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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Division Series Odds

With the division series set to kick off within the hour I thought I'd post the odds for each of the eight teams as calculated by a little simulator I wrote. The program takes into consideration the home and road records of each team, home field advantage, and the series format. It simulates each series 100,000 times.

NLDS Rockies vs. Phillies
Philles win 54.4%
Rockies win 45.6%

The simulator has the Phillies sweeping 15% of the time with Rockies doing so just 8.5%. It also says the series has a 38% chance of going the distance with the Phillies winning 61% of those contests.

NLDS Cubs vs. Diamondbacks
Diamondbacks win 59.3%
Cubs win 40.7%

The simulator likes the D'Backs odds more than any other team in the first round primarily because of their excellent home record (50-31) and the Cubs problems on the road (41-40) coupled with the home field advantage.

ALDS Yankees vs. Indians
Indians win 54.5%
Yankees win 45.5%

Both teams have exceptional records at home (52-29) and the Indians were slightly better on the road. Adding in the home field advantage the simulator likes the Tribe.

ALDS Angels vs. Red Sox
Red Sox win 58.3%
Angels win 41.7%

The Angels poor showing (40-41) on the road coupled with the Sox winning ways at home (51-30) are enough to push the advantage squarely into the BoSox camp.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Care to share any information about how your simulator works?

Also, did you ever try to track how well your simulate does against some other metric like the Vegas oddsmakers?

Just curious.

vr, Xei

Dan Agonistes said...

It's very simple and you can read more about it here:

http://danagonistes.blogspot.com/2004/10/how-probable-was-bosox-comeback.html

I've not attempted to track its accuracy although it would be simple to set up a test.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. So it's using the log5 method. My gut is that it will have some accuracy problems due to the fact that it doesn't take into consideration who is pitching, which starting hitters are playing and the fact that the personnel on the teams may be anywhere from slightly to significantly different from the sample of games used as input into this formula. I will use this method for the remaining playoff games and track it against my baseball game simulator and Vegas odds/probabilities, which do take these things into account.

vr, Xeifrank