What are our playoff odds, and what is the next win worth?
The win curve
Pittsburgh’s playoff and division odds at each projected win total (true talent still uncertain around it). Bars: playoff points added per win (the tallest is 4.0 points). Numbered marks: the Winter Plan’s branches.
- ● As the roster stands 79.0 W · 33%(3%–75%) $127M
- 1 Lowe leaves · third base in-house 79.1 W · 34%(3%–75%) $126M
- 2 Lowe accepts the QO · third base in-house 80.8 W · 40%(5%–82%) $148M
- 3 Winter Plan: Lowe leaves · Isaac Paredes at third 81.7 W · 44%(7%–85%) $139M
- 4 Lowe accepts the QO · Isaac Paredes at third 83.5 W · 51%(11%–90%) $161M
Odds in parentheses: the 80% range if the projection is off by the usual amount. Payroll is 2027 luxury-tax payroll. Each branch is a Winter Plan scenario; the QO and third-base calls are argued in the QO and third-base briefs. These are 2027 wins only: Isaac Paredes’s control ends after 2027 and Lowe’s qualifying offer is one year, so the Winter Plan’s 2028 strip shows what reopens. Not plotted: the same 4 branches with Keller traded, each about 0.7 wins lower in 2027 (the Keller brief weighs that against what a trade returns).
The curve is steep from about 75 to 92 wins (shaded): there each win adds at least 2.8 points, and at most 4.0 near 83. A win adds under 1 point of playoff odds below about 67 wins, where wins barely move the odds, and above about 100, where they’re insurance. The odds pass 10% near 71 wins and 90% near 96. The simulated bar for the last NL playoff team (84.0 wins) sits 2.2 under the 2022–26 average (86.2). 2027’s projected field is bunched tighter than past opening days (a spread of 5.2 wins, 1 SD, against 6.5–8.4 for the same method on 2022–26 opening days), but that isn’t the cause: with the other 29 clubs stretched to the opening-day spread, the bar moves by less than 0.1 wins and Pittsburgh’s odds rise 0.9 points. Five seasons is a small sample, and testing the bar on past October rosters needs roster snapshots Keystone hasn’t collected.
What it means
Pittsburgh is a buyer’s team.
At 79.0 wins each win is worth about 3.7 points of playoff odds, close to the most a win is worth anywhere on the curve (4.0 points, near 83 wins).
A coin flip takes about 83 wins.
79 → 83 wins moves the odds from 33% to 49%; even odds need about 4.3 more.The Roster Builder shows these odds live as you add players.
The Winter Plan adds 2.7 wins: 33% → 44%.
The Free-Agent Board’s list to the owners’ proposed floor (Jake Bauers, Jack Flaherty, Alex Vesia) adds 3.1 wins for $33.6M a year at the owners’ proposed prices ($38.2M at today’s): 44% → 56%, about $2.8M per playoff point at face value on the owners’ terms ($3.2M at today’s prices), or nothing at the margin with the floor money free (if the floor is adopted, the club must spend up to it anyway). The floor is a proposal in the CBA talks and the prices are estimates; what a point is worth in revenue needs private data.
Milwaukee still owns the division.
The Brewers project to 90.4 wins; the wild card is the realistic path (22 of Pittsburgh’s 33 points of playoff odds).
From 2026 to 2027
Why a club whose 2026 BaseRuns record was 88.7 wins projects to 79.0 as it stands.
- 2026 as played (BaseRuns; actual 82–80) 88.7
- What records like it have meant the next season 83–86
- Regression toward the mean, aging and playing time −7.5
- The 2026 club brought back (Yates, Soto and Lowe re-signed), projected player by player 81.3
- Departing free agents (Lowe, Soto and Yates), after the depth chart re-sorts (Gonzales to second base and Jared Triolo starts at third base) −2.3
- 2027 as the roster stands 79.0
- Winter Plan moves +2.7
- Winter Plan 81.7
2026 as played: the Season Review’s BaseRuns record (runs created and allowed from the events, not the sequencing); the same steps are on its bridge. “Records like it” is a forecast from the record alone, not a step. The regression step is what’s left between the record and the same club projected player by player for 2027: regression toward the mean, aging and the depth chart’s playing time. The leavers’ own projected WAR is 3.4; the depth chart wins back 1.2 of it by handing their playing time to the next men up, so their leaving costs 2.3 wins. “As the roster stands” includes the +0.1 wins of call-ups and depth signings every club gets. Pittsburgh gets no share of the unsigned free agents here (its moves live in the Winter Plan); its rivals get +2.8 to +6.4 wins each. This page projects 2027 only. In 2028 third base reopens (Isaac Paredes’s control ends after 2027); the in-house successor is Duce Gourson (AAA, FV 45), and the plan’s 2028 payroll is $138.1M under today’s rules: see the Winter Plan.
