Baseball Prospectus just released their PECOTA projections for 2025, with their expected win and loss totals for each MLB team as well as their playoff odds. PECOTA was not kind to the Red Sox to say the least, putting their expected win total at 78.7, last in the AL East. By this metric, the Sox only have a 12% chance to make the playoffs.
Let’s start with the win total. The Red Sox won 81 games last year and they’ve substantially improved their pitching staff. After acquiring Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval, the Sox now have a bonafide ace and significantly greater depth.
Their lineup, which ranked ninth in MLB in runs per game, will be similar to last year except for Tyler O’Neill. There’s certainly room for improvement on this roster and there’s an argument that the Red Sox haven’t done enough this offseason, but it’s hard to see them not improving on their 2024 win total.
Perhaps even crazier than the win projection is that PECOTA has the Sox in last place in the American League East. Being behind the Yankees and Orioles makes sense, but having them six games behind the Blue Jays, who finished in last place last year, is a hot take, to say the least. Toronto’s biggest acquisitions have been Andrés Giménez, Anthony Santander and Max Scherzer, and they’ve been more known for missing out on big names than anything else.
Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections foresee another last-place season for the Red Sox
It’s also hard to say how good Tampa Bay will be this year, coming off a very mediocre 2024 season. You can never count the Rays out, and they will get Shane McClanahan back. However, their biggest pickup of this offseason has been Ha-Seong Kim — not exactly the needle-moving player that Crochet can be for the Sox.
But while the PECOTA projections may be too cruel to the Red Sox and too kind to their division rivals, they do raise question marks about the offseason that the Sox have had. Projections are ostensibly meaningless, but they do suggest that Boston left some moves on the table. While the 2025 roster should be better than last year’s, there’s still room for improvement, and the Sox have missed out on a lot of their free agent targets. Hopefully, they can prove the projections wrong — or they can improve their outlook by making another big move before spring training.
