We're still a couple of weeks from Spring Training but we haven't checked out the projected WAR picture in a while, so here it is. Spoiler alert: it's not much to look at.
The projections are from FanGraphs. When a player had both a CHONE and a FAN WAR projection I took the approximate average of the two. Most batters had both; some only had CHONE. Pitchers only had FAN projections, so I used those for starters and went with .5 for all of the relievers.
The NL replacement win total came from this post by Tom Tango. I'm happy to adjust this if someone has a newer/better value for NL replacement, but for now this should suffice.
I spent a lot of time looking at these numbers and I'm still not sure how the Mets are going to squeeze another fifteen wins out of this group. None of the projections seem unrealistically low. If you want to identify an area that should have been improved but was not, look no further than the Bermuda Triangle of 1B-2B-RF, where Murphy, Castillo, and Francoeur project to be worth around 3.5 wins total. For the sake of comparison, the Phillies' analogous triumvirate -- Howard, Utley, and Werth -- project to be worth 15.4 wins in aggregate.
If the Mets are truly done spending this offseason -- as they have professed to be -- bleah. This looks like a tough row to hoe, my friends. A lot will have to go right, along with a lot gone wrong for the Phillies (and possibly the Braves and Marlins), for the Mets to win the 90-95 games necessary for October baseball. Again, these are just projections, but I'm having a hard time finding extra wins in this group right now.
Comment starter: Which two or three players are most likely to exceed their WAR projections?
3:13pm: I realize there's a problem with the 30 replacement win benchmark. In particular, the fact that it's wrong and that in my haste and sleepiness I misread Tango's original post. I'll have another go at this later on, possibly this evening.