Massive Tie Scenario

With the Orioles losing to Cleveland 3-2 Sunday night, the AL missed another opportunity to really improve the chance for a massive tie for the AL Wild Card race. The Angels gained ground on the Twins by beating the Mariners, and the Royals moved back into the five team mix by beating the Twins. The other fringe teams lost however, making things more complicated. There are now six team within three games of the Twins, with the Orioles and Mariners tied for fifth. I’m looking at a five way tie, so either Baltimore or Seattle work as the fifth team.

I’m keeping track of the various probabilities of this tie on this spreadsheet. The most probable outcome has the Twins winning eight more games for a win total of 82. The probability of any tie between these five teams is 0.00025, the highest up a tick from yesterday:

Team	Won-lost
Twins	8-11
Angels	9-10
Rangers	11-9
Royals	11-9
Orioles or Mariners	11-8

The Rays also have 71 wins, but 73 losses. If they go on a win streak, they will move into the calculation. None of these teams seem to be able to push for the slot.

The four-way tie in the NL for the Central Division title and the second wild card went near perfectly on Sunday. The Brewers beat the Cubs while the Cardinals and Rockies both won. That puts the Rockies one game up on the Cubs in the wild card race, while the Brewers and Cardinals trail the Cubs by two in the division race. The most likely outcome has the Rockies winning eight more games for a total of 86. The overall probability of this four-way tie occurring is 0.0015. Here is the 86 win scenario:

Team	Won-lost
Rockies	8-11
Cubs	9-10
Brewers	11-8
Cardinals	11-8

Of course, there is the three-way tie for the second NL Wild Card and a three-way tie for the division buried in there. Each would be fun on its own. Milwaukee finishes the season with three games against St. Louis, so they would need to be separated by a odd number of games going into that series for a tie to be possible. The above calculation ignores that.

For today, the best outcomes would be:

• The Orioles defeat the Blue Jays.
• The Brewers win against the Pirates.
• The Rangers and Mariners could go either way, but I favor Texas winning since they are higher in the standings right now.
• The Royals defeat the White Sox.
• The Rockies lose to the Diamondbacks.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2gWkbRJ