rluzinski

Braun would have gotten and infield single off the glove of a defender and Fielder would have been hit, had Weeks never been picked off? I hate giving away outs on the base paths as much as anyone else but we have no idea how that inning would have played out. No one does.

Would the Brewers still be at 52% chance to win? I tend to think they would be slightly better favorites for that second game. I would never rule out the possiblity of some small effect. There's no way ever to know the exact win percentage to begin with. The problem is when people to use streaks as proof of some significant effect. Streaks can and will happen from chance alone: http://www.brewerfan.net/ViewArticle.do?articleId=267 Also, how can you say that the difference in schedules don't matter I didn't say it doesn't matter at all. It's just not as important as some think. Check the schedule thread for my opinion.

I'm teeling you, backcatcher, that's just not how it works. The most simple example is flipping a coin. Flip it 100 times over and over again' Once in awhile, you'll flip 5 heads to start off your 100 flip set. That doesn't change the odds, going forward, though. Still 50% for each subsequent flip. No catching up. I'm not saying it's particularly intuative. Gambler's Fallacy. Just google it. Baseball projections should be updated not just to reflect the current record of the team but to also incorporate the individual player performances. Projections are dynamic. Most of what baseball fans see as hot and cold streaks is just good ol' sample varience. I wrote a bf.net article about it, I think.

Is that stuff archived anywhere? I'd be interedted to see if ite opening line changed as dramatically as you are suggesting. Like, they were being treated like a .475 win% team (or whatever it was) before the streak and a .900 win% after? And while it's true that Vegas only cares about evening the bets, the people are very good at guessing the correct odds when you aska million people and require that they actually put some money on that opinion. It's possible that the gamblers overcompensated for the streak . That's why I'd like to see the actual lines. So, there heavy favorites in the playoffs?

Again, that's the gambler's falacy. Take a team that's expected to win at a .556 clip and finish with 90 wins for a season. They start 0-5. Since it's only 5 games, you really don't need to update the expected winning percentage. They are still the same team. But those 5 games just went POOF, so you are no longer expected to win 90 winston games. Only about 87 (you were expected to start about 3-2). You don't get those wins back.

Instead, they got lucky and stole both of them. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif What's the line on today's game? Probably around a 40% of winning the next two. Wouldn't that be crazy?

Thanks for the heads up. I've never had a BP subscription but I've taken advantage of past free weeks to check out their sabermetrics 101 series. It's a good read. What's worth looking at for a guy like me. I can get comparible projections anywhere.

Well, you might want to get the calulator out, because I get nothing close to that. How are you trying to figure it?

Does Bodog list the odds for the NL Central?

So, the straight win% difference between the Cubs and Brewers give the Crew a 1.5 game advantage. Pythag says less than half a win. I'd be more inclinded to go with pythag, personally.

Last month, an MLB projection showed that something like 12 teams had only about a 5% chance of making the playoffs. Of course, that means that theres about a 50% that at least w of those teams WILL make the playoffs. Rattling off a bunch of imrpobable playoff runs does not disprove anything. That's how it works.

Sorry for the snarkiess. Some thoughts: BP's ELO projections don't really make much sense. In fact, I've seen them completely dismissed by the sabermetric community. Provided you account for personal changes and injuries, there's no good justification for using a system like that. Weighting Hardy's recent perforamance greater than his April and May output is probably not going to imrpove your projection for him. Looking at the whole year is the way to go. If you want to find something to weight less, do it for his 0 and 07 numbers. There's no question that the Brewers were underperforming earlier in the season, especially their offense. At one point in May, I showed that something like 7 of the 8 position players were hitting below their projection. It's no surprise that they steped it up. Conversly, while everyone knew that the Cubs were a good team, it was obvious to all that they weren't going to continue playing like a 110 win team. They were playing over their heads. Despite the respective starts of the two teams, they were never THAT far away in relative talent. That doesn't mean that we just throw out he first month and a half of the season for both teams, though. Again, after accounting for injuries and personel changes, we need to look at the entire year equally. We also need to consider performances from prior years as well. All things equal, I'll obviously take the team performing better today but all things aren't equal right now. The Cubs are still the better team on paper. That guarantees them nothing in July but does help their odds. Finally, projections aren't predictions, unless you find a projection that says that A will beat team B 100% of the time, and you will never find that. I blame the sports talking heads, since they are obsessed with predictions. They can't say, 'The Cubs are 5:3 favorites over the Brewers.' They have to say, 'The Cubs are going to win it!' We all know that's not how sports work, especially in baseball. If it was, no one would even watch. When the Brewers were 4 games under .500 two months ago, it goes without saying that the odds were low of them having the best record in the Nl for the next 2 months. Well, the improbable has happened. That uncertainty is what makes baseball fun, no? But that doesn't prove the projections wrong. Projections don't claim that improbable thing will never happn. Quite the opposite. Projections can change quickly, and I never pretended otherwise in this thread. Very early I said something like, '... unless the Brewers can get within 2 or 3 games...' Well, guess what?

