In 1969, the year the Expos and Canada first joined the Major Leagues, the Amazin’ Mets shocked the baseball world by winning the World Series. In the Mets bullpen was Ontario native Ron Taylor, who recorded a save in Game Two. Since that victory, it has become incredibly difficult for a team carrying a native […]

Here are the probabilities of each team winning the World Series, after last night’s Philly win: WS% Tampa Bay .376 Philadelphia .624 Courtey of MLB Playoff Odds, who has also posted an Excel spreadsheet of the math required to turn game probabilities into Series probabilities. A very nice public service.

Starting the World Series for the Rays tonight is Scott Kazmir. He’s been ably covered already by our own Josh Kalk and by Harry Pavlidis at Cubs f/x, but I’ll throw in my two cents on his scouting report this morning with the biggest game of Kazmir’s life approaching tonight. Scott Kazmir doesn’t have a […]

Chone Smith takes a look back at the Moneyball draft, and finds some curious connections to the World Series. Guess who was drafted immediately before and after the A’s Nick Swisher?

Here are MLB Playoff Odds’ probabilities for the World Series, starting on Wednesday: WS% Tampa Bay .545 Philadelphia .455 With a note from Jamie: The offshore sportsbooks opened Tampa as a 58% favorite in the World Series. Most or all of the difference between that number and mine is due to Brett Myers; I’ve bet […]

If you’re anything like me (and if so, my condolences), something you’ve wistfully longed for is a comprehensive online database of minor league statistics—a minor league counterpart, if you will, to Sean Forman’s stupendous baseball-reference.com. Well, I have some bad news, and some good news. The bad news is, we don’t have it yet. But […]

The latest from MLB Playoff Odds: Lg% WS% Boston .467 .265 Tampa Bay .533 .290 Philadelphia .445 Jamie also adds this note: I edited the World Series numbers to reflect the greater advantage the sports betting market is placing on the AL entrant. I’m not sure anyone really knows how to measure the gap between […]

The Hardball Times was mentioned in the New York Times and San Diego Union-Tribune. Dan Rosenheck cited us in his discussion of the Brewers playoff run, taking figures from this CC Sabathia trade article. Also, we were cited in Tim Sullivan’s take on a possible Jake Peavy trade.

Tom Tango puts forth a good point about making sure to not pigeonhole all pitchers as either a starter or reliever when some vacillate between the two roles.

Despite Boston’s remarkable comeback last night, their probability of winning the series, let alone The Series, remains bleak (courtesy of MLB Playoff Odds): Lg% WS% Boston .235 .131 Tampa Bay .765 .399 Philadelphia 1.000 .470