Come shed a tear

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I tend to agree. . . . .

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.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

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

I also have to admit I have no idea where he works now or what he does...

[mr2686]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

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.

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.

[arcadekrazy]

As a Yankees fan (but not one of THOSE Yankees fans), as well as a fan of baseball in general, it’s fun to see some relatively unexpected teams moving ahead and watching their respective fan bases get excited.

I think that the guardians are an underrated team. They ran the table the last month of the season and remind me of the early jeter-era Yankees. Lots of confidence, grinding and good play. I’d of course love to see the Yankees win, but this series feels like the 2003 World Series version of the yankees, when an upstart Florida team ran them over. There just isn’t a cohesion among the team to grind out the wins in these important games.

Should Cleveland advance, I think that they will give Houston a run for their money.

I don’t know much about this year’s padres, but it’s nice to see that their rebuilding efforts are bearing some fruit.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by mr2686

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.

Completely agree, in fact I think these Playoffs have ruined regular season baseball for me. (Not really, but close....still need it during the summer months).

EVERY Series, EVERY game, maybe EVERY inning, both Rounds, has been tremendous so far!

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

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


Originally Posted by Bobby Strawberry

I also have to admit I have no idea where he works now or what he does...


He has likely been outbidding all of us on the vintage cards we want.

Brian

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by raulus

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.

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.

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

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

Brian

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.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Snowman

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%

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.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by raulus

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.

Ya, it's not a huge gap. The delta between 5 & 7 game series is not uniformly distributed though, meaning it's not always going to be 3.5%. It depends on the delta between team strengths.

For the Yankees vs Guardians series, the calculation works out to the Yankees winning a 7-game series 59.6% of the time and a 5-game series 58.3%, so it's even more narrow when the teams are closer in strength.

Honestly, the whole idea of having playoffs is kinda silly to begin with if looking at it from the perspective of wanting the best team to win. The way they did it back in Mantle's day was obviously best for that. You just played 162 games to see who the best teams are. Now you know. Just have one 7-game series between the Dodgers and the Astros, and call it good. But where's the fun in that (and the money)? Hence... playoffs.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

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.

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?