Teams are hot into they aren't . They are cold until they aren't . Vegas doesn't care about hot streaks and neither do I.

Again, how are the Cubs the favorites? Look at the remaining schedule for both teams. This is what it was on July 15th: http://forum.brewerfan.net/search.php?keywords=391781/t/2nd-Half-Schedule-Strength-.html I'm sorry but way too much is made of schedule differences. When you do the math, it usually works out to a very small difference. I don't think think most people realize that. I'm not sure about that. It's hard to label a team a clear favorite when the Brewers have outplayed them by +58 run differential to +33 since the middle of May and hopefully that gets wider tonight. The point is to be the best team overall. Not the best team from whatever point makes the Brewers look the best. That's just manipulating numbers to get a desired result. Fans are just infatuated with "what have you done for me lately". That's just not a way to estimate the collective talent of a team. We aren't even at the point of the season where 2008 stats are even as important as the previous two years, in terms of projecting future performance. I'm sure everyone thinks that it's silly but it's a fact. Of course, it's the same people who said the Brewers were obviously done when they were 4 games under, because they obviously didn't have what it takes. Momentum!!! Ask any objective observer that knows that they are talking about and they would say that the Cubs are probably still the better team. Instead of using a subjective term like 'clear", I'll just say that the Cubs might still be 5:3 favorites to win the division over the Brewers. Of course, they were probably 10:1 favorites 2 months ago, so there's obviously a lot of volitivity(sp) in these odds. It's just a best guess. Nothing more. These numbers could look silly different in 8 days, good or bad.

Career .314 OBP. Sign me up!

Obviously, I've changed my tune to some degree since I started this thread. It's important to note, however, that by any objective measure, the Cubs are still the clear favorites for the division. they were projected to be better going into the season and they have been better so far. before today's games, BP still has them as the clear favorites to win the division: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_oddspec.php That said, WOW. Things have certainly changed. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Fun times, for certain. I'd also like to point out that very early in this thread I said: Recognize that it's a long shot to hit the hand but the pot odds justifies staying in the hand? That's an analogy I might be able to get behind. There MAY have been some chinks in my rough exterior.

BTW, that homer by Bill gives us 18 straight games w/ a HR. Hopefully the streak can continue tomorrow! This has to be Bill Schroeders' worst nightmare.

These last couple of games have been crazy. Has our closer's arm fallen off yet or will he be available?

Bowden just boldly leapt to the top of the dumbest GM standings. He's always been so darn clueless.

dea.12 PAs. What is that? 3 starts? Yost is supposed to consider that while filling out his lineup? I don't have a problem with Durham getting 4-5 starts a month at 2B but I wouldn't do it the day after Weeks had one of his better offensive days in awhile. As for Hall/Branyan, I have no

Considering that the overwelming consensus is that Durham has worse defense, you might want to look harder. And why is it relevant how Weeks gets on base? OBP is OBP. I'd take a HBP/BB heavy OBP over a BA one, anyway. It's a more stable skill set.

Sheethead, you continue to amaze me with your comennts. How dare Weeks make an out with runners on! And swinging on the first pitch no less! Completely negates a 3 run HR? Do YOU even belive that? You win some kind of bf.net award, for sure.

I bet my life savings on 00 and won, so it was a good decision. Do you make life decisions based that kind of analysis?

Why do people continue to try and analyze Yost's throw away comments? He's (clumsely) trying to defend Weeks, like he defends everyone. It's the same thing every time: Tom H. ties to get Yost to throw a struggling player under the bus. Yost defends the player. Tom writes an article pointing out Yost's silly defense. Those articles practically write themselves.

Spare me the psychoanalysis. This has nothing to do with Yost. I haven't ruled out the possibility that Dave Bush should be expected to struggle on the road going forward. I just find it unlikely. He has publi caly stated that he has no explanation for it, for whatever that's worth. I guess that he could be conceeling that he regurely has panic attacks on the road. I don't know. I don't blame anyone for seeing Bush's splits and thinking it's obvious that there's an issue. It looks quite convincing. I've just seen too many odd splits that turned out to be nothing to be convinced just yet, especially with no rational explanation for it.