Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - A Closer Look at the NL Wildcard Race

Theoretically, there are 6 teams in the NL Wildcard race. What are each team's chances of winning the wildcard? In addressing the question, I'm going to ignore the fact that the Astros and Marlins are currently "hot" - momentum can chage on a dime. What I want to do is estimate, mathematically, the expected win total for each contender at the end of the season, given the schedule they have to play. Here is how the standings look at this moment:

team  played  wins  wpct
San Fran  145  80  .552
Chicago    142  78  .549
Houston   145  79  .545
Florida    141  76  .539
San Diego  145  77  .531
Philly   145   74   .510

I calculated the strength of the remaining schedule, and looked at the home road distribution for each team in the race. Strength of schedule (home-road remaining in parentheses):

San Fran .541 (9-8); Chicago .484 (8-12); Houston .522 (9-8); Florida .502 (8-10-3); San Diego .473 (9-8); Philly .474 (10-7)

What this means is that the Giants have the most difficult sked remaining and the Cubs have the easiest of the top four.

I adjusted for the home-field advantage inherent in baseball by increasing the SoS for all games on the road by .040 and decreasing it by .040 for all games at home. These were averaged out, with Florida's neutral site games included (but with an adjustment of zero).

Next, I assumed that each team was in reality a .540 ballclub, and calculated their remaining expected wins. This was added to the wins already accumulated to arrive at an expected win total for the season. Here are the current results:

CHICAGO 89.0
GIANTS 88.5
HOUSTON 87.8
MARLINS 87.2
PADRES 86.7
PHILLIES 83.7

It's very likely that at least one of the first four teams will exceed their expectation by 2 to 3 wins, thus making is highly probable that the wild card team will win no less than 90 games. That's why I think the Phillies are toast - they would have 16 of their remaining 17 hames to finish with 90 wins.

Posted by robertdudek on Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 02:24 AM EDT.

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Gerry - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 03:31 PM EDT (#35329) #

Even though you discount "hotness" the winner will likely be a team that does get hot and rolls off a nine wins out of ten games stretch. Teams that are finishing their hot stretch are less likely to be hot again, that casts doubts on Houston and Philly, who have been hot. The Cubs and San Fran would be due for a streak, although the Cubs appear to be somewhat disfunctional at this time.

It should be a fascinating race and Robert, did you look at the odds of a tie?

_Nick G - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 04:41 PM EDT (#35330) #

How's this different from http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.html?

robertdudek - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 06:57 PM EDT (#35331) #

Teams that are finishing their hot stretch are less likely to be hot again ...

I don't believe that this is the case. It's true that the team that is "hottest" the rest of the way should win it - we just don't know which that will be and I don't think that the last 2 weeks tell us anything useful about which teams will and will not get hot.

robertdudek - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:01 PM EDT (#35332) #

How's this different from http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.html?

This is a strange question to ask. It's different in many ways, but the reader ought to be able to discern the main points in which it differs with the above. The Prospectus link is a repeated simulation. It's a more sophisticated technique that Clay is using, no doubt about it.

_Ken - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 07:25 PM EDT (#35333) #

I have to agree Robert, I think Philly are a real long shot. From the information you've shown, the Cubs look strong (much to my delight). That remaining schedule seems very kind to them and the Padres. As a baseball fan without any strong allegiance to any of the teams involved, for entertainment value i think the Cubs would be great to have there and so would Bonds.
I could see any one of the top 5 getting there and thats the beauty of the wildcard. The final few games should be very exciting barring an amazing set of circumstances, saying that, I can see something unusual occurring. Whats the probability of that?:)
Very enjoyable read.

Coach - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 10:11 PM EDT (#35334) #

The Marlins managed to shoot themselves once in each foot today. Phillies won, though they may have lost Thome and had very little chance anyway. I thought the Astros might finally get derailed in St. Louis, but so far, they haven't blinked. As a Cards fan, I am unable to be reasonable about the Cubs. A good postseason for me has no Chicago teams.

It's an impossible race to call, and we might be considering the various one-game playoff permutations in a couple of weeks. My wild guess, tinged by hope, is a tie between the Giants and Astros.

_Jim - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 10:34 PM EDT (#35335) #

'Marlins are currently "hot"'

or not... :)

_Anders - Wednesday, September 15 2004 @ 11:47 PM EDT (#35336) #

Teams that are finishing their hot stretch are less likely to be hot again ...

That doesnt follow.

You could flip a coin on heads 10 times in a row, but for the 11th time the odds are still 50/50 that you're going to get heads. You're not just going to run off 10 tails in a row to even things out. Over the long run, yes, heads vs. tails will even out, but past performance does not reflect future performance (although obviously there are talent issues.) Just because a team got hot doesnt mean it cant/wont get hot again right away/stay hot

_James W - Thursday, September 16 2004 @ 12:00 AM EDT (#35337) #

That doesn't follow.

No, on a (50-50) probabilistic level, it doesn't follow. However, baseball games aren't 50-50. For whatever reasons, teams and players go on cold and hot streaks. And as opposed to coin flipping, the performance in one game can influence future outcomes.

robertdudek - Thursday, September 16 2004 @ 12:40 AM EDT (#35338) #

There have certainly been cases where a team has been hot for a whole month, so Philly being hot the last two weeks does not preclude them being hot for the next two weeks.

Of course, their true talent level is nowhere near a winning percentage of .850, so the odds are against them winning 12 of the next 14 games. But that goes for every other team in the wildcard race too.

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