Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA model projects the Brewers to finish under .500 – let’s take a look at why
Baseball Prospectus just released their PECOTA standings for the upcoming season, and Brewers fans aren’t going to be too happy with how they’re ranked. PECOTA projects the Brewers to finish with 80 wins and 82 losses, finishing second in the NL Central to the Cubs. According to the model, Milwaukee has just a 23.1% chance to make the playoffs. This is a team that has topped 90 wins each of the last two seasons, making this projection… surprising, to say the least.
To be fair, the Brewers did lose a couple key pieces in the offseason. Shortstop Willy Adames and two-time All-Star closer Devin Williams will both be wearing new uniforms next season. Still, projecting the Brewers to finish under .500 solely because of those two losses doesn’t make much sense.
Adames, admittedly, was outstanding, even picking up down ballot MVP votes. Williams played great as well, but the Brewers didn’t even have him for the majority of last year. Those two players combined for 4.5 WAR last season. The losses of Williams and Adames alone wouldn’t cause the Brewers to lose 13 more games than last season.
This projection is slightly confusing given that the Brewers will return pretty much everyone else who helped them win the NL Central last year. 2018 NL MVP Christian Yelich, who missed the last two months of the season with back issues, will be back in the lineup. Last year, Yelich was basically as good as he’s been at any point since his 2019 MVP runner-up performance. His wRC+ up until his injury was nearly identical to his 2018 and 2019 seasons. The Brewers still have William Contreras, who finished fifth in NL MVP voting last season, and Jackson Chourio, a former No. 2 overall prospect who posted a 20/20 season at just 20 years old.
PECOTA also ranks the Brewers’ starting pitching as above average. The model likes Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff as the 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation and thinks that Tobias Myers should be a “quality starter.”
PECOTA is lower on the bullpen, with Joel Payamps the only returning reliever with a projected ERA under 4 (3.92). For some reason, Craig Yoho (3.44) has the best projected ERA out of the bullpen. Yoho pitched really well last season with Biloxi and Nashville, but it still seems weird to have a guy who’s never thrown a pitch in the majors ranked a half run better than guys who have pitched well for the Brewers in the past (Payamps, Trevor Megill) and former high draft picks who could still become good relievers (DL Hall, Aaron Ashby).
As for the batting order, PECOTA has basically everyone important to the Brewers hitting considerably worse than last year. They have Yelich, somewhat inexplicably, projected to slash .248/.341/.388 after hitting .315/.406/.504 last year. Contreras is at .256/.335/.442 after a .281/.365/.466 season last year. Those numbers aren’t a crazy drop-off, but Contreras has slashed better than that each of the last three years. The model even projects Chourio to take a pretty big step back, in direct opposition to basically everyone who gets paid to write about baseball. Chourio, after a rough first couple of months, finished the year hitting .275/.327/.464. PECOTA has him projected to slash .251/.301/.413 next season. While sophomore slumps can indeed affect future superstars like Chourio, I don’t think one should be assumed (especially given that he’s only gotten better thus far).
The main reason for the Brewers’ projection is their perceived lack of hitting. The PECOTA model has the Brewers finishing with the ninth-lowest projected run total. A whopping eight Brewers are projected to finish slugging under .400. Five of those hitters (Blake Perkins, Tyler Black, Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, and Oliver Dunn) are projected to slug under .350, which is frankly abysmal. However, all five also slugged under .350 last season, and the Brewers still finished well above .500.
In an ideal world, the Brewers would be able to get a lot more power out of the back half of the order than they did last year. With that being said, they couldn’t last year and still finished with a division title. The guys who don’t hit for power (Turang, Perkins, and Frelick especially) still get on base and provide plus defense.
I do understand where PECOTA is coming from, at least with their critiques of the Brewers’ power numbers. At the same time, PECOTA also projected the Brewers to finish under .500 last year, ranking them third in the NL Central. I don’t think flaws that were also readily apparent last year will lead to a sub-.500 season. I also don’t think projecting the entire order and bullpen to perform significantly worse than last season makes sense. The Brewers have topped 90 wins in three of the last four seasons. Their 2024 season was by no means a fluke, and I don’t see why anyone should be expecting them to suddenly drop below .500.