What Do the Playoff Odds Look Like for Baseball's Best First-Half Teams?
On Tuesday night, the 2016 Major League Baseball All-Star game will take place, signaling that the first half of the season is in the books. As our own John Stolnis wrote yesterday, it's more of a symbolic first half, considering every team has played more than 81 games.
Regardless, teams have played enough games for the playoff picture to begin to take shape, which means it's worth checking-in on our projections.
Best Teams by nERD
The first table is a list of the top-10 teams in order of nERD, which is our signature statistic for evaluating performance. It is used on a team level to "represent the runs scored above or below a league-average team per game; in other words, it represents expected run differential against an average opponent." I chose the top 10 teams since that's how many clubs make the postseason each year.
| Team | Record | Playoffs | Division | Champs | nERD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago Cubs | 53-35 | 96.40% | 87.60% | 20.60% | 1.88 |
| Boston Red Sox | 49-38 | 68.20% | 31.20% | 7.80% | 1.28 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 51-40 | 79.60% | 20.70% | 8.40% | 1.13 |
| Washington Nationals | 54-36 | 93.90% | 83.40% | 11.80% | 1.11 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 46-42 | 42.30% | 10.00% | 3.10% | 1.11 |
| Cleveland Indians | 52-36 | 90.00% | 82.90% | 11.50% | 1.05 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 51-40 | 73.90% | 37.80% | 8.80% | 1.04 |
| San Francisco Giants | 57-33 | 97.40% | 79.30% | 10.00% | 0.85 |
| Seattle Mariners | 45-44 | 25.20% | 12.60% | 1.70% | 0.69 |
| New York Mets | 47-41 | 43.20% | 10.20% | 2.40% | 0.40 |
In addition to each team's nERD, their current record and percentages of making the playoffs, winning their division and winning the World Series are listed, as well.
Despite struggling as of late, the Chicago Cubs still own the best nERD. A surprising inclusion on this list are the St. Louis Cardinals -- who are just four games over .500 -- and their fifth-best nERD, although they still have the second-lowest odds of making the playoffs out of these 10 teams. That says more about the quality of the National League Central Division than it does anything negative about St. Louis.
Let's see what the list of top 10 teams looks like when sorting by the highest chances of making the playoffs.
Teams With the Best Odds of Making the Playoffs
| Team | Record | Playoffs | Division | Champs | nERD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Giants | 57-33 | 97.40% | 79.30% | 10.00% | 0.85 |
| Chicago Cubs | 53-35 | 96.40% | 87.60% | 20.60% | 1.88 |
| Washington Nationals | 54-36 | 93.90% | 83.40% | 11.80% | 1.11 |
| Cleveland Indians | 52-36 | 90.00% | 82.90% | 11.50% | 1.05 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 51-40 | 79.60% | 20.70% | 8.40% | 1.13 |
| Texas Rangers | 54-36 | 79.50% | 66.90% | 3.60% | -0.44 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 51-40 | 73.90% | 37.80% | 8.80% | 1.04 |
| Boston Red Sox | 49-38 | 68.20% | 31.20% | 7.80% | 1.28 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 51-36 | 65.70% | 29.30% | 4.30% | 0.36 |
| New York Mets | 47-41 | 43.20% | 10.20% | 2.40% | 0.40 |
The San Francisco Giants -- and their best record in baseball -- top this list, which comes as no surprise.
There are two newcomers to the list, however, the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles. Despite having the 21st-ranked nERD at -0.44, the Rangers have the sixth-best chance of making the playoffs thanks to their 54-36 record. The Orioles were just outside the top 10 in nERD, ranking 11th, and own the ninth-best chance of playing October baseball.
These two teams took the place of the aforementioned Cardinals -- who have the 11th-best odds of reaching the postseason -- and the Seattle Mariners. Seattle is just one game over .500 and is right in the middle of the pack with their playoff odds, coming in with the 15th highest percentage.
In order to put these rankings into perspective, I found the average number of wins by a playoff team from 2012 through 2015, choosing 2012 since that was the first season the playoff format was expanded to include a second wild card team.
The average number of wins came out to 92.9, so let's say 93 wins is the magic number to secure a playoff spot.
This next table is a combination of the teams above based on the order of best odds of making the playoffs. However, this time I included the record they need to post in the second half in order to reach 93 wins, and what that winning percentage looks like.
| Team | Needed Win/Loss Record | Winning Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Giants | 36-36 | 0.500 |
| Chicago Cubs | 40-34 | 0.540 |
| Washington Nationals | 39-33 | 0.542 |
| Cleveland Indians | 41-33 | 0.554 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 42-29 | 0.592 |
| Texas Rangers | 39-33 | 0.542 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 42-29 | 0.592 |
| Boston Red Sox | 44-31 | 0.587 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 42-33 | 0.560 |
| New York Mets | 46-28 | 0.622 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 47-27 | 0.635 |
| Seattle Mariners | 48-25 | 0.658 |
As you can see, the winning percentage needed to reach 93 wins increases almost perfectly with our projected playoff odds. For reference, only five teams (all of the division leaders except the Orioles) currently have a winning percentage greater than .587, which is not a good sign for teams in the bottom half of this table.
Is it worth putting any weight into this information, though? There's still an entire other "half" of a season to play, and anything can happen, right?
Sure. We've seen collapses happen before -- the Boston Red Sox went 7-20 in September during the 2011 season and missed the playoffs -- but let's see what the numbers say.
Since 2012, 28 of the 40 teams that held a playoff spot after the first half of season went on to make the playoffs that year. That comes to exactly 70%. It's not a huge sample size -- just four seasons -- but it's also what we have to go on since looking at data prior to the current playoff format doesn't seem as relevant. It's also nothing to scoff at, either, as 70% is high enough to become fairly predictive.
It may not seem like the playoff picture is already set in stone, but the numbers suggest that teams currently in possession of a playoff spot are likely to keep it. It's almost like those early season games in April actually matter.
