Massive Tie Scenarios

The Twins lost again on Tuesday, cementing the Yankees position as the first wild card. Only the Rangers were able to gain on Minnesota however, as they beat the Mariners to move into third place in the race for the second AL Wild Card slot. They take over from the Mariners in the three-way tie calculation. The probability of both scenarios rose slightly Tuesday night.

I’m keeping track of the various AL tie probabilities of this tie on this spreadsheet. The most probable outcome has the Twins winning three more games for a win total of 81. The probability of any tie between these five teams is 0.00012:

Team	Won-lost
Twins	3-8
Angels	5-7
Rangers	7-5
Mariners	7-4
Royals	8-4

The Twins need to play really poorly or the Royals and the Royals need to play very well down the stretch for this to happen. A little more likely is the three way tie between the top three teams, with a probability of 0.011. That’s 100 times more likely than the five-way tie.

The Rockies fell as the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals all won. The Cardinals remain on the edge of the race.

The most likely outcome for a four-way for the NL Central and the second wild card has the Cubs winning three more games for a total of 87. The overall probability of this four-way tie occurring is 0.0003. Here is the 87 win scenario:

Team	Won-lost
Cubs	3-9
Rockies	5-6
Brewers	6-5
Cardinals	9-3

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.

The Cubs open a four-game series in Milwaukee on Thursday, so the Brewers still control their own destiny. The best bet for any tie would be a for a tie between the Rockies and Brewers for the second wild card.

For Wednesday, the best outcomes would be:

• The Twins lose to the Yankees.
• The Rockies and Giants can go either way, with a slight bias towards a Rockies win.
• The Brewers defeat the Pirates.
• The Royals score a victory against the Blue Jays
• The Cardinals get a must win against the Reds.
• The Cubs fall to Tampa Bay.
• The Angels win against the Indians.
• Texas and Seattle can go either way, a Texas win better for the three-way tie, a Seattle win better for the five-way tie.

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