Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm) standings projections are out. Brewers fans won’t like them much.
At BP, Jonathan Judge has described the challenges that projection systems face with teams like the Brewers. Those challenges can be boiled down as such:
- Teams with more established players on longer-term deals are easier to project, both in terms of playing time and performance
- Small-market teams like the Brewers, because of their lack of large financial commitments, are more likely to rifle through a whole bunch of players during a season, making the ‘playing time’ aspect of the projections even more difficult
- To build on that point, teams with good farm systems (like Milwaukee) make this even more difficult because if one player doesn’t click they can just keep trying until they find one who does
- The quality of publicly available data in the minor leagues (especially at the A+ and AA levels) is not as good, so projections become more difficult
Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal adds another thought to this discussion:
Dan Szymborski at FanGraphs has also discussed the challenges that the Brewers present when working on wins projections. To him, it essentially boils down to: the Brewers use a whole bunch of players, more than most teams, and pretty much none of them are bad. It’s an unusual template for a team, and while the Brewers aren’t completely lacking in star power, the top end of their individual projections don’t really line up with the best teams in the league. Instead, they make up that gap with depth, and an ability to turn reclamation projects into usable pieces, most notably in the bullpen. At last check, ZiPS, the FanGraphs system that Szymborski created, projects the Cubs for 87 wins and the Brewers for 86.
PECOTA also projects the Cubs at the top of the NL Central, which by itself isn’t especially egregious. But they project the Cubs for 10 more wins than the Brewers, who they have losing 16-17 more games than they lost in 2025. Here are the NL Central’s projected records, rounding to the nearest win:
- Chicago Cubs, 91-71
- Milwaukee Brewers, 81-81 (technically at 80.5-81.5, below .500)
- Pittsburgh Pirates, 80-82
- Cincinnati Reds, 79-83
- St. Louis Cardinals, 66-96
Milwaukee has just a 10.5% chance to win the division according to these projections, with a 31.2% chance of making the postseason.
I’m not trying to disparage PECOTA or the good work they do at Baseball Prospectus, but… if you did a straw poll around the league and asked how many people thought the Brewers would finish below .500, how many do you think would say so?
As part of the projections, PECOTA also releases projections for runs scored and runs allowed, and this is where you can sort of see why they’re so down on the Brewers. They have Milwaukee projected for just 693 runs, which is better than only the Rockies, Cardinals, Nationals, and Marlins in the National League — four teams that are barely trying. Yes, PECOTA thinks the Pirates will score more runs than the Brewers this season. Last season, the Brewers scored 806 runs, behind only the Dodgers in the National League. The Pirates, who are projected for 713 runs, scored 583, worst in the majors.
PECOTA also projects the Brewers for 705 runs allowed, which isn’t bad but that’s more projected runs allowed than the Dodgers, Cubs, and Braves in the NL. Last season, Milwaukee allowed just 634 runs, bested only by the Padres in the senior circuit.
It’s difficult to see exactly why PECOTA predicts such massive swings in Milwaukee’s runs scored and runs allowed totals. It’s unclear if the loss of Caleb Durbin is included in these projections, but he and Isaac Collins are the only significant losses on the offensive side. As for pitchers, yes, the loss of Freddy Peralta is significant, but the additions of Brandon Sproat, Kyle Harrison, and Ángel Zerpa have to count for something.
Brewers fans will be excused if they take the PECOTA projections with a massive grain of salt. Last year, the system projected the Brewers for an 80-82 record, a total that they outperformed by 17 wins. PECOTA also projected the Brewers for 79 wins in 2024, and they ended up winning 93 games. Hopefully, 2026 will be more of the same.
