Projection versus Reality – Division Records

It is early in the season, but the NL Central appears to be outperforming projections yet again.

Here is a chart with each division, the projected season winning percentage from ZIPS and Pecota, the actual winning percentage, and the difference.

Division	Actual	ZIPS	ZIPS +/-	PECOTA	PECOTA +/-
AL East	0.463	0.530	12.59%	0.525	11.76%
AL Central	0.446	0.488	8.45%	0.483	7.52%
AL West	0.439	0.486	9.83%	0.501	12.50%
NL East	0.536	0.498	-7.67%	0.500	-7.14%
NL Central	0.618	0.498	-24.25%	0.491	-25.81%
NL West	0.500	0.501	0.25%	0.501	0.25%

So, currently, every division on the AL is overvalued, the NL East is slightly undervalued, and the NL Central is highly undervalued.

A similar story was evident in 2025 with the NL Central being undervalued by both ZIPS and Pecota.

Division	Actual	ZIPS	ZIPS +/-	PECOTA	PECOTA +/-
Division	Actual	ZIPS	ZIPS +/-	PECOTA	PECOTA +/-
AL East	0.530	0.527	-0.47%	0.521	-1.66%
AL Central	0.478	0.475	-0.52%	0.479	0.26%
AL West	0.501	0.495	-1.25%	0.505	0.73%
NL East	0.494	0.496	0.50%	0.501	1.48%
NL Central	0.520	0.500	-4.73%	0.493	-5.51%
NL West	0.478	0.501	4.68%	0.501	4.68%

It will be interesting to see if this is a trend or just some randomness that is causing the Central predictions to be off. I’ll need to take a look at some previous years to validate this.