Several weeks ago the website CBSChicago had this headline: “PECOTA Projects Cubs For 92 Wins, White Sox For 82 Victories.”

Dodgersnation.com declared: “PECOTA projects great year for Dodgers.”

And this from a site called rightinyourwheelhouse.com: “PECOTA: The mortal enemy of old baseball.”

PECOTA is a contrived acronym for a projection system that is owned and published by Baseball Prospectus but was created by Nate Silver, who gained renown and well-paying jobs not for his baseball projections but his remarkably accurate and comprehensive political projections.

PECOTA has failed to make a believer of me and I should probably just ignore its projections, but like Punxsutawney Phil, the fabled groundhog, it makes an appearance each winter as the baseball season approaches. The 2016 season is here, and PECOTA projections pollute cyberspace.

If you are attracted to PECOTA projections because PECOTA fits with your passion for metrics and analytics and all of those new-fangled formulas, you might want to pause before swallowing this year’s projections and check last year’s.

For the 2015 season, PECOTA projected correctly the final place standing of eight National League teams but missed on all 15 American League teams. In terms of number of wins for each team, PECOTA was off by an average of 8.7 wins per team.

The best it did was with the Cleveland Indians, whose projected record was 81-81 and whose actual was 81-80. But its worst projection was in the same division. PECOTA projected Kansas City to finish with a 72-90 record for fourth in the division, barely ahead of Minnesota’s 70-92. The Royals, however, led the league with a 95-67 record and went on to win the World Series.

Apparently determined to keep doing it until it gets it right, PECOTA has projected a 75-87 record for the Royals for this season, bad enough to share the A.L.’s worst record with Baltimore.

The Royals weren’t the only team to confound PECOTA last season. PECOTA projected division titles for Boston and Detroit, and both finished last. Washington was projected to win the N.L. East title with 93 victories but finished 7 games behind the New York Mets with 83.

PECOTA also missed badly on Pittsburgh and the Chicago Cubs. It projected an 80-82 record for the Pirates and 82-80 for the Cubs, but the Pirates finished 98-64 and the Cubs 97-65.

As for that headline “PECOTA: The mortal enemy of old baseball:”

I assume that means we old-school guys should be troubled for some reason by PECOTA. However, based on PECOTA’s 2015 performance, I see no reason to be troubled.

SEASON’S START SIGNALS SELECTIONS

Having retired from the prediction business, I nevertheless wanted to give readers a flavor of the season that is upon us so I turned to my young colleague, Zach Kram, and asked him to provide his predictions. Zach had an early start in the prediction business. When he was 5 years old, he picked the Chicago White Sox to win the 2000 American League Central title. They did. No one else had given the White Sox a chance.

Here, then, are Zach’s picks and his assessment of the teams:

American League East

1. Toronto—The Jays boast the most fearsome lineup in the majors as well as a top defensive output, and even a small step back at the plate gives Toronto more than enough room to outslug its opponents.

2. Tampa Bay (wild card)—Combine the best rotation in the division with solid if not spectacular production throughout the lineup, and Tampa Bay is well positioned to exceed its projected win total yet again.

3. Boston—The rotation still looks mighty thin after David Price, and the old guys at the plate might not be up to the task of wingmanning for Betts and Bogaerts atop the lineup just yet.

4. New York—The Yankees are decent everywhere but stellar nowhere, and it’s hard to see who emerges as an All-Star from the pack of mediocrity in the Bronx.

5. Baltimore—The Orioles are the inverse Rays: hulking and homer-happy at the plate, feeble and feckless on the mound. They could lose a lot of 8-7 contests.

American League Central

1. Cleveland—This is the year, Cleveland! So gather all those strikeout starters and celebrate your first division title since Francisco Lindor was at Bar Mitzvah age.

2. Kansas City—Aside from Baltimore, the Royals might have the worst rotation in the American League, and the bullpen can plug the holes for only so long (right?). I can’t imagine Royals fans caring much when they look at the new World Series banner in the outfield, though.

3. Chicago—The White Sox turned scrubs into stars—or at least deserving starters—across the diamond this winter, and the Sale-Quintana-Rodon southpaw trio should devastate opposing hitters. But recent history suggests that winning the offseason is no recipe for success in September.

4. Minnesota—The Twins are a team built for 2018; any more surprise contending like last year is only an appetizer while Minnesota waits for its biggest prospects to mature in the majors.

5. Detroit—Justin Upton and Jordan Zimmermann are great—but so were Yoenis Cespedes and David Price last season, and they couldn’t help the Tigers approach contention.

American League West

1. Houston—A.J. Reed could have a Carlos Correa-lite impact after a midseason promotion; Correa, meanwhile, is my pick to win MVP (my non-Trout pick, that is).

2. Seattle (wild card)—The Mariners should trot out their best lineup in years, and I’m high on some of the back-end pitchers—Taijuan Walker in particular—to join Felix Hernandez in run prevention. Look for Seattle to make a run at ending the sport’s longest playoff drought.

3. Texas—I actually like the Rangers’ chances this year, but I question the replicability of some of their expensive bats’ performances from last season, and the rotation has concerns that should scare fans in Arlington.

4. Anaheim—Poor Mike Trout, all alone in stardom. Or even above-average play—there’s a possibility that he is the only Angel to post a better-than-average offensive line this season. It probably won’t happen, but that there’s even a chance is telling about the dulled offensive weapons surrounding the best player in the game.

5. Oakland—If you squint, you can spot the skeleton of a winning club in Oakland—but odds are the team’s most important question come July will be whether Sonny Gray gets traded.

National League East

1. Washington—The core of last year’s prospective 100-win team is still in place, and lowered expectations might help a clubhouse that seemed to choke (pun always intended) under pressure in 2015.

