Crude Playoff Odds--2021

These are very simple playoff odds, based on my crude rating system for teams using an equal mix of W%, EW% (based on R/RA), PW% (based on RC/RCA), and 69 games of .500. They account for home field advantage by assuming a .500 team wins 54.2% of home games (major league average 2006-2015). They assume that a team's inherent strength is constant from game-to-game. They do not generally account for any number of factors that you would actually want to account for if you were serious about this, including but not limited to injuries, the current construction of the team rather than the aggregate seasonal performance, pitching rotations, estimated true talent of the players, etc.

The CTRs that are fed in are:

Wildcard game odds (the least useful since the pitching matchups aren’t taken into account, and that matters most when there is just one game):

DS:

LCS:

World Series:

Everything combined:

If the Dodgers win the wildcard game, they become the World Series favorites at 19.9%, with the Giants falling to 19.0%; the Rays fall to 16.1%, so the Dodgers don't have a huge impact on the AL odds (the Dodgers are given a 32.6% to win the pennant should they win the wildcard game). If the Cardinals win, the Giants jump to 25.9% and the Rays to 17.6% (of course the Giants benefit greatly because they have an estimated 68% chance to beat the Cardinals in the NLDS but only 50% to beat the Dodgers). Ranging into the realm of the subjective, I personally favor Houston to win the AL pennant and think Milwaukee will benefit from concentrating innings in front-line pitchers (even sans Devin Williams) and from being on the opposite side of the bracket from the NL West.

I don't have the energy for a rant about what a preposterous proposition it is to make the Dodgers play the Cardinals, or about how the much-hyped four-way battle for the AL wildcard yesterday would never happen under Rob Manfred's desired system (or how if it did it would be between teams struggling to reach .500). The playoffs simultaneously manage to be one of the best and worst things about baseball, and every expansion will serve to enhance the latter.