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 Ryan Helsley's career and his total career numbers, showing the statistics that I utilize in my projections (minor league numbers on bottom.
The 2020 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 2020 season (majors only) separated from the rest 1) to highlight it and 2) to more easily come back to it for comparison purposes.
2020
12 games, 12 innings
5.25 ERA, 7.02 FIP, 1.333 WHIP
7.500 K/9, 6.000 BB/9, 1.25 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)
66 games, 66 innings
3.61 ERA, 3.42 FIP, 1.180 WHIP
10.958 K/9, 3.849 BB/9, 2.588 K:BB
Honestly, I think that this is only beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Helsley's upside.
THE BAD
(worst case)
55 games, 54 innings
4.37 ERA, 4.41 FIP, 1.428 WHIP
9.056 K/9, 4.657 BB/9, 2.139 K:BB
Last year showed the downside of a reliever who can occasionally walk too many batters.
THE CERUTTI
(my system projection)
60 games, 60 innings
3.97 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 1.298 WHIP
9.962 K/9, 4.234 BB/9, 2.35 K:BB
If it's me, I'm taking THE CERUTTI as my minimum guess for Helsley, THE GOOD as my medium guess for Helsley and my reach goal for Helsley is more like what he did in his first 16 games back from the minors at the end of the 2019 season (the last game of the year he got shelled coming back from pitching four straight games in his prior four appearances). So I'm looking at July 20-Sept 24:
16 games, 26 innings
25 hits allowed, 6 runs allowed, 20 Ks, 7 BBs
.299 OBP allowed and .683 OPS allowed
With a hopefully more defined role this year, as it seems we have a stacked bullpen, let's hope that this is more of what is to come. I don't count it out at all.
Link back to all of my projections.