Baseball Prospectus released their 2020 PECOTA projections, and not only are the New York Mets projected to win the National League East with an 88-74 record, but they are also viewed as the second best team in the National League. It should come as little surprise that they are quite behind the Los Angeles Dodgers who just acquired Mookie Betts and David Price.
Overall, the Mets are seen to have a 47.8 percent chance of winning the division and a 75.3 percent chance of making the postseason.
Looking deeper at the numbers, PECOTA views this as mostly a two-team race between the Mets and the Washington Nationals for the division. To that end, it is clear the projection model believes the Nationals have handled losing Anthony Rendon this offseason better than the Atlanta Braves did in losing Josh Donaldson.
What is interesting is PECOTA does not foresee the Philadelphia Phillies signing Didi Gregorius and Zack Wheeler in addition to hiring Joe Girardi as manager having all that much of an impact. In fact, the Phillies are seen as a worse team than the .500 team they were last season.
Now, it should be cautioned not to read too much into these projections.
As Baseball Prospectus explains, “PECOTA and our simulations do not ‘pick’ a team to ‘win’ any particular number of games. Rather, they identify an estimated range of games a team might win and tells you the average of that fairly wide range.”
This is also a work-in-progress as there will be updates as teams finalize their depth charts and rosters. This is important as PECOTA uses a combination of “3rd-order win percentages” and the good old fashioned eye test.
In the end, the biggest takeaway is this looks like a strong Mets team capable of making it to the postseason. In fact, with the team adding Dellin Betances to the bullpen and with the hoped rebounds from Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia, the Mets addressed one of the biggest issues which held them back last year.
If PECOTA is any indication, the Mets have solved their bullpen problems, and they are going to see a very strong pitching staff take the team to the postseason for the first time since 2016. As for the Dodgers projected to be the better team, we have seen what happens when Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Familia combine forces against the Dodgers in a postseason series.