2. New York—Sorry, Queens faithful, but paying Yoenis Cespedes like a top-5 hitter won’t make him play like one, and too many injury risks populate the lineup to justify the Mets’ apparent status as overwhelming division favorite.

3. Miami—The outfield should be dynamic, and a healthy Jose Fernandez could propel the Marlins into wild-card contention. Problem is we said the same thing last year and Miami finished 19 games out of a playoff spot.

4. Philadelphia—The Phillies are throwing obscure names at a wall to see if any stick. Last year it was Rule 5 pickup Odubel Herrera; might the forgotten Jeremy Hellickson be next in line?

5. Atlanta—What a fun race for last place this one will be. I give Atlanta the slight edge because more of their players are bad and old rather than just bad, plus the Braves’ second starter is Bud Norris, he of the 6.72 ERA a year ago.

National League Central

1. Chicago—Between free-agent signings and youth improvement, the Cubs may have conceivably improved at every position compared to a year ago, when all the team did was win 97 games for just the second time since World War II.

2. St. Louis (wild card)—The rotation is still great, the outfield still churns out solid young contributors, and Adam Wainwright is back as the most underrated ace in the game. The reports of St. Louis’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

3. Pittsburgh—Something just feels off for the Pirates this year. Maybe it’s Jeff Locke as the rotation’s three man; maybe it’s the uncertainty threatening the infield; maybe it’s that the Pirates have been good for several years now and are just due to let their fans down.

4. Cincinnati—Joey Votto will reach base at will and Brandon Phillips will do Brandon Phillips things, but the real question in this lost year in Cincinnati is whether all those young pitchers are any good.

5. Milwaukee—Another compelling race for last! I give the Brewers the easy win here because, well, have you seen their projected lineup?

National League West

1. Los Angeles—See: St. Louis. Take everything I wrote and apply it here, as well—only add the best pitcher in baseball to the mix.

2. San Francisco (wild card)—The Giants will spend 2016 completing their transformation into an offense-first, pitching-optional club. The lineup is great but the only sure thing about the rotation is that its non-Bumgarner members are anything but sure things. At least it’s an even-numbered year.

3. Arizona—The Diamondbacks might have earned so much “they’re actually overrated” talk that they might have swung to underrated by this point—but media rating won’t help a top-heavy team catch the carefully constructed depth factories in L.A. and San Francisco in the standings.

4. San Diego—The Padres start guys named Spangenberg and Solarte, so that’s a fun duo. Elsewhere, um, go Matt Kemp? Only a year after winning the winter, San Diego quickly reclaimed its crown as the most boring team in baseball.

5. Colorado—Why is Carlos Gonzalez still on this team? Is it possible for a rotation to look worse than Baltimore’s? Is it even fair to make young starters with potential pitch in Coors Field? So many questions, and the only answer is that whatever happens, the Rockies will probably lose a lot of games.

ALCS: Houston over Toronto

NLCS: Chicago over Los Angeles

World Series: Houston over Chicago

Houston’s core is young, and its lineup boasts breakout potential. While not Mets-level good, the rotation is competent, and Dallas Keuchel gives Houston the strongest AL ace of any team I predict will make the playoffs. Remember, Houston was six outs away from eliminating Kansas City last October; this time around, the Astros will hold on to leads and hoist their first ever World Series championship trophy.

TIMES CHOOSES CUP STACKING OVER BASEBALL

Because I covered baseball for The New York Times for nearly 40 years, I pay attention to the Times sports section generally and its baseball coverage specifically. Last week, I think the Times sank to the nadir of its sports and its baseball coverage. The sports pages were truly bizarre.

One article, in particular, prompted a reader of many decades, a friend, to conclude that because it appeared in the newspaper April 1, it had to be an April Fool’s joke. I suggested that the Times didn’t have a sense of humor so it could not be an April Fool’s joke. You’ll see, my friend said, there will be an article in tomorrow’s paper saying “April Fools!”

But the Saturday paper had no such declaration.

“It’s depressing,” the long-time reader said. “It’s so disappointing. It’s tragic.”

What was the subject of the article that provoked such outrage?   Cup stacking. Cup stacking? Yes, cup stacking.

Soccer, rugby, snowboarding, chess and curling aren’t enough. The Times is trying to stem its plunge into irrelevance by covering cup stacking. Knowing how editors work, I can see them sitting around a table in the sports editor’s conference room and tossing out ideas for stories.

“Hey,” one says, “here’s one from this freelancer. It’s pretty wild. It’s about cup stacking.”

The Times doesn’t have a baseball or football writer who can produce an exclusive news story, but it has a stringer who can write about cup stacking. But baseball is not ignored altogether. The same day the cup-stacking epic appeared the section had two articles on the difficulties of pitching in Colorado. Not one but two, including one by the Times’ so-called national baseball writer, whose idea of being a national writer is far different from any other national baseball writer. His motto seems to be “no news is good news.”

But there was more in the Times last week. In the Saturday paper, the one that didn’t reveal cup stacking as a hoax, the editors came up with what they probably thought was a neat idea. They ran a large photo of Kansas City’s Eric Hosmer scoring the tying run with two out in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series. Behind Hosmer’s head-first slide the photo showed the stunned looks on the faces of Mets fans.

The Times identified and tracked down some of the fans and contacted then for their reactions. The project was linked to the season opener between the same teams, but again it seemed to be the Times way of substituting for news. Fill a page with a photo and fans’ comments and maybe readers won’t notice the absence of news. Or give them something different that might attract readers and bolster the sagging status of the Times.

Jason Stallman, the sports editor, and Jay Schreiber, the deputy editor and baseball editor, did not respond to requests for comment.