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Major League Promise #9, unless it’s September, we will not use Playoffs Odds Reports as evidence of anything. The reason being that even when a respected site like Baseball Prospectus can’t decide which formula to use, then there’s really no point in looking to them as an argument decider.
It seems that they’re nothing more than glorified Power Rankings because what’s the difference between a 50% shot at making the playoffs and a 60% shot on July 22nd? Baseball Prospectus has three different odds calculators that are significantly different. What’s the point there? Normally a site as decisive and opinionated as BP (these are not insults; BP is easily one of the best baseball sites in existence) would pick one of the three as the definitive option. And the fact that they haven’t leads me to believe that each has correctly predicted at least one surprise team in the past few years without successfully predicting all of the teams. And if that’s the case then aren’t they then worthless?
Here’s a quick sampling:
Rays 84.0%
Red Sox 82.7%
Phillies 44.0%
Mets 59.4%
Dbacks 45.6%
Dodgers 49.9%
Rays 59.2%
Red Sox 73.6%
Phillies 50.7%
Mets 51.8%
Dbacks 39.7%
Dodgers 54.2%
Rays 83.8%
Red Sox 83.3%
Phillies 42.55%
Mets 65.6%
Dbacks 45.9%
Dodgers 50.1%
So I ask you, if one report says that the Rays have an 84% shot of making the playoffs and another says that it’s only 59.2% shot, what’s the point? The Rays are only 3.5 games up on the Yankees in the division and a half game up on the Red Sox. Assuming that the Wild Card comes out of the AL East and all three teams were tied and, the odds would presumably be 67% for each team. But the Rays have the lead now so 84% sounds reasonable. But if we’re weighting talent on each team–how they’ve preformed so far this year versus how they were expected to perform–we can then say that certain teams have under- or overperformed and they will straighten out a bit. But isn’t that subjective?
And how can a report show the Dodgers as ~15% favorites over the Diamondbacks to make the playoffs when the teams are tied in the standings. 15% is fucking huge. Or is it? Let’s see, in the NL Central if all teams had a tied record and were equally matched, they would each have a 16.6% shot of winning the divisions. Is 15% then about a complete ranking better than another?
Am I supposed to frame the discussion of these reports differently? Is that the trick? Am I supposed to look at one as evidence of what has happened so far this year and another based on trending throughout the last month? If that’s the case, please let me know. I don’t think it’ll do much to convince me that these are relevant before September (if at all) but at least you can learn me a thing or two.
Because right now, I gotta tell you, I can’t find a single bit of value in these things.
Filed under: Divisive Arguments | Tagged: Baseball Prospectus, Major League Promise, Playoff Odds, Stats
“what’s the difference between a 50% shot at making the playoffs and a 60% shot”
I would say 10%
Oh and I prefer the PECOTA numbers for obvious reasons.
Yeah, but what’s 10% worth on July 22nd? And the fact that there’s a 14% range for the Mets means what about the different odds?
Hef..I agree…it is what we in the community call a witty observation or a ‘joke”…I guess the altitude in Sedona has gotten to you
wasserman?
*sniff sniff*
smells like intern bill round hurr.
Intern Bill and Wasserman are two different people dummy.
Don’t fuck with people in the TBL family!!
/Hef Chronicler
i gotta work right now but it would be interesting to see what the odds of making the playoffs were for the mets, the rockies, and the phillies as of september 1 last year…do they archive it…if you dont check maybe i will later
No, no, no. You misunderstand. Wasserman is the numbers guy (who wasted everyone’s time with the homerun analysis) and Intern Bill is the guy who writes about baseball but has never watched a game in his life (presumably). That was my point. Mess with them all you want. But accurately.
I checked for archives and couldn’t see any Mikey. That would have been my trump card.
is intern bill related to shanoff?
here is your trump card
http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp
use this to make your point…not sure if it is trump…but damn close
http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp
???
it wont let me leave a link in the comments… go to
cool standings dot com….it will let you select date and projections from last year…on sept 1 of last year rockies were @ 7%
and the mets?
i was just referring to intern bill because the commonality between him and this article is that they both stink.
but i was being facetious, of course.
and jokes aren’t funny if you have to explain them. i guess i should’ve been clearer.
bully to you, good sir.
mets 76% - div…11 % wc…88% poffs
phi 21 / 21 / 42
as of 9/1 of last year
there are my comments…are links in comments moderated?
no they shouldn’t be. try copying the link from TBL or just pasting the whole URL.
those numbers have got to piss off RWH.
they were in the spamcatcher, mikey. I let them free.
yes…i post spam…i amjust talking sports for a few months so i can get you guys to join my MLM blog and we can all sell soap and skin care to one another
I believe the answer you’re looking for is: Yep.
stigs…the numbers don’t piss me off…the fucking losing heartless play pissed me off…ARRRGGGHH