A little over a week ago, we saw that Clay Davenport had the Mets improving from 74 wins to 78 wins in 2014
Now as we continue to get closer to Spring Training another computer generated prediction has come out as PECOTA, the computer projection system from Baseball Prospectus, has now come out with its initial projection for the 2014 baseball season.
As you can see, the Mets are projected to win 74 games for the 3rd time in a row under Terry Collins. A bit of a surprise after the improvements, albeit a small improvement, they made in the off-season.
A 4th place finish, behind a Phillies team that finished below the Mets a year ago, and no improvement wins wise would probably not be received too well by Mets fans.
Of course before you get angry at the computer system, whose name is now famous thanks to the show Parks and Recreation, let the guys at the Eye on Baseball blog on CBS Sports give you a pretty good assessment on these projections.
The thing about computer projections is they’re likely to be conservative. With computer simulations playing thousands of versions of the season, the win-loss totals of each team are brought closer to the middle. That explains why all but three teams are expected to win between 71 and 89 games in this projection. It’s like seeing NFL projections where all the division winners are either 10-6 or 9-7.
Some of the interesting things I noticed in the predictions are
1. The Yankees spend all the money that they did this winter and actually are projected to be worse than a year ago, going from 85 to 82 wins.
2. Only 6 teams in the NL finish with a record that is better than .500. Only the Reds finish over .500 and miss the playoffs.
3. The Dodgers lap the field as they are projected to win 98 games while nobody else cracks the 90 win plateau.
4. Expect a Red Sox-Rays one game playoff for the AL East and a tight race in the AL West between Oakland and Los Angeles
5. The entire AL Central is going to stink except for the Tigers as they are projected to be the only team in the division that finishes over .500
The playoff teams would be:
AL East champ: Red Sox, AL Central champ: Tigers, AL West champ: Athletics, AL wild cards: Rays, Angels
NL East champ: Nationals, NL Central champ: Cardinals, NL West champ: Dodgers, NL wild cards: Giants, Braves
As I wrote in the post about the projections made by Clay Davenport, this team has the potential to have a great pitching staff but the questions in the lineup and in the bullpen are holding this team back.
I tend to think that this team on paper is better than the team in 2013 at this time but I really can’t argue too hard about where the early projections have fallen.
I’m leaning towards agreeing more with Clay and his 78 win projection than the one from PECOTA or ESPN, which has the Mets winning 73 games, one win fewer than 2013.
The question marks at 1st base, shortstop, center field and the bullpen will be answered, they hope, during Spring Training. We will then see what the projections are when the season is about to begin.
Unfortunately, unless there is a signing (ie: Stephen Drew, Fernando Rodney) that changes things from what we are expecting in the starting lineup or bullpen, I will surprised to see much change from the 73-78 win plateau that has been set early on for the Mets.
