The Playoff Predictor: The NL Wild Card

Are you up late at night trying to figure out which team is going to win the NL Wild Card race? Are you losing sleep because you just can’t figure out whether the Philadelphia Phillies, Houston Astros, New York Mets, Washington Nationals, or the Florida Marlins will make the post-season?

Well I’m here to stop your sleepless nights. I can tell you exactly who is going to win the NL Wild Card race.

How am I going to do this?

By using my brand new “Playoff Predictor.”

What does the “Playoff Predictor” do?

The “Playoff Predictor” is a machine that runs all playoff-contending teams through a three-layer filter to figure which of the contending teams really is the best team, and which one has the easiest road to victory.

As a note, before I start the “Playoff-Predictor,” even though there is definitely a chance for the Chicago Cubs, and the Milwaukee Brewers to win the Wild Card, for this analysis the only teams I inputted into the machine were ones whose record is currently above .500

This leaves us with the above-mentioned Philadelphia Phillies, Florida Marlins, Houston Astros, Washington Nationals, and the New York Mets.

Before we start, here is a look at the current NL Wild Card Standings as of 8/19/05:

Philadelphia: 65-57; 0 GB
Houston: 64-57; ½ GB
Washington: 64-57; ½ GB
Florida: 63-57; 1 GB
New York: 61-59; 3 GB

The first filter that the “Playoff Predictor” runs is done by looking at each team’s adjusted record in the “Current Adjusted Team Standings” over Baseball Prospectus.

***To read more about Current Adjusted Team Standings see my last article. A team’s adjusted Win/Loss record is a team record based solely upon how my runs a team should score and allow based on theirs and their opponent’s batting line, then adjusted for strength of schedule. The adjusted record is one that is based solely on how good or bad a team has performed…therefore removing luck from the equation. ***

After looking at these adjusted records and rounding each teams win/loss total to the nearest whole number, the new “adjusted” NL Wild Card standings look like so:

New York: 65-55
Houston: 64-57
Florida: 63-57
Philadelphia: 63-59
Washington: 57-64

As you can see, these standings are quite different from the actual standings, and tell who has actually performed the best of the teams in the hunt: the New York Mets, but not by much.

The top four teams are fairly close, but the fifth team, the Washington Nationals, is too far behind to actually be considered.

The “Predictor” has chosen to eliminate them based on the fact that their actual record is 7 games above .500, but their adjusted record is 7 games below .500, which is a sign of turbulent times a coming. Expect the Nationals to drop out of this race quicker than Anna Nicole Smith’s weight.

Now the “Predictor” has narrowed the contenders to Philadelphia, New York, Florida, and Houston.

To run the next filter the “Predictor” looks at contender’s team stats ranked amongst the NL, and then re-ranks them amongst themselves to see who is better and worse at what.

First, here is each team’s NL rank in offense (runs scored), pitching (team ERA), and defense (DIPS%), this season:


Team--------Offense------Pitching------Defense
Philadelphia-------4------------9--------------8
New York---------6------------6--------------6
Florida------------7------------4--------------9
Houston----------12-----------2--------------4

As stated earlier the “Predictor” uses these league rankings to make predictions by re-ranking these teams amongst themselves. The best team in a category will receive a rank of “4,” and the worst receivess a “1.” Then, it adds each team’s rankings together and the team that ends up with the most “ranking points” is declared the best (this is exactly how rotisserie baseball standings are figured).

It is important to note that the “Predictor” favors pitching when forecasting teams’ futures because it adheres by the old adage “pitching wins.”

The way that the “Predictor” weights the pitching category is to multiply each team’s rank in that area by 1.5. This will make it so that having better pitching is more valuable than having a better offense; something that the “Predictor” stands by.

After awarding “rank points” to each team, and completing the calculations, here are the results (the more points, the better the team):

Houston: 11 points
New York: 9 Points
Florida: 7.5 Points
Philadelphia: 7.5 Points

According to the pitching-weighted value system, the best team of the contenders is the Houston Astros. Even though they are the best though, no team had such a bad total value that they was eliminated, as the Nationals were earlier. While all the teams will continue to be analyzed through the next filter, the “Machine” will favor the Astros, and all close calls will go their way.

Breaking down each teams remaining schedule runs the final filter.

A breakdown of how many series each team has left versus sub-.500 teams and above .500 teams; as well as how many home and road series each team has left are used to determine which team has the easiest road to success.

Before the raw numbers are presented though, here is each teams home and road records thus far this season; so you can understand why it would be favorable for a particular team to have more or less home series:

Team------Home Record=====Road Record
Phillies--------38-27=============27-30
Astros---------40-21=============24-36
Mets-----------38-24=============23-35
Florida---------35-27=============28-30

As you can see, each team plays very well at home and struggles on the road. The Marlins, and Phillies though, are almost .500 on the road, while the Mets and Astros struggle badly on the road. With those numbers now fresh in your memory here is the breakdown of each team’s remaining schedule:

Team---Opp. Above-.500---Opp. Sub-.500---Home/Road Series
Phillies-------9---------------------4---------------5/8
Astros--------4---------------------9---------------6/7
Mets---------10--------------------3----------------6/7
Florida-------10--------------------3----------------6/7

You don’t have to be a genius to see that the Houston Astros have a very easy road to conclude the season, while each of the other contenders has a very tough road. This unquestionably gives a very large edge to Houston.

As far as Home/Road Series remaining, even though Houston has more road series left than home series, they shouldn’t suffer badly from this because they don’t have any more road series remaining than the other contending teams; in essence, neutralizing the negative effect that this would cause.

So now that the third and final filter has been run, the “Playoff Predictor” has analyzed enough information to figure out exactly who is going to win the NL Wild Card.

Here is the printout from the “Predictor:”

I don’t even know why you asked this question. This is one of the easiest questions I’ve ever answered. It’s fairly obvious that the team with the best pitching, easiest remaining schedule, and just barely comes in second place after adjusting their record will win the race.

The team that will win the NL Wild Card race is the Houston Astros.

Next time, please come to me with a challenging question.

Thank you for reading,

Frank Bundy III

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@athomeplate.com.