Well, perhaps I’m a little angry. After all, losing to the Marlins on the last day of the season to be eliminated from the playoffs at home two years running is hard on a person. But let’s be honest, we all saw that coming. If I’m really angry about something, it’s that the Mets resigned their GM less than a week before this terrible season came to a close. Now I don’t think Minaya is a bad GM– I certainly don’t think he is a good GM either, of course– but when you spend the second most money in all of baseball, and you go into the season claiming that this will be your year, you need to make the postseason.
The only real positive result of this whole debacle is that turn my attentions toward rooting for Tampa Bay to win it’s first World Series. Though that would give the 2 Florida teams more World Series victories than the Mets. Hmmm… And I won’t feel too spiteful if the Cubs finally do it this year. Not having to hear Cubs fans complain any longer might even sooth some of my baseball pain…
So who do I pick to win? Why the Los Angeles Dodgers, of course.
What?!, you say. Everyone knows the Dodgers are the worst team in the playoffs! The NL West shouldn’t even be a division! It was terrible! Until Manny was plopped in his lap, Joe Torre couldn’t get his team to score even with Olympic extra innings rules in Coors Field! Their starting pitching is unimpressive. Their manager is always asleep. Their bullpen is their only asset, and it’s probably not even as good as the Cubs’ pen.
But this is no joke. I really am picking the Dodgers to win the World Series. In 6 games. Over the White Sox.
Why? Well certainly not because I think the Dodgers are good. Hell no. I’m picking the Dodgers because I think the MLB postseason is inheirantly unpredictable. I’m predicting LA because there is almost no way to tell who is going to win.
Let’s start with their first round series against the Cubs. There’s no way the Dodgers win this one, right? The Cubs had the best offense, front-end starting staff, and bullpen in the league (all by fairly wide margins), and LA was 13th in runs scored. That should be enough for everyone to pick the Cubs, correct? It’s simply a matter or how many games.
I’d argue no. Let’s not start with their run differentials, because although I am a huge proponent of run differentials (Runs Scored minus Runs Against) as an indicator of a teams ability, they don’t tell the whole story. Let’s not even to the traditional thing and go position by position and talk about ‘clutch’ and ‘postseason experience.’ Let’s look at winning percentage.
The Cubs won a touch over 60% of their games this season (.602, if you love numbers even more than I do)finishing with a record of 97-64. The Dodgers won about 52% of their games at 84-78, against essentially the same competition. Now let’s say that the Cubs were to play their entire season against the Dodgers. All 162 games. What would their record be?
Now I suppose I could run a computer simulation and figure these things out, but I don’t really have the know-how (or the computer). So let’s approximate. Clearly the Cubs, being the demonstrably better team, would win more games, so they’d have a winning percentage of over 50%. How much higher than 50%? Well, clearly not more than 60%, because that was their winning percentage against average competiton, and the Dodgers, as a playoff team and a team with an above .500 record, are above-average. Approximating quite generously, it seems fair to say that over the course of this hypothetical 162 game season, the Cubs would have a winning percentage somewhere around .550 (Ironically, just above the Mets winning percentage).
Ok, now what’s the point of all this? We’re taking about a 5 game series, not a 162 game series. Well, pick any random five games you want from our imaginary series. What are the odds the Cubs win those random 5 games? Well since the chances of the Cubs winning any one game is around 55%, which means that in any four game set, it is very much possible that the Dodgers grab two games. Which means it is very likely our 5 game series could go to five games. And in that last game, as they say, “anything could happen.”
This may seem like a lot of nonsense at first, but if you think about it, it jives with our conventional understandings of baseball. In baseball, the worst team in history (the 1962 Mets) won exactly 25% of their games. That’s not too bad if you think about it. Last year, the worst team in the NFL won 6% (1) of their 16 games. If they played 162 (I know, I know, that’s obviously ridiculous), they might only win 10, 11 games. Can you imagine a baseball team winning only 10, 11 games all year?
