The Statistics of Digging Out of the Hole

[SenatorShriv]

I'm wondering if some of the much more statistically inclined posters here can give some analysis on the likelihood of digging ourselves out of this poor start to the season to make the playoffs. I'm not even sure exactly what I'm looking for here, I guess I'm just trying to figure out if the situation warrants the incredibly glum feeling that I have right now...

 

 

[Baldkin]

A great article on the historical significance of April baseball:

 

Only 31.9 percent (45 of 141) of teams with losing records in April over

the past 10 years finished the season with winning records. Only 14.9

percent reached the playoffs....

....Over the past 28 completed seasons, only 12 of 176 playoff teams were more than three games under .500 at the end of April.

[endaround]

Of course the Brewers didn't have a losing record at the end of April.

[rluzinski]

Many of those teams with a losing record in April didn't finish with a winning record because they weren't above average teams. The real question is, starting with X-X record, what are the odds that a team projected for X wins will finish with enough wins to qualify for the playoffs. The general consensus was that Brewers was something like an 86 win team (53% win percentage). I don't think we would adjust that estimate very much after only a month. As a rough estimate, we can assume a binomial distribution (independent trials) and give the Brewers a 53% chance of winning each of their remaining games. It's very easy from that to say what the odds are that the Brewers will finish with a certain number of wins.

 

How that win total translates into odds of making the playoffs is a little trickier. We could look at recent historical data (era with wildcard) to give us an idea but I'm not sure how useful that would be.

[RightFieldCoder]

This isn't statistical at all, but I thought it deserved to be here.

 

Brewers record after 41 games:

2011 20-21

2010 16-25

2009 26-15

2008 20-21

2007 26-15

 

Twice the brewers were 26-15 after 41 games. Both times we missed the playoffs. We are 20-21, just like we were in 2008's playoff year. So it's definitely doable.

[logan82]

We know it is possible. The question is "is it probable?"

[rluzinski]

It wasn't probable that the Brewers would make the playoffs before the season started. What was it, basically a 3 in 1 shot?