Fangraphs - Remaining Standings Projections

[Jirsch]

Fangraphs has the team winning the division by 9 games when it is all said and done....53-46 the rest of the way is entirely doable from my chair....thoughts??

 

[sveumrules]

For the nine completed full seasons since Stearns/Arnold arrived in 2016 the Brewers have beaten their preseason FG projected win totals by an MLB best 87 wins.

Eight of the nine years were over (2022 the only under), with five of those at +12 or more and on pace for another double digit overage this year (they were at 83 W).

Going back to 2023 their seasonal runs per game differential has been +0.50 then +0.84 then +1.06 and now +1.67 so far this year. Those projections above are showing +0.28 run per game differential over the remaining 99 games.

I don't expect them to maintain their current 103 Win pace, but I also don't think the fall off will be quite as steep as FanGraphs is projecting.

[igor67]

Still seems a bit conservative looking in particular at the Run differential, I'd say 95 wins still gives us some regression, but not a huge amount. It's also a one that would make it very tough for another central team to catch us.

[cragi]

Very doable but also expect a rival to make a bigger run

[Playing Catch]

If the Brewers are going to best their record win-total, regression-projections will be there all season. Projections don't typically project outliers, I wouldn't think.

[Samurai Bucky]

There are a few sites that show the remaining Strength of Schedule (SOS).  This one has the Brewers with the 8th toughest from here on in, and 24th toughest so far.

https://powerrankingsguru.com/mlb/strength-of-schedule.php

This site shows how many games are left against toughest and easiest opponents.

https://www.tankathon.com/mlb/remaining-schedule-strength

[yfinn6]

53-46 seems doable the rest of the way if the rotation and bullpen stay healthy, which seems like a pretty big IF (I know, other teams have their injuries, if not more). 

Also, this summer is going way too fast if I'm seeing 53-46 as the end of the season already. 99 games to go is still the majority of the season but damn time is flying by. 

[Jirsch]

With 60 to go, Fangraphs now has us projected as 31-29 the rest of the way for 95 wins and finishing 7 clear of the Cubs for the division.  With a middle of the road strength of schedule, and depending on what gets done at the deadline, optimistically I'd put them at 34-26 to get to 98 wins.  Just greedy since I want to see this team best last years team!

[cragi]

14 minutes ago, Jirsch said:

With 60 to go, Fangraphs now has us projected as 31-29 the rest of the way for 95 wins and finishing 7 clear of the Cubs for the division.  With a middle of the road strength of schedule, and depending on what gets done at the deadline, optimistically I'd put them at 34-26 to get to 98 wins.  Just greedy since I want to see this team best last years team!

a .500 record vs an average schedule for a team that had the best record in baseball for over a year now is certainly a prediction

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Once again, Fangraphs proves either how terrible its algorithms are, or how blatantly biased it is against the Brewers. 31-29 the rest of the way, for the team with the best record in the league, against a middle-of-the-road schedule? Poppycock!

[sveumrules]

11 minutes ago, cragi said:

a .500 record vs an average schedule for a team that had the best record in baseball for over a year now is certainly a prediction

Yeah, looks like their longest stretches of mediocrity or worse going back to 2024 are...

070124 to 080424
12 W - 15 L

090124 to 092924
13 W - 13 L

032725 to 051725
21 W - 25 L

081725 to 092825
19 W - 21 L

032626 to 042526
13 W - 13 L

Even with the slow 21 W - 25 L start to 2025 they still rebounded to 32 W - 28 L by game 60 of the season.

Last 60 games of 2024 they were 34 W - 26 L even with the poor July and a .500 September.

The five combined stretches above end up at 78 W - 87 L for a .473 W% with those 165 games representing 38.7% of the 426 games they have played from 2024 thru yesterday.

Of course that leaves a 176 W - 85 L record (.674 W%) for the other 261 games they have played since 2024.

I don't think they'll necessarily maintain their current .627 W% rest of season, but a .600 W% (36 Wins) would get them their first 100 Win season in franchise history, and a .567 W% (34 Wins) would get them to a new franchise record.

If they win 32 games rest of the way (.533 W%) they will end up with 96 wins which would be 13 wins ahead of the 83 W FanGraphs had them down for preseason, running their total to an even +100 Wins for the ten full seasons from 2016 thru 2026.
 

