30 September 2019

Astros and Dodgers best again

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 twelve 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 2019:

nW%pW%W%
Astros.677502.660185.660494
Dodgers.670291.662417.654321
Twins.598220.599059.623457
Rays.593823.572202.592593
Yankees.576377.609711.635802
Nationals.574007.584791.574074
Athletics.571746.598100.598765
Red Sox.551824.538578.518519
Braves.547440.563884.598765
Cubs.545871.557790.518519
Indians.544647.571520.574074
Mets.534406.532305.530864
Cardinals.532302.565188.561728
Brewers.524753.501788.549383
Reds.514368.493520.462963
Diamondbacks.511116.541098.524691
Padres.467561.433718.432099
Phillies.463987.488331.500000
Angels.458322.444822.444444
Mariners.444125.425571.419753
Giants.439959.440293.475309
Rockies.437650.437461.438272
Rangers.435699.463187.481481
Blue Jays.435260.440144.413580
White Sox.423228.426697.447205
Pirates.419484.416669.425926
Royals.390277.396650.364198
Marlins.385985.377663.351852
Orioles.379034.367415.333333
Tigers.344497.304070.291925

So this year the luckiest teams were the Yankees, Braves and Rangers; the unluckiest were the Tigers, Reds and Orioles.  Only two of the best eight teams were from the National League.  Only the seven actually best teams made the playoffs; if the ten actually best teams had made the playoffs, the Red Sox and Cubs would be in and the Cardinals and Brewers would be out.  If all teams had the win-loss records they deserved, half of the division champions would change:  The Rays would finish 3 games ahead of the Yankees, the Nationals would finish 4 games ahead of the Braves and the Cubs would finish 2 games ahead of the Cardinals.  The Astros had the best record in baseball and deserved it; The Tigers had the worst record in baseball and deserved it.

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

 Astros over RaysAstros over TwinsAstros over Dodgers
Rays over Athletics
 Twins over Yankees
Braves over CardinalsDodgers over Braves
Nationals over BrewersDodgers over Nationals
 

But what I'm rooting for is very different:

 Athletics over AstrosAthletics over TwinsAthletics over Cardinals
Athletics over Rays
 Twins over Yankees
Cardinals over BravesCardinals over Brewers
Brewers over NationalsBrewers over Dodgers
 

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