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 […]
A common gripe, as Major League Baseball’s postseason ballooned in recent years, has been that the lowered standard of admission would devalue and de-intensify the regular season. Gotta-have-it games, tough managerial decisions, final-out bursts of euphoria or despair — for the best teams, the teams that really matter, these sorts of things would be consigned […]
The pressure of postseason baseball is one its biggest selling points — that feeling of tension that builds up to every season-defining pitch. But that buildup can also make the games take forever. According to Retrosheet’s data, the average playoff contest in 2021 took 3 hours and 40 minutes, up nearly 15 percent from a […]
As Aaron Judge crowned a season to remember in Arlington, Texas, by whistling his American League-record-setting 62nd home run on Tuesday night — a 100 mph moonshot that lofted over the left-field wall at Globe Life Field — the debate over how we should remember his performance smoldered on. Some pointed to the oft-repeated “AL […]
“This is George Steinbrenner, he’s the owner of the New York Yankees,” Tom Brokaw says from a polyester-blue 1970s NBC News set, introducing Americans to The Boss during the opening minutes of “Yankees-Dodgers: An Uncivil War,” a new documentary debuting on ESPN today at 9 p.m. EST. “He’s also one of the principal stars in […]