2016 World Series Projection, October 3

Chicago over Boston

Wildcard Round
BAL 0-0 TOR
SF 0-0 NYM

Team	Strength	LDS	LCS	WS	Win
CHC	0.6682	100.00	72.16	49.60	35.33
BOS	0.6084	100.00	58.36	39.36	18.31
WAS	0.6018	100.00	58.08	24.50	13.97
CLE	0.5648	100.00	41.64	24.28	9.06
TOR	0.5609	54.25	32.78	14.25	5.21
LAD	0.5596	100.00	41.92	14.10	6.74
SF	0.5583	51.92	15.20	6.73	3.20
NYM	0.5392	48.08	12.64	5.08	2.20
BAL	0.5186	45.75	24.05	8.33	2.38
TEX	0.5049	100.00	43.17	13.79	3.61

I definitely started taking Cardinals playoff appearances for granted, as I wasn't really the least bit worried about them making a wildcard spot until they were down 3-0 in the second to last game of the season. Part of that is because we resigned ourselves to losing the division long ago due to the Cubs amazing success this year, but also because the playoffs have been a given since 2011. So for the next month I'll turn my attention to the 10 teams that made it. The Cubs have a fairly large chance out of the gate, nearly 50% likely to win the NL and 35% likely to win the World Series. It's so high I had to double-check my software and make sure I didn't have something hanging around from last year, like having one or more of their series with some games already marked as wins for them.

I should point out that Texas, the #1 seed in the AL, is the weakest playoff team by my metric, essentially Runs Scored over Runs Allowed.

I'll also throw in the usual caveats, that I don't take home field into account, nor that day's starting pitcher, so it's possible the wildcard teams will have a rougher time making the LCS than I show, having burned their #1 starter in the opening game. I plan to add in home field for next year, and hopefully get my NHL and MLB software to be the same code, just configured differently.