Written by Gabe Lacques at USAToday.com
From April through October, 30 major league teams will contest 2,430 games and pay out some $3.7 billion in player salaries in the hope they win a few more than they lose, catch a fortuitous bounce or two and – should everything break just right – find their way into the playoffs.
Projecting just how those games turn out is a foolhardy endeavor, certainly, but much of the joy in baseball is the anticipation, visualizing the months ahead and then reveling in how right – or so very wrong – February’s conventional wisdom turned out to be.
With that, USA TODAY Sports presents its 2016 projected win totals for every team, an exercise intended to provide a road map to the season ahead, with equal doses of probability, pragmatism and passion.
Unlike Las Vegas, our win totals are based on exactly how many games we think each team will win – with no need to make adjustments for the betting public’s anticipated reaction. And unlike the many excellent projection models out there, we are not beholden to formulas capable of producing strikingly accurate statistical projections, but lack an occasionally necessary human element.
We’ll take the liberty of adding a dash of what we’ll call Projected Unforeseen Events, those little miracles or disasters that provide the subtext of every season. Come October, we’ll see how it turned out.
And while it’s true that, as they say, you can’t predict ball, there’s no harm in trying.
Our major league standings, and division-by-division explainers:
AL East
The David Price acquisition and slick bullpen remodel is reason enough to love a renaissance for the Red Sox (88 wins). There’s also significant upside all over the roster, from bounce-back candidates in Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, Clay Buchholz and Rick Porcello to the potential MVP ceiling of Mookie Betts. Their enviable depth in the outfield and starting pitching in the upper minor leagues allows for adversity. That doesn’t mean we hate the defending champion Blue Jays (86 wins). It’s just that there’s no more firepower to swing a Price-like deal come July, and six of the most important members of their major league-best offense are between 30 and 35.
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