PECOTA Season Projections

PECOTA Season Projections
by Matt Sisson on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 4:40 pm EST

Baseball Prospectus has released it’s yearly AL and NL projections. Topping out the American League East is the Boston Red Sox followed by the New York Yankees. BP projects the Sox to win 98 games with the Yankees finishing just one game back with a 97-65 record. The Cleveland Indians are projected winners in the Central with the Twins finishing second. Oakland takes the West with the Angels finishing in second with just 79 wins.

The American League East remains at the top of the AL rankings with the Red Sox leading all of baseball with 98 wins and second to the Chicago Cubs by just 1 run with 864. The projected second place New York Yankees will boast an impressive 97 wins, more than any other AL or NL division leader. Tampa is also projected to win 92 games, which is 8 better than the division leader in the AL West and Central.

The Cubs are projected to be the best National League team with 95 wins while the Mets top the East with 93 wins and the Diamondbacks lead the west with 90 wins. As i previously mentioned, the Cubs are projected to lead all of baseball with 865 runs scored, which is better than any team in the NL by a large margin. The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies are both projected to win 88 games in ‘09 and one should secure the wild card in what would be a projected one game playoff.

It looks to be a long season in the NL Central as the Pittsburgh Pirates are projected to be the worst team in baseball with 97 losses, just beating out the Houston Astros who are projected to lose 96 games. The Seattle Mariners bottom out in the American League with 92.