Originally Posted by raulus (Post 2273836)

There is no joy in tinseltown, for the mighty Dodgers have fallen to the lowly Friars.

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe (Post 2273874)

Since you won't be wearing your Dodgers jersey, can I use it to wipe my ass?

Good riddance!!!!

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2273849)

Yep, this is what happens when you flip coins to see who the "best team" is. Gotta love baseball and the 5 games series.

Originally Posted by rjackson44 (Post 2273850)

How bout them yankees

Originally Posted by cornhusker (Post 2273912)

Pills are tearing it up on their way to play the Yankees. That will be a series ;)

Originally Posted by commishbob (Post 2273923)

As someone who doesn’t follow the game very closely these days I have to say yesterday was pretty amazing to follow. The tension in that Seattle-Houston game was off the charts (but all those strikeouts :rolleyes: ). Hard to image how those Mariners fans must have felt sitting through 18 innings only to see your team eliminated.

Nice to see Machado and Mancini still in the hunt for a ring. Go (Ex)Orioles!!

Originally Posted by Frank A (Post 2273931)

I never have seen such an awful hitting game. Players swinging at anything and for the seats. Even Altuve in one at bat swung at 3 pitches that were way outside the plate. I can't understand why players no longer know where the strike zone is. I watched the whole game and you really can't say the pitching was good. The hitters just stink.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2273849)

Yep, this is what happens when you flip coins to see who the "best team" is. Gotta love baseball and the 5 games series.

Originally Posted by commishbob (Post 2273923)

Hard to image how those Mariners fans must have felt sitting through 18 innings only to see your team eliminated.

Originally Posted by Kenny Cole (Post 2273841)

That 7th inning was absolutely brutal. Hindsight is 20-20, but I wonder if Roberts regrets taking Anderson out. He was dealing. The Dodgers' bullpen, not so much. Oh well, I suppose I pull for the Padres now.

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe (Post 2273874)

Since you won't be wearing your Dodgers jersey, can I use it to wipe my ass?

Good riddance!!!!

Originally Posted by Kenny Cole (Post 2273841)

That 7th inning was absolutely brutal. Hindsight is 20-20, but I wonder if Roberts regrets taking Anderson out. He was dealing. The Dodgers' bullpen, not so much. Oh well, I suppose I pull for the Padres now.

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye (Post 2273960)

Padres the Kings of No World Series titles but many band wagon riding fans. Don't fall off.

Originally Posted by raulus (Post 2273902)

Just out of curiosity, what does the math say about the difference between a 5-game and a 7-game series in terms of the probability of a major underdog knocking off a favorite? Just for fun, let’s say a hypothetical team with 89 wins was facing another hypothetical team with 111.

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie (Post 2273838)

I want the Astros to win the World Series. I'm not worried about the Guardians, but Philly and San Diego look really good. The NLCS should be fun.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2273942)

I tend to agree. . . . .

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye (Post 2273960)

Padres the Kings of No World Series titles but many band wagon riding fans. Don't fall off.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2273942)

I tend to agree. . . . .

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry (Post 2274005)

Seeing the Dodgers and Yankees booted from the postseason in the same weekend is OK with me! Let's go Indi-Guardians!

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2273942)

I tend to agree. . . . .

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2273942)

I tend to agree. . . . .

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe (Post 2274039)

Is Keith Oberman still alive? He fell off the map to me when he left ESPN 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe (Post 2274039)

Is Keith Oberman still alive? He fell off the map to me when he left ESPN 20 years ago.

Probably a Mets or Yankees fan with that attitude.

PLAYOFF BASEBALL IS TREMENDOUS FOR TRUE BASEBALL FANS.

True baseball fans don't need a team to root for to watch & appreciate great baseball. (Although I'm rooting for Houston & Cleveland myself)

He's obviously not a true "baseball" fan, he's a fan of a particular franchise.

Originally Posted by campyfan39 (Post 2274009)

As a Dodger fan I find it hard to cheer for them with Roberts as manager. He messes incessantly with the line ups, takes out hot pitchers because of analytics, etc.

I mean how many times can you have the "best" roster and lose until you get called on it?

