One such toy is the “Steamer” projections. To understand Steamer, you need to understand WAR.
It’s common knowledge that WAR stands for “Wins Above Replacement.” A replacement level player is one such that, if a team is comprised entirely of such players, they’ll win 29.4 percent of their games, or 47.628 wins. That translates to a 48-114 season.
When you dig into the more advanced mathematical aspect of it, you need to realize that there are 2,430 games played every major league season, and each of those games will have a winner and a loser. The “average” team will be 81-81.