First the good news: Based on their projections, the Cubs are among the four teams most statistically likely to qualify for the playoffs at the end of the year. Yay!
The bad news is that they are still less than 50/50 to do so. Boo.
As you can see from the projections, the Cubs make the playoffs in 41% of the simulated seasons that Accuscore runs. If you play poker, that is not far off the odds of the Cubs holding Ace-King unsuited against a middle pair before the flop. They need help and Phil Hellmuth would mock you if you went all in with it if you weren't short-stacked, but things could definitely be worse.
Down I-55, the Cardinals have practically locked up the simulated National League Central and it seems only a direct intervention from the Baseball Gods will prevent a post-season appearance. Again, to put it in poker terms, the Cardinals are holding a full house after the turn and the rest of the National League is holding a straight flush draw. Only one card in the deck is going to beat them.
So the Cubs probably won't win the division, and most likely will not make the playoffs, but their hopes are statistically more valid than most teams' right now. At least, a computer thinks so and thats good enough for me.
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6 comments:
i feel better already!
I prefer coolstandings.com. They currently have the cubs at a 32.2% chance.
I think Coolstandings uses the Pythagorean method of determining an expected record based on runs scored vs. runs allowed and projects it out, whereas Accuscore simulates ten of thousands of seasons on a per game basis using updated projections of individual players on the teams.
Neither is "right" and I choose to believe Accuscore, though Coolstandings only has the Cardinals at 80% to make the playoffs, so maybe I'll take some from column A and some from column B. I can do that, right?
i'll play the season out one million times, using my 1984 strat-o-matic game that's in my mom's basement, and let you know how it goes.
UPDATE! bobby dernier led off with a walk, sandberg moved him to second on a sacrifice and sarge matthews doubled him home. 1-0 cubs.
Awesome! Nothing can possibly go wrong in 1984!
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