I'd like to see the Phillis win it all now. Padres are too "look at me" for my taste, especially with Soto.

Originally Posted by mr2686 (Post 2274043)

I agree. Many times (and I love baseball) I was bored to death by regular season play. This post season has been exciting and we've actually seen things like bunts (do you guys remember those?). If we start seeing things like hitting behind the runner and suicide squeezes, I'll probably faint.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2274060)

Olbermann was back on Sports Center just a couple years ago after giving up on his resistance programming. He’s “still” alive…


I am not for or against any team these days, but Dave Roberts is a terrible manager and watching Dodgers games, laden with great talent, can be frustrating as a result.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2274104)

Is it possible Roberts is just following orders from the booth that is running real time analytics?

Originally Posted by raulus (Post 2273902)

Just out of curiosity, what does the math say about the difference between a 5-game and a 7-game series in terms of the probability of a major underdog knocking off a favorite? Just for fun, let’s say a hypothetical team with 89 wins was facing another hypothetical team with 111.

Originally Posted by brianp-beme (Post 2273941)

How about NFL playoff where you lose once and you are gone? And flipping coins is a ritualized part of every football game.

Brian

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2274113)

So, in our example here with the Dodgers having an expected win% of 0.641 vs the Padres, the likelihood of the Dodgers winning a series against the Padres could be estimated as:

Dodgers 5-game win% = 75.0%
Dodgers 7-game win% = 78.5%

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2274107)

As teams have edged out most managers that like to actually manage by the conventional sense of the term in Baseball, I think most teams are essentially doing this, the manager is now more a manager of people than an actual manager of strategy, with the analytics departments picking how things will be done. They may not be micro-managing every individual change, but seem to be the ones setting the circumstances under which a manager is to do so.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2274113)

There are a few ways to estimate the probability that team A will beat team B for any given game. Bill James uses a logistic rating model that he dubbed the 'Log5 method'. It's basically the same thing as the Bradley-Terry model or the Elo rating system in chess. That formula looks like this:

Let P(A) = team A's true win%
Let P(B) = team B's true win%
Let P(A,B) = the probability of team A beating team B for any given game (yes, this ignores the variance incurred through specific pitching matchups and would need to be adjusted for home field advantage, but it is still a useful estimate over the course of a series)

Then,
P(A,B) = [P(A) - P(A)*P(B)] / [(P(A) + P(B) - 2*P(A)*P(B)]

In this example, the Dodgers win% = 0.685, and the Padres win% = 0.549. So, plugging those values in for the Dodgers vs Padres, we get:

P(A,B) = 0.641

In order to estimate the probability for a 5-game or 7-game series, we can use binomial expansion. The formula looks like this, where p is the win% of team A and q is the win% for team B (or 1-p) for any given game:

win%_7game = p^4 + (p^3)*(q)*choose(4,3)*p + (p^3)*(q^2)*choose(5,3)*p + (p^3)*(q^3)*choose(6,3)*p

win%_5game = p^3 + (p^2)*(q)*choose(3,2)*p + (p^2)*(q^2)*choose(4,2)*p

So, in our example here with the Dodgers having an expected win% of 0.641 vs the Padres, the likelihood of the Dodgers winning a series against the Padres could be estimated as:

Dodgers 5-game win% = 75.0%
Dodgers 7-game win% = 78.5%

I didn't look this up for the series, but it's probably a good estimate for what the Vegas line might have been for the Dodgers to win the series against the Padres before any games were played.

Also worth noting is that this is a pretty wide win% gap for baseball. The Dodgers were an historically elite team this year. Most series odds are going to be a lot closer than that. Baseball playoffs nearly is a game of flipping coins for the most part. Luck plays a much larger role in the MLB than it does in the NBA and NFL.




That actually doesn't matter nearly as much as you'd think because in the NFL, the better team beats the weaker team far more often than in baseball for any given game. If you look at the win% for the best team in the NFL, it's usually pretty close to 90% for any given season, whereas in the MLB, it's typically only around 60%. In the NBA, it's closer to 80%.

