Current odds to win the 2015 World Series

Bill James tried to come up with a postseason success "secret formula", as did baseball prospectus. The idea was to look at decades of postseason teams and see which types of teams won more often when they got to the postseason. Did teams with equal slugging percentages, but one that relied more on power than batting average, for example, have greater success. Those efforts failed to predict subsequent seasons, meaning past postseason performance isn't predictive of future. The biggest thumb on the scales is probably overall team strength but even that isn't enough to move the needle much. Put it this way, it isn't a pure crapshoot but it's close enough to one that even the best analysts have so far failed to identify the factors that provide a clear predictive edge. And when one is making predictions in December as I am it's all the more foolish to deviate from the 1/8 and 1/16 products. The closer you get to the postseason the more reliable such deviations become. Even those are relatively small though.

You still haven't shown your system or how it works. Bill James did. Why are you so reluctant to describe your system and show how it works? Someone who actually has a predictions system and believes in it would do so.

So, just pick a team and show how you came to your analysis of it with your system. You don't have to do it tonight. We all have other things to do. Just do it in the next few days.

If zips predicts 88 for a team, Pecota says 86, and Steamer predicts 80 wins the average prediction is 254/3, or 84.667 wins. That's not an arbitrary sum. Now, if I think equally of all of those systems, then that's a decent prediction (just as Nate Silver would never rely on one poll to predict an election, but instead takes an aggregate of all the polls, which he has proven has a much better track record). But I make adjustments or assign a greater "weight" if I think that ZIPS is a little better than the others. One can quibble with the weighting, but the result isn't arbitrary in the slightest. A prediction can be wrong without being "arbitrary", and a prediction can turn out to be right even if arrived at with shoddy reasoning.

I repeat again. You still haven't shown your system or how it works.

So, just pick a team and show how you came to your analysis of it with your system. You don't have to do it tonight. Just do it in the next few days. Until you show your own system and how it works, nobody has any reason to believe your system isn't arbitrary. So, show your system at work and show it isn't.

Happy New Years, and I look forward to your displaying your system in action.

Actually read the above. It'll come to you in an epiphany in the middle of the night. It's all there buckaroo, the world is yours for the taking.

All that's there is you have showed nothing and have no ability to show your now questionable system. Oh yeah, you also actually said "buckaroo"...

I have to go enjoy New Year's Eve. If you ever apply your system to one team and analyze it, I'll believe you. At this point, your system is just arbitrary speculation.

Lets just speculate here that TN meant to say in his own valued opinion, and get back to what the thread was meant to be, our unbiased, or, as a baseball fan, biased predictions! Three sources were tossed out, said basically, in his opinion that he roughly averaged them out, and then tossed in some % for wild card, and playoff teams, it doesn't matter if it makes sense to anyone but him. Its spelled out how he opinionated his list. That's it, plain and simple. There is an old saying bout opinions and well, you know.. It just seems some have more opinions than others.

Sick of the BS on the boards. This is not Fn rocket science, we do this for fun. Not for an intellectual beat down every time we post something from one individual, and yes, if the shoe fits... You want to hear that your smarter, richer, better SOM manager than me, fine, your the Fn greatest person these boards have ever seen. Do me a favor and run for president and fix this so totally broken world we live in. Also, if the shoe fits.. Do NOT, bother to reply to this, I said once before months ago, that I will not debate you, I didn't then and I wont again. And I don't bother blocking you, I just sit here drinking my coffee, thinking how much your life must be better than mine, and smile on the inside.. or is the outside...

And go ahead SOM, suspend me, I dare you. I will take my approx. $1000 I spent last year either in this online version, and/or the real C&D game that I am playing right at this moment and put it towards vacation or something...

Back to the thread...

This simple answer is watch Back to the Future! 2015 Chicago Cubs baby!!

They made some tremendous moves in the offseason, starting with the Maddon hiring. At the current moment, there is only one team with more regular season wins since 2007 than the Tampa Bay Rays, and that's the St Louis Cardinals... Maddon can do so much with so little. Does this very first version of the Maddon Cubs have near what any of those Rays teams had? I don't think so, not yet, HUGE potential though. I can see the Cubs winning during Maddons tenure with the team, just not the first year.

Boston, and the Yankees can never be counted out this early. Mariners making lots of moves, with, young home-grown talent also. That is something Tampa never did, was spend money on FA's. Speaking of Tampa Bay, can I take the under please? Oh, whats that, the under is 62 wins, yup, I ll still take the under. Hell, I de like to lay 10 bucks on this Tampa team being the worst team in the modern era, not just one of them, THE worst team. KC, you too, have sold your sole (not misspelled, that's all KC can afford, is used up old beaten shoes), I see this KC team not even stuck in the mire of mediocrity, I see them 70 wins max.

Guess I should lay my money and predictions out there...

I ll take the field of 24 over the favorites.

Such unhappiness in such happy times, Micheal.

That's a lot of hostility on this New Year's Day over nothing. Teamnasty claimed to have a non-arbitrary system--not just an opinion--and I asked if he could show what the system is and how it works; he never did. So, my request was reasonable; there is no "debate" about that.

Considering your mistaken claims about TN showing his system, I still am looking forward to his showing his system and giving an example how it works.

So, take a breath and start enjoying your holidays. It would be nice if we could start this New Years with cordiality.

Can I just pick the AL Central? That division snuck up on everyone. 4 teams with a chance to win 90 and Twins have a shot at 80, I am a Giants fan but the signing of McGahee at 3B was sad. They could have stayed in house with Arias or Duffy and got the 4 homers in 620 at bats that McGahee brings. I still think they should put Posey there. Either that or you have to trade Belt in couple years or move him or Posey to left to get him out of the squat. Odd numbered year so I will take AL Central. They may have 3 teams in playoffs.

Yeah MG, Mr. "your system is arbitrary" probably forgets that he extolled not counting hit chances or using precise rating guides so he could mystically enjoy "interpreting' a card instead. A loser's lament, a built in excuse for failing in expert league's like the Player's Championship. When his money was on the table instead of his mouth, he failed big time.

I think the Cubs are a year away but are certainly improved enough to compete for the 2nd wild card spot. By 2016, watch out, they will likely enter a 3-5 year period where they and the Dodgers (and maybe Nats) absolutely terrorize the National league. The AL East is the hardest division to predict of all; all 5 rosters are talented without being dominant. Gun to head now, I think the Yankees get shut out of yet another postseason (although on a cheaper budget, with a younger team building for future) while the Red Sox prevail. But the level of certainty there is minimal.