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Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections are out, and they’re pretty bullish on the Minnesota Twins: PECOTA projects the 2017 Twins for a 80-82 record, a 21-win improvement from the 2016 season.
Not only that, the bottom four of the AL Central looks so putrid that a one-game-under-.500 record would be good for second in the division! Everybody bust out that bubbly you’ve been aging since 2011!
PECOTA 2017 AL Central projection
| Team | WIns | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| Team | WIns | Losses |
| CLE | 92 | 70 |
| MIN | 80 | 82 |
| DET | 78 | 84 |
| CHI | 76 | 85 |
| KC | 71 | 91 |
Sure, the Twins would be second by default — two games ahead of third-place Detroit, four ahead of fourth-place Chicago and nine ahead of cellar-dwelling Kansas City — but we’ll take any optimistic outlook ‘round these parts.
Now, a curmudgeon would point out that PECOTA projected the Twins at 79 wins last year and they went ahead and lost 103. But, hey: maybe that means Minnesota’s winning 100 this year! 20 down and 20 up! That’s how regression to the mean works, right? Right??
What do y’all think? Does 80 wins sound about right? Too optimistic? Too pessimistic? Let’s hash it out.
Editor’s Note: This post originally had the Twins at 79 wins, but then BP updated PECOTA — probably after they correctly spelled Ehire Adrianza’s name, I’d wager — and... TWINS WIN! TWINS WIN! Also, the White Sox lost a game, which probably came from an editorial edict handed down by one Aaron Gleeman, BP editor-in-chief. (h/t to TwinksFan93 for spotting the change.)