Remember all those big favorites going into the MLB postseason? The record-tying four 100-plus win teams from the regular season? The 20-win gaps between best and worst seeds in each league? The theoretical advantage of a first-round bye for top teams under MLB’s new playoff system? Turns out only one league got the memo about […]
Baseball’s postseason is finally upon us, and that means it’s playoff prediction time for our MLB forecast model. Before first pitch in today’s wild card quadruple-header, let’s run through how our Elo-based projections see the October (and November) action playing out. Who’s favored in the wild card round? Elo ratings and series win probabilities for […]
In the NBA, any talk of building a superteam usually centers around the notion of a Big Three: a trio of stars so daunting that it can carry just about any roster to a championship. In the past 15 years, we’ve seen that model work for the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors. […]
One recent Saturday afternoon in Seattle, Justin Verlander was protecting a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning when he landed in a jam: runners on second and third, one out. So the Houston Astros’ 39-year-old still-ace turned to his full catalog. Verlander threw sliders at the Mariners’ belt buckles, curveballs over their shoelaces and a […]
This is a week of big decisions for nearly every general manager in baseball. Ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline, front offices need to figure out exactly where their teams stand in the playoff race and just how much risk they’re willing to tolerate in the name of making a run this year, versus selling off […]