Please check out the Projections Primer, to see how I come about getting these projections.
Prior to getting started, I want to take a look at the last three years of Carlos Martinez's career and his total career numbers, showing the statistics that I utilize in my projections.
The 2019 season is our most recent sample size and professional sports are often reduced to a "what have you done for me lately" business. Here is his 2019 season (majors only) separated from the rest 1) to highlight it and 2) to more easily come back to it for comparison purposes.
2019
(as a reliever)
48 games, 48 1/3 innings
3.17 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 1.179 WHIP
9.9 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 2.94 K:BB
This year, I plan to incorporate a couple of (I hope) interesting items to go along with the mean (average) projection. I am going to be adding in "THE GOOD" (an everything goes right)" projection and "THE BAD” (an everything went wrong)" projection prior to giving THE CERUTTI (my actual projection). THE GOOD is basically if a player is 10% better in a few of the listed categories while THE BAD is basically if a player is 10% worse in a few of the listed categories - based on THE CERUTTI projection, which is my 50th percentile-type projection that gets made every year by other projection services like STEAMER or ZiPS.
THE GOOD
(best case)
28 starts, 183 2/3 innings, 6.56 IP/GS 3.06 ERA, 3.16 FIP, 1.151 WHIP 10.2 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 2.82 K:BB
For some reason, I don't believe that Carlos will be better in the rotation over 183 2/3 innings this coming year than he was for just 48 1/3 innings last year. Call me crazy, but I'd bet against this.
THE BAD
(worst case)
28 starts, 151 2/3 innings, 5.42 IP/GS 3.71 ERA, 4.04 FIP, 1.393 WHIP 8.4 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 2.33 K:BB
Man. If you told me that I could take 151 2/3 innings from Carlos this year and have them be better than league average innings, I might have to take it - so long as that meant he was still healthy enough for the post-season. But, this is what my projections considers near the worst case scenario. I wouldn't take that because I know Carlos is capable of more, but that's basically the amount of innings we got out of him the last two years combined...albeit with much less success statistically (in the projection than what we received).
THE CERUTTI
(my system projection)
28 starts, 167 innings, 5.96 IP/GS
3.37 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 1.266 WHIP
9.2 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 2.57 K:BB
If all of my projections come true, I foresee the Cardinals going 16-12 in his starts.
This one is SOOOOO interesting to me. You wanna know what Carlos' starting pitching stats were from the 3.5 years he was a full-time starter (2015 - July 2018)? 3.27 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 3.71 xFIP, 1.26 WHIP, 8.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 2.7 K:BB. My projections basically say Carlos this year will be him getting back to absolute normal (slightly - no I need to emphasize that - slightly worse). That's very interesting to me. VERY.
The mph/rpm description of the cutter did not fit in the caption above without making things "wonky" (that's the technical term for how it looked), so here it is instead: CT (93.9 mp/2293).
Link back to all of my projections.