us