Of course not. The reason is, baseball games are reliant on so many unpredictable factors that it is hard to know what is going to happen in any given game. Hell, the Nationals (sorry, Carson) win a pretty darn good share of their ball games, even with a roster where the best players might be cut from the top contenders. In the NFL, where teams are much closer in terms of talent, no bottom of the league team will win 30% of it’s games. In MLB, you need a 162 game season to differentiate between teams. Even then, sometimes, wierd things happen, and a crappy Arizona Diamondbacks team wins 94 games (see 2007). Over the short term– like 5 or 7 games– there’s just too much going on to predict.
Need I say anything more than 2006 Cardinals? This team had no buisness being on the field with the Mets, and they beat them in 7. So Taguchi hit a HR off of Billy Wagner. What’s more unpredictable than that?
So, why the Dodgers then? Well, I don’t think the Dodgers have a very good chance at winning the World Series. It’s probably somewhere around 10%. But, no team has particularly good odds. The Cubs may be slight favorites in every round, but when you add it all up, I don’t see them having more than a 15% chance. Maybe 20%.
Therefore, with the odds between the Dodgers and Cubs so slim, I’m going with LA. Sure, the Cubs have a slightly better chance, but if the Dodgers win, then I look like the biggest genius in history. If I pick the Cubs, I’m Captain Obvious. Given that the playoffs are such a crapshoot, I might as well pick the most absurd thing ever.
So it’s Dodgers 4-2 over White Sox– you heard it here first. And probably last.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // Oct 1, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Nice analysis, Doug. I’m currently - unsuccessfully - trying to figure out what statistical techniques one might use to approximate where between 50% and 60% the Cubs would come out over the Dodgers given their respective records. Maybe I’ll ask my stats professor after class next week. A couple notes, however:
1) Remember to factor in home field advantage in the playoffs - the Cubs get 1.5 times as many home games as do the Dodgers. This gives an added boost to the Cubs and pushes the Dodgers chances slightly down.
2) The small sample size of football seasons makes them difficult to compare with baseball seasons. For example, it’s entirely plausible that a .300 football team only wins one game depending on how “normal” the curve is for football games. The smaller the sample size, the larger the standard deviation will be and thus the more likely we’ll see the presence of extremes such as 1-15. Having said that, however, it does appear that the data support your claim that football games are less competitive than baseball games, even with season length factored into the model.
2 Ben Goldfarb (bgoldfarb09) // Oct 4, 2008 at 8:17 pm
all true, except molina’s homer in ‘06 was off heilman, not wagner. anyway, the first two games of the cubs-dodgers series have definitely vindicated this article. in fact, the series has made this season even more frustrating for mets fans, because if we’d gotten in we would have drawn the cubs. previously my stance was that chicago was gonna knock us out in the first round anyway, so making the playoffs only would have prolonged the agony. but now, after zambrano and dempster got hammered, the cubs look extremely mortal. if we’d played ‘em, well, who knows what would have happened? (of course, if the mets had knocked out dempster in the fifth inning to go up 7-2, it would merely be setting the stage for an aramis ramirez walk-off grand slam against luis ayala… so maybe we’re better off staying at home.)
3 Doug Eickman (deickman09) // Oct 7, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Yes, but Taguchi hit a GW HR off Wagner in an earlier game that was perhaps even more unlikely…. Haha, as for you’re hypothetical Mets-Cubs series, I think the Mets and Dodgers are about as opposite as you can get. The Mets were certainly a better team this season than LA, but, of course, having Johnathan Broxton and Saito at the end of your bullpen makes watching playoff games a heck of a lot easier.
And Dave, thanks for the link… that was pretty cool. I would love to hear concrete reasons as to why baseball and soccer are more competative. As to home-field– I absolutely think you are correct– however, home field is really hard to get a grip on. One year, teams are winning 60% of their home games, other years it’s closer to 50%. So I never know what to think, and have yet to read anything really convincing as to the value of homefield advantage for a single game. So I kind of ingnored it… But, yes, it certainly should be included- therby making the Cubs’ odds better.
Buuut… the Cubs lost. And I’m looking pretty good right now!
You must log in to post a comment.