Some new projections have come out for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Player empirical comparison and optimization test algorithm, otherwise known as PECOTA, is Baseball Prospectus’ projection system that was created by Nate Silver. Silver now runs the site FiveThirtyEight. The system has done a pretty good job since 2003 for predicting the Pirates record, especially given the difficulties in player projections. In a 2014 piece at FiveThirtyEight, Neil Paine wrote,
“The smallest possible root-mean-square error (a mathematical way of testing a prediction’s accuracy) for any projection system over an extended period of time is 6.