Assumed healthy
Players who ended 2026 on the 60-day IL; the projection counts them at full health.
- Mitch Keller 1.1 WAR · 116 IP without him: 29% (−4 pts)
- Endy Rodríguez 0.7 WAR · 192 PA without him: 31% (−2 pts)
“Without him” takes his projected wins off and reads the curve; a replacement from the 40-man would win some of them back. The medical calls are ones we can’t see.
Projected 2027 standings · as rosters stand
Each club’s 40-man minus its pending free agents, through the depth chart, plus its expected share of the unsigned free agents (bigger payrolls sign more); Pittsburgh’s own moves live in the Winter Plan.
| Team | Talent wins | 80% range | With schedule | From free agents | Playoff odds | Division |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAD2-way | 93.4 | 81–106 | 94.4 | +6.4 | 88%64%–100% | 67% |
| MIL | 90.4 | 78–103 | 91.5 | +3.5 | 81%47%–99% | 59% |
| NYM | 85.6 | 73–98 | 86.3 | +5.7 | 63%22%–96% | 42% |
| AZ | 83.2 | 71–95 | 83.6 | +4.3 | 51%11%–90% | 17% |
| CHCIL 3.7 | 81.3 | 69–93 | 81.7 | +4.7 | 44%6%–85% | 17% |
| PHI | 79.9 | 68–92 | 80.4 | +5.3 | 38%5%–80% | 19% |
| MIA | 79.9 | 68–92 | 80.2 | +2.8 | 38%5%–80% | 18% |
| SFIL 10.8 | 79.1 | 67–91 | 79.1 | +4.3 | 32%3%–74% | 8% |
| PIT | 79.0 | 67–91 | 79.2 | — | 33%3%–75%· with plan 81.7 W · 44% | 11% |
| ATL | 78.0 | 66–90 | 78.2 | +4.6 | 30%2%–70% | 13% |
| SD | 78.0 | 66–90 | 77.9 | +4.7 | 28%2%–68% | 7% |
| STL | 77.3 | 65–89 | 77.4 | +3.1 | 27%2%–65% | 9% |
| WSH | 75.8 | 64–88 | 75.8 | +3.2 | 22%1%–57% | 8% |
| CINIL 3.0 | 73.7 | 62–86 | 73.6 | +3.5 | 16%0%–44% | 4% |
| COL | 70.6 | 58–83 | 70.1 | +3.4 | 9%0%–26% | 2% |
Talent wins are on a neutral schedule; “with schedule” is the simulated average, which adds the real strength of each club’s opponents. Ranges: wins land in the range 8 seasons in 10; odds show where they’d be if the projection is off by the usual amount. How sure: the same method, run on every club’s opening-day roster 2022–26 with each season forecast blind, had a root-mean-square miss of 9.5 wins (r = 0.65, 150 team-seasons); Marcel’s playing-time formula does slightly better (9.41 vs. 9.47). The naive baseline, last season’s BaseRuns record regressed toward the mean, misses by 9.9 wins on the same 150 team-seasons (r = 0.61), so the roster method’s edge is about 0.5 wins of error. After removing game-to-game luck, the roster method’s miss leaves ±7.0 wins (1 SD) of talent uncertainty, which every simulation includes. October rosters change more than opening-day ones, so these odds are if anything too confident. Backtest: the same simulation run on each 2022–26 season from its blind forecast had a Brier score of 0.198 against 0.240 for a flat 40% (150 team-seasons; 10% predicted → 10% made it, n 40; 31% predicted → 45% made it, n 33; 50% predicted → 45% made it, n 42; 66% predicted → 50% made it, n 26; 86% predicted → 100% made it, n 9). The talent SD was measured on the same seasons, so this is mildly in-sample. Who signs the free agents: a club’s payroll predicts its free-agent spending (r = 0.59 last winter, 2025–26; the top payroll quarter committed 39% of the $1.3B, the bottom six clubs 12%), so each club gets a share that’s half payroll-based and half even, a hedge on one winter of evidence. The share doesn’t look at each club’s open playing time (roster holes), so clubs with thin rosters may be under-credited and deep ones over-credited; Pittsburgh gets no share, so that mainly affects the order of its rivals, not its own odds (testing a need term needs October rosters from past winters, which Keystone hasn’t collected). Pittsburgh’s own free agents (Lowe, Soto, Yates, 3.4 WAR) stay in that pool and its trades don’t weaken the partner here; re-signing all of them would add 0.4 points to Pittsburgh’s odds beyond its own wins, and a rival losing a win moves them by at most 0.4 points (an NL Central rival; 0.1 for an AL club), so the shortcut doesn’t change any call. What a win is worth in revenue (gate, media, playoff money) depends on private club finances; see what we’d add with more data.