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Success in Upcoming Road Trip Could Have Pirates Projected For the Playoffs

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The Pittsburgh Pirates are coming off a nice week where they went 5-1 against the Colorado Rockies and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The big victory came when they took two out of three against the Dodgers, which probably wasn’t expected. As a result, the Pirates saw their chances of making the playoffs increase in all of the projection systems. They’re still on the outside looking in, but the gap between the Pirates and the projected second wild card team is now slim.

Each week we will break down the playoff odds and projections from the top three projection sites: Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs and ClayDavenport.com. Here are the latest projections.

Baseball Prospectus: 84.9 wins, 43.0% chance to make playoffs

The Baseball Prospectus odds went up by two wins this week, and the chance to make the playoffs jumped 18%. That’s to be expected from a good week where they beat the Dodgers and swept the Rockies. The week before the All-Star break they dropped by one win, so the net gain of the two weeks was an additional projected win.

FanGraphs: 85.5 wins, 53.3% chance to make playoffs

FanGraphs also had the Pirates picking up two wins, which allowed them to recover the win and a half they lost before the break. Their chances of making the playoffs jumped 20 points, going over 50%. The projections from FanGraphs are a little more bold than BP. For example, they gave the Nationals a 96% chance of the playoffs, even though they’re 1.5 games ahead of the Braves, and aren’t really that far ahead from most Wild Card contenders. FanGraphs also dropped the Reds to 11% playoff odds, which removes them from contender status in the section below.

Clay Davenport: 86.2 wins, 54.0% chance to make playoffs

The projections from Clay Davenport also had the Pirates picking up two wins after their 5-1 week. Davenport has been the most optimistic on the Pirates this year, and still is the highest on their chances to make the playoffs, but the gap is very narrow between these projections and FanGraphs.

The Competition

Here are the rankings of the NL contenders. To get “contender” status, a team must have a 15% or better to make the playoffs in all three projection systems.

1

Nationals

90.5

91

71

2

Dodgers

81.2

89

73

3

Giants

78.8

89

73

4

Brewers

68.1

87

75

5

Cardinals

60.0

87

75

6

Pirates

50.1

86

76

7

Braves

48.5

85

77

Not only did the Reds fall off the list this week (they only dropped below 15% in the FanGraphs projections), but the Braves saw a drop. This, plus the good week for the Pirates, moved them up two spots. They’re currently projected to be just outside of the second Wild Card spot, with 86 projected wins. The Cardinals and Brewers are both tied with 87 projected wins, putting the Pirates one win away from the playoffs. The Dodgers and Giants are both tied at 89 wins, which would be the mark for the first Wild Card spot.

Obviously things can change quickly with a good or bad week. The NL race is so close, with all seven teams sitting with between 54 and 58 wins. The current Wild Card contenders are all between 54-56 wins. The takeaway here is that the Pirates are not only in the thick of things, but they’re on the verge of being one of the projected playoff teams.

The upcoming ten game road trip will really play a big role in the Pirates making it back to the post-season. Maybe not as big of a role as beating teams in their division, as I wrote about last week. They have struggled on the road, with a 20-26 record, compared to a 34-21 record at home. Fortunately they’ve got seven games against Arizona and Colorado. They’re 5-1 against those two, but that’s at home. Right in the middle of a trip comes a three game series against the Giants, who are the top contenders for the first Wild Card spot. The Pirates won the home series against the Giants, and taking the series on the road could provide a shift in the playoff odds next week.

Of course, a week from today will be right after the trade deadline. Any moves that are made could impact the projections going forward, so there’s that aspect to look forward to.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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