2026 Postseason Thread

[sveumrules]

The field is set and the 2026 Postseason starts tomorrow.

Some World Series Win Percents from various sources...

PECOTA
TBR (19.2%) MIL (18.5%) LAD (16.7%) CLE (11.5%)
NYY (5.9%) HOU (4.6%) BOS (3.7%) CHW (3.1%) 
ATL (4.9%) CHC (4.7%) SDP (4.2%) PHI (3.0%)

FanGraphs (Projections)
LAD (37.8%) MIL (11.5%) CLE (9.1%) TBR (8.3%)
NYY (6.6%) BOS (5.2%) HOU (3.4%) CHW (1.3%)
PHI (5.6%) CHC (4.7%) ATL (3.7%) SDP (2.7%)

FanGraphs (Season to Date)
MIL (23.7%) LAD (18.9%) TBR (11.1%) CLE (7.0%)
NYY (8.1%) BOS (5.7%) CHW (5.0%) HOU (2.6%)
CHC (7.0%) ATL (5.3%) SDP (3.4%) PHI (2.3%) 

Baseball Reference
MIL (18.6%) TBR (14.5%) LAD (12.4%) CLE (6.7%)
BOS (8.0%) NYY (6.9%) CHW (6.3%) HOU (2.4%)
CHC (11.1%) PHI (5.0%) SDP (4.7%) ATL (3.5%)

...think the FG Projections probably align the most with how baseball fans tend to think of the Dodgers relative to the rest of the field.

Put em all together and the Brewers win the World Series in something like 18.1% of simulated future realities.

I'll take those odds, don't really have any other choice. 

GO BREWERS !!

[Frisbee Slider]

What is FanGraphs looking at that simultaneously makes it an outlier and seemingly the closest to ‘reality’ ?

I can’t imagine what PECOTA sees in Tampa more than Milwaukee.

[sveumrules]

36 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

What is FanGraphs looking at that simultaneously makes it an outlier and seemingly the closest to ‘reality’ ?

I can’t imagine what PECOTA sees in Tampa more than Milwaukee.

Guys like Ohtani (139 wRC+), Betts (114 wRC+), and Freeman (120 wRC+) had down years, but they have long track records of success so the projections are still buying in on them to positively regress to a 156, 123, and 126 wRC+ respectively.

On the flip side guys like Turang (126 wRC+ last two years), Bauers (148 wRC+ since 9/5/25), and Vaughn (138 wRC+ with MIL) have been ascendent, but also have large-ish samples of less encouraging results before that so are still being projected for regression to a 109, 123, and 108 wRC+ respectively.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the FG projections heavily weighting the playing time towards star players for the postseason and the Dodgers have the most star players with long track records to support better projections.

On the PECOTA side all I can really think of is that even though the Rays have the hard draw on the AL East side of the bracket, it is still an easier draw than the slate of potential opponents the Brewers have to face. Would guess if it comes down to a MIL / TBR World Series that PECOTA would favor the Brewers, but they just get knocked out somewhere along the way beforehand in the simulations more often than the Rays do. 

[MadScientist]

51 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

What is FanGraphs looking at that simultaneously makes it an outlier and seemingly the closest to ‘reality’ ?

I can’t imagine what PECOTA sees in Tampa more than Milwaukee.

My only guess is the PECOTA sees Tampa getting to the series much more frequently in their simulations than Milwaukee.  The AL is just weaker this year than the NL.  They also seem to weight teams with the bye much more heavily than others, so that pushes their ALCS simulation to have TB vs CLE, and Tampa is going to win most of those.