02 October 2017

Finally the Indians' turn?

Predicting the baseball postseason is an annual tradition on this otherwise defunct blog, so, as busy as I am, I'll take a few minutes to do the same kind of analysis I've done the last ten years, essentially factoring out each team's luck to see how good they really were this season.  The Nostradamian, Pythagorean and actual win percentages for all teams in 2017:

nW%pW%W%
Indians.644021.663830.629630
Yankees.623690.617778.561728
Dodgers.620897.626809.641975
Astros.609607.611056.623457
Nationals.593533.589530.598765
Diamondbacks.577449.594370.574074
Cubs.572111.576184.567901
Cardinals.536145.534912.512346
Red Sox.534914.573306.574074
Rays.532958.493455.493827
Rockies.512520.538722.537037
Brewers.511367.522400.530864
Twins.501663.515408.524691
Mariners.493556.486776.481481
Athletics.492554.449257.462963
Marlins.479785.474852.475309
Rangers.472678.490369.481481
Angels.466345.500645.493827
Blue Jays.456683.443793.469136
Braves.453302.447697.444444
Royals.450858.445607.493827
Reds.449607.434823.419753
Mets.446459.427075.432099
Phillies.439353.442987.407407
Orioles.438031.443559.462963
Tigers.430429.411352.395062
Pirates.430112.458861.462963
White Sox.426643.431942.413580
Giants.408797.412056.395062
Padres.401517.365740.438272

So this year the luckiest teams were the Royals, Red Sox and Padres; the unluckiest were the Yankees, Rays and Tigers.  The seven actually best teams made the playoffs; if the ten actually best teams had made the playoffs, the Cardinals and Rays would be in and the Twins and Rockies would be out.  If all teams had the win-loss records they deserved, only one division champion would change:  The Yankees would finish about 14 games ahead of the Red Sox instead of 2 games behind.  The Royals would be 73–89 instead of 80–82, but would still finish in third place in the AL Central; the Athletics would move from last to 3rd and the Angels would move from 2nd to last in the AL West.  And the Indians, not the Dodgers, would have the best record in baseball and home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

Based on the above results, it's reasonable to predict:

 Indians over YankeesIndians over AstrosIndians over Dodgers
Yankees over Twins
 Astros over Red Sox
Nationals over CubsDodgers over Nationals
Diamondbacks over RockiesDodgers over Diamondbacks
 

But here's what I'm rooting for:

 Indians over TwinsRed Sox over IndiansCubs over Red Sox
Twins over Yankees
 Red Sox over Astros
Cubs over NationalsCubs over Rockies
Rockies over DiamondbacksRockies over Dodgers
 

I got all the statistics I needed for this analysis from these three pages: A B C