Baseball Prospectus recently released their PECOTA projections for the 2018 season.
On Friday, my colleague Michael Mayer focused on how the Mets figure to stack up in the National League East for part one of this two part series.
Here is how BP has the NL East shaking out:
- Washington Nationals 89-73
- New York Mets 81-81
- Philadelphia Phillies 78-84
- Atlanta Braves 76-86
- Miami Marlins 66-96
It has the Mets finishing three games back of the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants for the second wild card spot. For what it’s worth, PECOTA was bullish on the Mets going into 2017 with them projecting 88 wins.
Now, it’s time for me to attack the PECOTA player projections.
As you can see, they are surprisingly very high on Travis d’Arnaud going into this season, projecting him to have a 2.8 WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player).
They figure Yoenis Cespedes to lead the charge with a 3.2 WARP and have newly-signed Todd Frazier being good for 1.4 WARP.
Now let’s move on to the pitchers.
Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard rightfully anchor the rotation and BP has them good for a combined 7.4 WARP. I think Steven Matz might be better than the 4.10 ERA they have him at, and Robert Gsellman I think is due for some improvement.
Obviously, projections are just that: educated guesses. There will be players who exceed expectations and those that under perform. In fact, PECOTA projections have been off as recently as last year, when they had the Mets winning 88 games.
What do you think about the PECOTA projections and what players do you think will come up big for New York in 2018?
