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Baseball Prospectus has officially released its PECOTA projections for the 2013 season, and the Mets come out looking halfway decent. The system, named after 1992 Mets alumnus Bill Pecota, projects the Mets as an 80-82 team this year, a record that would be fairly competitive with their National League East rivals.
| Team | W | L |
|---|---|---|
| Washington Nationals | 88 | 74 |
| Atlanta Braves | 82 | 80 |
| New York Mets | 80 | 82 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 80 | 82 |
| Miami Marlins | 66 | 96 |
PECOTA is crazy, you say? Well, there's at least a reason the system rates the Mets as highly as it does. Even after trading away R.A. Dickey, it sees the Mets' rotation as a strength.
| Name | IP | ERA |
|---|---|---|
| Johan Santana | 131 | 3.43 |
| Jon Niese | 180 | 4.09 |
| Shaun Marcum | 144 | 3.32 |
| Matt Harvey | 174 | 3.59 |
| Dillon Gee | 164 | 4.08 |
And the bullpen projects quite well here, too. Frank Francisco, Scott Atchison, Brandon Lyon, Bobby Parnell, Josh Edgin, Pedro Feliciano, and LaTroy Hawkins are all projected to post sub-4.00 ERAs. That would be a very welcome change from the Mets' 2012 bullpen, which was one of the worst in Major League Baseball.
The Mets' lineup, though, looks somewhat mediocre in the system's forecast. The outfield looks particularly weak, and the infield looks good-not-great. So if things really break right for the Mets with their mix-and-match approach in the outfield and perhaps a major bounce-back year from either Daniel Murphy or Ike Davis, PECOTA thinks they'll be in the thick of the wild card hunt. And last year, a .500 winning percentage was enough to hang around the race for the second wild card spot through the grand majority of the season.
For now, the PECOTA projection is at least gives Mets fans a little bit of hope. Most prognosticators won't have hopes this high for the Mets. Here's hoping PECOTA got it right.