The New York Yankees are projected to win the American League East and finish with the best record in the AL.
The New York Yankees ended the 2020 season in heart-breaking fashion, but that didn’t stop at least one set of projections from putting the Bronx Bombers back on top.
On Tuesday, Baseball Prospectus released its 2021 PECOTA standings projections, and the Yankees look good. According to the projections, the Yankees have an 81.1% chance of winning the division and are expected to win about 97 games, which would be the best in the American League.
They’re projected to be the second-winningest team in baseball after the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
PECOTA, which stands for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, looks at players’ past performance in order to project how they’ll do in the upcoming season.
After losing several players in the offseason, the Tampa Bay Rays are expected to finish second with the Toronto Blue Jays coming in third.
The site’s win percentage simulation has the Yankees winning at a rate ranging from just under 0.45 to 0.75.
Aaron Judge is expected to finish top-10 among all MLB hitters in DRC+ and Gerrit Cole is projected to finish top-five among all pitchers in DRA-. Both DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit are up there in DRC+, as well.
The key to the success of the Yankees is staying healthy. Their numbers will likely be even better if they can do that.
