PECOTA Gives Boston Red Sox Best MLB Record

For any Red Sox fans out there, you'll love to take a look at the PECOTA predictions for the 2010 season. 

According to the Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, the Boston Red Sox are projected to go 94-68 next year, the best record in MLB. They are favored to win the AL East by two games over the New York Yankees. 

PECOTA was invented by Nate Silver, and it is a saber-metric projection system. Essentially, it tries to project the career paths of players, and that will lead to team predictions, according to Boston.com's Peter Abraham .

The Red Sox pitching staff will have an interesting season, according to PECOTA. Josh Beckett is slated to go 15-8 with a 3.46 ERA, while another prediction has Jon Lester going 15-8 with a 3.40 ERA. The Red Sox's off-season acquisition, John Lackey, will go 13-8 with a 3.60 ERA, according to PECOTA.

Here are some other predictions from PECOTA:

• The Red Sox team batting average will stand at .278.
• Jonathan Papelbon will record 42 saves in 2010.
• The team will score 808 runs in 2010, which translates to a 131-run differential.
• Boston's slugging percentage will stand at .458, while their on-base percentage is predicted to be at .360.