[igor67]

I know Fangraphs lets you pick some different models to estimate playoff chances the rest of the way, but as sveum elaborates on you have to really go looking for anything to support a barely .500 prediction at this point. I'm rooting for that first 100 win season, enroute to a World Series victory of course.

[sveumrules]

3 minutes ago, igor67 said:

I know Fangraphs lets you pick some different models to estimate playoff chances the rest of the way, but as sveum elaborates on you have to really go looking for anything to support a barely .500 prediction at this point. I'm rooting for that first 100 win season, enroute to a World Series victory of course.

Yeah, between their history of under-projecting the Brewers and the Brewers recent actual performance history that 31 W - 29 L feels more like a bottom 5% or bottom 10% outcome than a median projection. 

The Season to Date mode at FanGraphs projects them for a .603 W% rest of season getting them to that first 100 win season.

I generally use the two options as kind of the low and high range for my expectations, and feels like that tracks pretty well for this year's team.

Like they've been playing at a 101/102 win pace for the season as a whole, and a 108/109 win pace since the .500 start after the first 26 games, but I still think most Brewers fans would take the under on them actually winning 100 games.

[CheeseheadInQC]

In Fangraphs’ defense:

1. They say that their model mostly sticks with the preseason projections because they have found historically it has been more accurate than adjusting heavily for season performance.

2. They fully acknowledge that the Brewers are an outlier that confounds their model year after year.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

20 minutes ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

2. They fully acknowledge that the Brewers are an outlier that confounds their model year after year.

That's fully on them, then. Models can be adjusted. If anything, that is bias confirmation.

[igor67]

I suspect the problem is not adjusting the model, it is trying to capture what the Brewers are doing that other teams aren't. Just adding a variable to add Brewer wins might improve the accuracy but not the model.

[Samurai Bucky]

21 minutes ago, igor67 said:

I suspect the problem is not adjusting the model, it is trying to capture what the Brewers are doing that other teams aren't. Just adding a variable to add Brewer wins might improve the accuracy but not the model.

Perhaps they just need to carry the "1".

[Underachiever]

They are probably assuming that the Brewers will have nothing to play for when they clinch everything with 20 games left. 

[Thurston Fluff]

18 minutes ago, igor67 said:

I suspect the problem is not adjusting the model, it is trying to capture what the Brewers are doing that other teams aren't. Just adding a variable to add Brewer wins might improve the accuracy but not the model.

 

If the goal is to predict an outcome shouldn't the model be secondary to accuracy? Instead of sticking to the model that doesn't work why not find one that does for this team? I get not changing everything for everyone who has a outlier season or two. When it gets to the point where you acknowledge one team almost always does then it's time to for a change in approach. Players have to adjust when opponents figure them out. Maybe the analysts should do the same.  

[Fear The Chorizo]

Did the model account for Mason Miller and Skubal being added to this roster in the next week?  😉

Honestly, anything Fangraphs publishes related to projected records and the Brewers is, well, wrong.  That's been proven over and over and over again.  There will always be outliers across the league, but when one team consistently overperforms your projection - your model is wrong for that team.  When you don't try to improve that at all and insist on getting the same wrong result from a projection model that is bad, I'm sorry you lose alot of credibility.

[GreatNWwi]

I would assume that they can't figure out which teams to take wins away from  to give to the Brewers.  

If done correctly when all is said and done with all teams they should end up with a .500 record for the league.  

[formerlybis]

"All models are wrong, but some are useful" is an old saying in statistics. Personally, I hope they never figure out the Brewers' secret sauce,

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I think the basis of their model mismanagement stems from the inability to realize that spending gobs of money on your roster does not always guarantee wins.

[Yaz19]

I prefer the Baseball Reference projections.   

[wiguy94]

4 hours ago, Jirsch said:

With 60 to go, Fangraphs now has us projected as 31-29 the rest of the way for 95 wins and finishing 7 clear of the Cubs for the division.  With a middle of the road strength of schedule, and depending on what gets done at the deadline, optimistically I'd put them at 34-26 to get to 98 wins.  Just greedy since I want to see this team best last years team!

Fangraphs for whatever reason (I don't understand it) has the Brewers with the toughest remaining strength of schedule by opponent projected win % (.508) which is probably why they are projecting 31-29 the rest of the way.