The best teams win the championship far more often in the NBA and the NFL than they do in the MLB. It's just the way it is. There's a LOT of luck in baseball, and it takes a very long time for that to even out.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2274121)

Maybe over 162 games that pays off. In a shot series no thank you. If Max Scherzer is in total command after 4 innings, every computer on earth could tell me to pull him in in favor of the no name middle reliever, and I would absolutely ignore that. A computer can't see command.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2274121)

Maybe over 162 games that pays off. In a shot series no thank you. If Max Scherzer is in total command after 4 innings, every computer on earth could tell me to pull him in in favor of the no name middle reliever, and I would absolutely ignore that. A computer can't see command.

Originally Posted by raulus (Post 2274118)

So a 3.5% difference in win probability between a 5-game series and a 7-game series?

Doesn't seem like it's enough to get too fussy about the Dodgers losing a short series. But I suppose if you were banking on that 3.5% to be the difference between victory and defeat, then your fussiness level might rise.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2274121)

Maybe over 162 games that pays off. In a shot series no thank you. If Max Scherzer is in total command after 4 innings, every computer on earth could tell me to pull him in in favor of the no name middle reliever, and I would absolutely ignore that. A computer can't see command.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2274126)

I have no doubt that, on average, after 6 innings putting in a fresh pitcher is more likely to help your team win over the course of a season with a large sample size.

I have serious doubts that, after 6 innings, pulling a star pitcher who is still doing well and putting in a rando will help your team win over the course of a season with a large sample size.

On a game by game basis, it is a stupid thing to do without factoring in the specifics of that day and how the pitchers 'feel' as teams keep finding in the playoffs.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2274124)

If the NFL season was 162 games, would the best team still win 90 percent, or is there something going on here with sample size?

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2274155)

It's not really a question anymore though. We have the data to be able to answer that now. Every arm eventually tires out. And a tired arm from even an elite pitcher is still outperformed by a fresh arm from a good reliever. And you can't really know when that elite SP's arm is going to tire out. It typically happens very quickly. They're throwing fire until all of a sudden they're getting shelled. And the SP can't tell you either. They always think they're fine. Egos get involved too. So you go to the data. You look at things like xFIP rates and WHIP rates and K/BB rate curves by pitch count and some of the more advanced sabermetrics for each guy over the course of a season, and you pull him when that curve shows he's most likely about to drop.

Originally Posted by campyfan39 (Post 2274501)

Roberts is an idiot. I have no doubt with a full season last year he would have found a way to make the Dodgers lose.

Originally Posted by robertsmithnocure (Post 2274559)

Don’t you mean 2020? The Braves won it all last year.

Originally Posted by ValKehl (Post 2273976)

I doubt that anyone outside of Texas is rooting for the Astros. :) Go Padres!

Originally Posted by raulus (Post 2273902)

Just out of curiosity, what does the math say about the difference between a 5-game and a 7-game series in terms of the probability of a major underdog knocking off a favorite? Just for fun, let’s say a hypothetical team with 89 wins was facing another hypothetical team with 111.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2274060)

Olbermann was back on Sports Center just a couple years ago after giving up on his resistance programming. He’s “still” alive…

No political commentary intended


https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...590&fit=bounds

Originally Posted by jingram058 (Post 2273956)

I agree with Olbermann's assessment. Yet another reason for me to watch old game TV broadcasts and listen to OTR games. I also think Dave Roberts is soon to be done in LA and Boone will be also after the Yankees are eliminated by Cleveland.

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog (Post 2274570)

Based on the regular season win totals, the 111-win team should beat the 89-win team 55.6% of the time. That gives the better team a 60.4% chance of winning a best-of-5 series and a 68.5% chance of winning a best-of-7 series.

Originally Posted by cornhusker (Post 2274725)

Hmm. Guardians ain't eliminating anybody, Boone is not going anywhere, and.... Guardians is such a crummy name, announcers wont even say it.

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog (Post 2274570)

Based on the regular season win totals, the 111-win team should beat the 89-win team 55.6% of the time. That gives the better team a 60.4% chance of winning a best-of-5 series and a 68.5% chance of winning a best-of-7 series.