Photo via Gary Sanchez - Instagram
Gary Sanchez
Gary Sanchez
If the Brewers are going to return to postseason play in 2024 for the sixth time in a span of seven seasons, they’re going to do it against relatively long odds.
Even after the Gary Sanchez signing was finalized last week FanGraphs 2024 projections still give the Brewers just a 34% chance to reach the playoffs, with them winning the NL Central 18.5% of the time and going to the postseason as a wild card in 15.5% of seasons. That 34% is the lowest preseason mark for the Brewers in the last five years: Last year’s team was given roughly a 60% chance of reaching the postseason on Opening Day.
It’s also worth noting, however, that in recent years the Brewers have confounded the preseason odds more often than they’ve played along. In 2018 when they tied a franchise record with 96 wins and won the NL Central they opened the season at just 21.2% to make the postseason. Meanwhile, in 2022 they entered the season with an 81.3% chance to reach the playoffs and came up short, winning 86 games but staying home in October.
FanGraphs maintains historical data on their preseason projections going back to 2016 and, while there are certainly major outliers in each direction, on the aggregate they’ve largely been correct on the postseason chances of teams they project in this area. In the seven full seasons covered by that sample (excluding 2020’s 60-game season) there have been 15 teams that have opened the season with playoff odds between 30 and 40%. Six of those teams have made the playoffs, which is exactly 40%. In a small sample it’s hard to get much closer than that.
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Within that group, however, there’s a wide disparity of outcomes. Three of those 15 teams won at least 97 games, including the 101-win 2019 Twins. On the other end of the spectrum, the 2023 White Sox were in this group and went on to lose 101 games. So were the 2023 Rangers, however, who won the World Series.
Accurate Forecasts?The accuracy of projection models is always an open question, and last spring Ben Clemens of FanGraphs took nine years of historic data and attempted to evaluate their process. He found that the average FanGraphs projection is within 7.5 wins of the team’s final total, while the median error was just 6.5 wins. “In other words, if we say that we think your team is going to win 85.5 games, that means that half the time, they’ll win between 79 and 92 games. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, but for what it’s worth, that error has been consistent over time,” Clemens said.The Brewers are not projected to win 85.5 games this season, however: FanGraphs has them at just 81, meaning the window Clemens mentioned above for them is between about 74 and 88 wins. The upper half of that estimate would put them right around the bottom of the postseason field: Over the last decade 16 teams have won between 84 and 88 games and reached the postseason, while 24 teams have won at least 84 games and notmade the postseason. The odds are a little better in the National League and baseball’s recent postseason expansion also opens the door a little wider, but it also increases the possibility of an extremely quick postseason exit.
If the 2024 Brewers would win between 74 and 88 games half the time, however, that also means that in about 50% of seasons they won’t fall in that range. Clemens’ research linked above shows that over the last decade 24 teams have been projected to win between 80 and 82 games, and on average those teams have won 79.3. That’s pretty close, but on an individual level there are some wide variations: The 23 teams in that bucket since 2016 include the World Series winning 2023 Rangers and the 2021 Cardinals, who both won 90 games, and also the 90+ loss 2022 Marlins, 2016 Rays, 2021 Nationals and 2017 Tigers.
The projection models are, of course, based on the best data we have. They’re managed and compiled by experts and routinely updated to be more accurate and reflective of trends in the modern game. While they may provide a framework for building expectations, however, they’re far from a given for the individual teams involved.
