PECOTA Projects Embarrassing Mets Summer

The statistics listed below are this years Baseball Prospectus PECOTA projections for the 2014 New York Mets:

Travis d'Arnaud .250, 16 HR, 58 RBIs, 489 PA
Ike Davis .236, 19 HR, 64 RBIs, 472 PA
Lucas Duda .239, 12 HR, 42 RBIs, 331 PA
Daniel Murphy .274, 11 HR, 56 RBIs, 611 PA
Wilmer Flores .244, 6 HR, 27 RBIs, 249 PA
David Wright .272, 19 HR, 75 RBIs, 606 PA
Ruben Tejada .247, 3 HR, 41 RBIs, 525 PA
Curtis Granderson .229, 26 HR, 82 RBIs, 610 PA
Eric Young Jr. .234, 3 HR, 24 RBIs, 378 PA
Juan Lagares .249, 5 HR, 35 RBIs, 440 PA
Chris Young .219, 15 HR, 55 RBIs, 473 PA

Jonathon Niese 9-15, 3.94 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 165 IP
Bartolo Colon 10-14, 3.67 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 174 IP
Zack Wheeler 8-12, 3.77 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 138 IP
Dillon Gee 9-16, 3.92 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 189 IP
Jenrry Mejia 6-11, 4.45 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 122 IP
John Lannan 1-2, 4.46 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 16 IP
Noah Syndergaard 2-3, 3.74 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 34 IP
Rafael Montero 3-3, 3.25 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 56 IP

Some people say they like projections to be on the low end, that way they can enjoy it when the team surpasses the numbers, but these are bleak!  They're also a hair unbelievable in my opinion.

Setting aside the fact that most of us believe the rotation to be the bright spot for the Mets in 2014, only 23 qualified pitchers in the game lost twelve games or more last year.  PECOTA projects the Mets to have FOUR.  Furthermore, of those 23 qualified pitchers, only eleven had sub-.400 ERAs.  PECOTA projects the same four Mets pitchers to fall into that category too.  I'm not saying the projections are unfair, but I'm saying this particular set of circumstances if pretty unlikely.  The notion that this starting rotation won't feature a single pitcher with a winning record is borderline comical. 

On the offensive side of the field, PECOTA basically suggests we are in for an abysmal season.  Again it becomes fairly easy to poke a few holes in this particular balloon.  For instance, PECOTA projects David Wright's batting average to drop 35 points to a .272.  They expect this to happen despite the fact that Wright will be protected in the lineup by Curtis Granderson, who is projected to hit 26 home runs..also known as four more than the Mets received all of last year from the clean up spot.  Not impossible I suppose, but probably unlikely.  The way PECOTA sees it, nearly the entire lineup comes up extremely lukewarm (although I might sign up for a .236/19/64 line from Ike) this summer.  Is everyone really going to come out flat?

I suppose what I'm getting at is even pessimistic Mets fans expect the team to be about where it was last season.  These projections have the Mets starters accounting for 76 losses.  Since 2011, the bullpen has averaged 29 losses itself.  Take a handful of those bullpen losses away  and these projections still indicate that the Mets are a 100 loss team!  

Projections remain nothing more than educated guesses.  And despite the fact that any projection should be taken with a pretty large grain of salt, these are particularly poor in my opinion.  The Mets aren't world beaters in 2014.  They probably won't contend for the division crown or even threaten a Wild Card spot, but they're not 12 games worse than they were last year either.