UPDATE:  The daily prediction, using the most current relative statistics for the competing teams, based on their performance until this point in the season and their relative schedule strength vs. the other competing teams in their league, can now be seen here:  http://www.mackonsports.com/blog/mlb-wild-card/

OK – it has been forever since I posted anything.  I apologize for the inconvenience if my revenue-generating life does not coincide with your desire to read my half-baked theories.

I will now predict the AL and NL wildcard winners.  I am going to do so with something crazy and completely out of place in any sports argument – facts and logic.  I am going to look at the remaining schedules of the teams competing for the wildcard in each league.  At this point in the season, wins and losses are worth roughly 0.004 percentage points, in terms of winning percentage, and they are going to decrease slightly with each passing day.

That kind of makes the math pretty easy – if you are competing against a team with a better record, you will need to overcome at least half of the difference, to the tune of 0.002 in the winning percentage for each game you are behind.  We then coupling this simple math with some that is even simpler – what is the weighted average of the winning percentage of the teams you have left to play in 2009?  If you don’t know what a weighted average is, look it up.  If you have a more difficult schedule than a team you are chasing, you will probably also have to make up at least half of that difference as well.

Later today, I am going to set up a page where you can see the current prediction on a daily basis.  For right now, we are just going to look at the predictions through the games of last night, August 30, 2009.

American League

Boston (Wild Card)

Texas (4.5 GB)

Tampa Bay (9.5 GB)

Seattle (12 GB)

 

National League

Colorado (Wild Card)

Atlanta (1.5 GB)

San Francisco (2 GB)

Florida (3.5 GB)

Chicago (4.5 GB)

 

I am anxious to see if the statistics hold up over the course of the next 30+ games.  On the surface, you would kind of expect this kind of performance – Boston running away with the AL Wildcard and a dogfight up until perhaps the last weekend in the NL.

Speaking of the last weekend – here are the series that weekend that have the potential to have an impact…in order of the probability that they will matter to the playoff picture.

Rockies-Dodgers.  Tough last series for the predicted Wildcard winner.

Giants-Padres.  These first two are very intriguing.  Could you imaging San Fran being within a couple of games of Colorado, looking at San Diego, knowing that Colorado had the Dodgers to contend with?  In Dodger Stadium with that crowd gearing up for the playoffs?

Braves-Nationals.  If the Braves can be close going in, there should be 3 guaranteed victories here.

Rangers-Mariners.  Both of these teams should be well-eliminated by this time, but if one or both of them is close to Boston, it could be interesting…except for:

Red Sox-Indians.  Just what the other AL Wildcard hopefuls need.  By the way, Boston has the easiest schedule of any potential AL Wildcard team.

Yankees-Rays. If we learned anything from The Matt Garza Game last October, we learned to never count out the Rays.  This might also be their last year before they can only pay one out of every 3 of their young superstars…they could be in “now or never” mode and how can you root against Joe Maddon?

UPDATE:  The daily prediction, using the most current relative statistics for the competing teams, based on their performance until this point in the season and their relative schedule strength vs. the other competing teams in their league, can now be seen here:  http://www.mackonsports.com/blog/mlb-wild-card/

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