This doesn’t look like it’s going to be a good season for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Every projection and season prediction that I’ve seen has the Pirates finishing last in the NL Central with a 100-loss season.
That makes a lot of sense, considering this is a team that is opening with a lot of post-prospects on their roster, and very little production that can be considered guaranteed.
When I did my ZiPS analysis back in December, looking at how this team might fare, the results were surprising. The Pirates at the time were projected for 77 wins on the season, which would exceed pretty much everyone’s expectations, while still falling well short of the playoffs.