On Wednesday, Nate broke hearts, letting a cruel PECOTA loose to smack down the dreams and fantasies of fans across the country. There, there…Clay is here to make it all better.
PECOTA, you see, uses a “most likely” to set the value of all the players and teams. “Most likely,” though, is very different from “only.” For the last couple of years, we’ve been running a product called the Postseason Odds Report. We’ve used it to to evaluate a team at any point in mid-season, and to play out the remainder of schedule a million times, to estimate the likelihood that the team will make the playoffs.
It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to realize that what can be done in mid-season can also be done in pre-season. It is also a pretty short leap to go from using Adjusted Standings to using the PECOTA-based estimate as a stand-in for them. What we find is that there is hope for everyone (even the Royals) when we apply some random numbers, and get to see the difference between probabilities and possibilities.
Average wins by position in AL Central: 103.1 91.3 81.7 72.6 60.8
AL East W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Yankees 94 68 0.580 94.2 67.8 43.28778 15.72260 59.01038 Red_Sox 93 69 0.574 93.3 68.7 39.77486 16.22681 56.00166 Blue_Jays 79 83 0.488 78.1 83.9 8.31576 6.89441 15.21017 Orioles 77 85 0.475 76.3 85.7 6.62935 5.73227 12.36162 Devil_Rays 69 93 0.426 67.6 94.4 1.99225 1.87677 3.86901
The “W” and “L” columns are the records Nate gave us yesterday. “Avg W” and “Avg L” are the results of the simulation, along with the percentage of the time the team won the division championship, or made the wild card, along with the combined playoff likelihood.
Yes, it is a ridiculous degree of precision. All it is is the actual number of times the team won in the million-run simulation. The Yankees won the title 432,877.8 times–yes, .8 times; sometimes, you finish in a tie, and that’s why there’s an extra decimal place. The Yankees and Red Sox are clearly favorites, but are hardly locks. It is interesting that even though no team is expected to average more than 94 wins, the winner of the division (whoever it might be) is expected to win over 100. That isn’t as unreasonable as it sounds; the team that ends up winning is liable to be whichever team exceeds expectations, not just simply meets them.
Average wins by position in AL Central: 99.3 88.9 80.8 71.8 56.4
AL Central W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Indians 88 74 0.543 88.5 73.5 35.20064 8.78274 43.98338 Twins 84 78 0.519 84.2 77.8 23.49712 7.77191 31.26903 Tigers 83 79 0.512 83.1 78.9 21.08707 7.27850 28.36557 White_Sox 82 80 0.506 82.3 79.7 19.38250 6.92247 26.30498 Royals 61 101 0.377 59.2 102.8 0.83267 0.34850 1.18117
The AL Central is baseball’s most even division–no other division can boast four teams with a 25% chance of making the playoffs. Yet believe it or not, the odds say that once every eighty-five years the Royals would be the team that stepped forward. There are a lot of ways a team can get lucky (as seen in the White Sox chapter of this year’s book); players can play over their own heads, they can get lucky in converting hits into runs and runs into wins. KC not only needs all of those things to happen, but for the other four teams to play under their expectations. One time in 85, all of those things happen. The other 84 times, it’s anybody’s race.
Average wins by position in AL west: 99.0 86.6 77.2 66.1
AL West W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Athletics 93 69 0.574 93.2 68.8 56.29157 6.59269 62.88426 Angels 81 81 0.500 80.6 81.4 17.79706 6.24361 24.04066 Rangers 80 82 0.494 78.9 83.1 14.87564 5.44827 20.32391 Mariners 77 85 0.475 76.2 85.8 11.03572 4.15847 15.19420
The A’s have the (un?)enviable position of entering the season as the biggest favorite–the only team that rates a 50% chance of winning their division. The other teams are all about even–their chances come from those simulations where the A’s collapse. After all, somebody has to win the division, no matter what.
Average wins by position in NL East: 99.7 89.1 80.7 71.9 60.6
NL East W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Mets 88 74 0.543 88.7 73.3 34.87073 9.38327 44.25401 Phillies 86 76 0.531 86.7 75.3 29.17462 9.02598 38.20060 Braves 85 77 0.525 85.9 76.1 26.90155 8.85743 35.75898 Marlins 71 91 0.438 70.8 91.2 4.86164 2.14093 7.00258 Nationals 70 92 0.432 69.7 92.3 4.19146 1.88337 6.07483
Three teams pretty much split the pot, with scant (but non-zero!) chances for the remaining two. The Marlins and Nationals rank as the third- and fourth-worst teams in PECOTA’s rankings; being in the same division makes it fairly likely that one of them (at least) will underperform and lose 100 games.
Average wins by position in NL Central: 100.5 91.5 85.2 79.3 73.0 64.0
NL Central W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Cardinals 86 76 0.531 86.8 75.2 25.60775 10.19374 35.80149 Cubs 85 77 0.525 84.8 77.2 20.92252 9.30203 30.22454 Brewers 84 78 0.519 84.3 77.7 19.73443 9.14919 28.88363 Astros 81 81 0.500 81.4 80.6 14.15639 7.53457 21.69096 Pirates 79 83 0.488 78.7 83.3 10.36314 6.04375 16.40689 Reds 78 84 0.481 77.5 84.5 9.21577 5.28132 14.49708
The NL Central features the major league’s weakest favorite, the Cardinals, tipping the scales at not quite 36%. The range, just 2.5x from top to bottom, also makes this the tightest division, at least on the average; as you can see by the rankings, real life will probably stretch things out a bit.
Average wins by position in NL West: 97.4 87.2 79.7 72.3 62.4
NL West W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs Dodgers 87 75 0.537 88.2 73.8 40.46942 5.97881 46.44822 Giants 80 82 0.494 80.4 81.6 19.46346 4.71041 24.17387 Padres 78 84 0.481 78.5 83.5 15.81572 4.09959 19.91531 Diamondbacks 77 85 0.475 77.6 84.4 14.40048 3.79279 18.19327 Rockies 74 88 0.457 74.2 87.8 9.85092 2.62281 12.47373
Out west, the Dodgers are set to be the favorite team in the National League. That doesn’t mean they’ll win, and it doesn’t mean that they’ve choked if they don’t. Life is a lot less deterministic than most of us think, a thought that is profoundly unsettling to many, and so we read meaning and make explanantions and dole out rewards, when the real reason is simply that breaks went their way at the proper time. Life is unpredictable, as are players, teams, and seasons.
And I’m glad they are.
Thank you for reading
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