Every off-season Brian has Projection Articles and the Mets360 readers show their skills and share their opinions by predicting a player’s final statistics of that year. It is a fun exercise but we don’t know how accurate or lucky a commentator’s predictions were. I hope that these Projection Result articles will remedy this. To make it more fun we will have a competition and crown (or turban) for the winner for the “Carnac the Magnificent” award!
The points will be the categories that Brian asked for in the Initial Prediction Article with the exception of the OPS category which I added up. (and I hope I didn’t make a mistake)
1 point will be awarded to the predictor that was the closest in the category.
2 points will be awarded if it was exact for the categories of HR, K/9 and HR/9
3 points** will be awarded if it was exact for the categories of PA, BA, OPS, SLG, OPS, IP, ERA and WHIP.
I will publish a leaderboard of the first three predictors after every Projection Results At the end of the article.
The rules have been established ..... so let’s get on with it!
Pete Alonso 709 PA .272/.347/.524/.871 38 HR
Alonso had his second best career year in 2025. His .871 OPS was only eclipsed by his rookie year when he had a 941 OPS. Bill Austin “predicted Pete will have a bounce back and have a monster year hitting” and predicted the best with an .876 OPS. He also had Alonso getting the most PA with 686. Again, Alonso played all 162 games this season. Texas Gus was also a Polar Bear fan and he was the most accurate with .275 BA and .348 OBP. AgingBull missed by four points in the SLG category with a .520. Alonso didn’t have a 40 home run year and Steve1962 and Metsense just missed his total by one homer.
Jeff McNeil 462 PA .243/.335/.411/.746 12 HR
McNeil started the year on the IL until April 24th. Bill Austin must have taken into account that because he almost predicted his playing time with 450 PA. Steven Shrager at 260 AVG was the best. Metsense was .002 away with .333 OBP, .011 away at .400 SLG and .013 away at .733 OPS for a trifecta. Bill Austin had a bullseye when he predicted the exact number of home runs at 12*.
Luisangel Acuna 193 PA .234/.293/.274/.567 0 HR
Acuna started the year as the starting second baseman and won the April Rookie of the Month Award. He lost his magic and by June 23rd he was demoted to Syracuse. He subsequently made it back to the majors in July. His final result was a poor offensive season.
Bill Austin was the best at predicting 200 PA. Steve1962 and Brian Joura predicted the lowest AVG so therefore they won the category at .240 AVG. Steve1962 parlayed that low pick to win OBP at .295. Brian furthered the theme of Acuna’s incompetence with the bat by having the lowest pick at .330 SLG, .595 OPS and 1 HR.
Brett Baty 432 PA, .254/.313/.435/.748, 18 HR
Baty was recalled on May 5th and never went down to the minors again. He appeared in 87 games at 3B with a +4 DRS and 57 games at 2B with a +3 DRS. He was defensively versatile at both positions. The improved Baty solidified his place as a starter in 2026. No one came near the projection of Baty’s PA but again Bill Austin continued his winning streak in the PA category by projecting 510 PA. Bill, what is your secret? Many crystal ball gazers thought that he would have around a .250 AVG and Brian missed by one measly point at .253. Paul Castronova was the best for OBP at .310. Metsense at .753 OPS won that category. Steve1962 predicted .440 SLG. Bob Peterson and Mike Walczak said they were “ out on a limb” and predicted 20 home runs and the branch bore fruit with their guess.
Carnac the Magnificent Leaderboard:
Bill Austin 7 pts, Brian and Metsense 5 pts, Steve1962 4 pts
Wait a minute!! Those were same exact numbers that I wrote!! Didn’t y’all see them?
Just for clarity, the McNeil projection was posted on Feb. 17 - before he came down with the oblique injury in the second week of March that caused him to miss the first 25 games of the season.