Monday, April 30, 2007

10 Game Home Stand Probabilities

The Brewers are starting a ten game home stand tonight against the Cardinals, Pirates and Nationals. The Brewers have done well so far this year, sitting atop the NL Central with a 15-9 record. In contrast, the Cards, Bucs and Nats have combined for a 29-42 record. While it's hard not to be optimistic, what exactly should Brewer fans expect the Crew to do over these next 10 games? Let's calculate some rough probabilities.

It's far too early to expect a teams record or run differential to accurately represent their true talent. For this exercise, I'll simply ballpark their true talent in the form of how many wins I think each team should win over the course of a season. Obviously, that's pretty subjective but I'll try to keep it reasonable. From that, I can come up with the probability the Brewers have of beating each team:

Game Probabilities

90 wins might be a bit optimistic for the Brewers (I predicted 85 wins before the season) but not unreasonable. Using those probabilities, I simulated the 10 game home stand 10,000 times with these results:

10 Game Simulation

The most likely result is a 7-3 home stand, although anywhere between 5-5 and 8-2 has a reasonable chance of occurring. It's also worth noting that despite the weaker opposition at home, there's still a 13% chance of "only" going 5-5 on the home stand. While I'm sure that would disappoint many a Brewer fan (including myself!), that's simply the nature of the game. It's why there's 162 games in a season and why a 7 game playoff series is basically a crap shoot. Anything can happen in a handful of games.

And if that 6% chance of four or less wins becomes a reality, I suggest steering clear of Brewer message boards for a while. :)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Enjoy the Moment

NL Central Standings

And yes, I enjoy seeing the Cubs and Cardinals at the bottom almost as much as I do seeing the Brewers on top.

It's also worth noting that Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA version of their Postseason Odds Report puts the Brewers' odds of making the playoffs at 56% (that doesn't consider last night's win). I use the PECOTA version because it considers both the performance of the team so far and the perceived talent of the club before the season started (based on their PECOTA projections). Being only 20 games in, it would be silly to expect the current team stats of a club to closely mirror the actual talent yet. Since BP projects the Brewers to win 85 games this year, it doesn't drag their playoff odds down very much. In contrast, even if the Royals were 13-7 right now, they wouldn't have very good odds to make the playoffs since they were projected to lose 96 games.

If only it were September...

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

What Could Have Been (CF)

Juan Pierre
Age: 29
Contract: 5 year, $44 mil deal with Dodgers
87 PA: .280 / 302 / .329 / .631

Dave Roberts

Age: 34
Contract: 3 year, $18 mil deal with Giants
62 PA: .214 / .279 / .321 / .600


What the Brewers currently have....

Bill Hall
Age: 27
Contract: 4 years, $24 mil (bought out 2 years of arb.)
76 PA: .261 / .329 / .507 / .836

I can't say I'm upset so far, even with Hall's uneven play in CF. His defense will only improve.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Is Suppan a "Winner"?

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Runs allowed + run support = win/loss record.

There's nothing magical about it. Unfortunately, there's little chance of the Brewers matching the run support Suppan received while with St. Louis. Suppan will still be a very valuable pitcher if he can keep his ERA around 4.0 but you won't see him flirting with 20 wins as a Brewer any time soon.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Brewers Have One in Three Chance at the Post Season?

To be exact, it's a 33.86115% chance, says Baseball Prospectus:

Postseason Odds

After yesterday's win, that must have increased to at least 33.86116%.