Once again, we did better than the experts, although not as overwhelmingly as last season. This is an analysis of the 1999 predictions using the Markov process model. Unfortunately, this year we did not do as well as last year. However, we did outperform the "experts" overall. However, we still did better than the Star Ledger's predictions. (We were closer to number of wins per team) We also did better than Street and Smith's Baseball in terms of predict what place teams would finish in, although Street and Smith picked more playoff teams. We also had 7 teams within one win of exact vs. 3 for the Star Ledger. We did slightly better in picking placement of teams than Yahoo Sportsline (but they picked more playoff teams). The Sporting News did slightly better than us at predicting placement. Note: The halves in the error column are to adjust for teams that did not play exactly 162 games. (Even with exact probabilities for individual games, one can expect to be off by: 2 * sqrt(162/(4*2 pi)) ~ 5 games) Analysis of our results: National League _______________ True result Our prediction Error NL East Atlanta 103 59 Atlanta 103 59 0 NY Mets 97 66 NY Mets 91 71 5.5 Philadelphia 77 85 Philadelphia 71 91 6 Montreal 68 94 Montreal 67 95 1 Florida 64 98 Florida 52 110 12 Analysis: By far, the best division. Exact for the Braves and only one game off for the Phils. The order is exactly right. Woefully underestimated the Marlins but still called them in last place. Average error 4.9 games per team. NL Central Astros 97 65 Astros 96 66 1 Reds 96 67 Reds 83 79 12.5 Pirates 78 83 Pirates 70 92 8.5 Cards 75 86 Cards 94 68 18.5 Brewers 74 87 Brewers 70 92 4.5 Cubs 67 95 Cubs 84 78 17 Analysis: My order was pretty far off: Astros Reds Pirates Cards Brewers Cubs Astros Cards Cubs Reds Brewers Pirates i.e., 4 teams were in the wrong place. Astros within one game and Brewers 4 off. The rest were worse with an average error of 10 1/3 games per team. Particularly awful were the Cubs and Cards which I predicted would do much better. NL West Diamondbacks 100 62 Diamondbacks 83 79 17 Giants 86 76 Giants 86 76 0 Dodgers 92 70 Dodgers 77 85 15 Padres 74 88 Padres 79 83 5 Rockies 72 90 Rockies 81 81 9 True order: Diamondbacks Giants Dodgers Padres Rockies My order: Dodgers Giants Diamondbacks Rockies Padres Only the Giants were in the correct spot and I got their number of wins exactly right. Unfortunately, the D'backs were much better than the 83 wins I predicted and the Dodgers were much worse than everyone thought they would be. Here I was off by an average of 9.2 wins per team. For the National League, the error is 8.3 wins per team or 5.1 percent. Amercan League ______________ True result Our prediction Error AL East NY Yankees 98 64 NY Yankees 108 54 10 Red Sox 94 68 Red Sox 88 74 6 Blue Jays 84 78 Blue Jays 85 77 1 Orioles 78 84 Orioles 89 73 11 Tampa Bay 69 93 Tampa Bay 69 93 0 Here, only the Orioles were a problem in terms of where the teams placed. I had the Orioles in second, rather than fourth. The Blue Jays and Devil Rays were on the money, the Red Sox okay and the Yankees were 11 games worse than predicted but still in first place. Average error 5.6 wins per team. AL Central Indians 97 65 Indians 94 68 3 White Sox 75 86 White Sox 70 92 5.5 Tigers 69 92 Tigers 74 88 4.5 Royals 64 97 Royals 64 98 0.5 Twins 63 97 Twins 50 112 14 Here, the White Sox and Tigers were reversed: Average error per team 5.5 wins. The results for each team are really quite good, except for the Twins, who came in last and were the worst team in baseball, as predicted, but were not as bad as I thought they would be. AL West Texas 95 73 Texas 89 73 6 Athletics 87 90 Athletics 72 90 15 Mariners 79 67 Mariners 95 67 16 Angels 70 81 Angels 81 81 9 I really blew it on this division. Actually, I got just about the correct number of wins, just in each case, for the wrong team. Every team was out of order and the average error per team was 11.5 wins. True: Texas Oakland Seattle Angels Mine: Seattle Texas Angels Oakland For the American League, the average error was 7.25 wins, or 4.4 percent. For all teams the average error was 7.8 wins. Comparison with the experts: ____________________________ The Sporting News and Street and Smith's Baseball predicted order of finish in each division. Their error in how out of place by division is: S&S Error My Error Star-Ledger Sporting News Yahoo NL East 0 0 2 0 0 NL Central 10 10 8 4 6 NL West 10 6 10 10 8 AL East 4 4 4 4 4 AL Central 2 2 2 4 2 AL West 4 6 6 6 6 Total 30 28 32 28 26 So my predictions were slightly better than Street and Smith's and better than the Star-Ledger by this measure. We tied Sporting News and Yahoo Sportsline was better than mine. In terms of teams making the playoffs: I picked Atlanta, Houston, Cleveland, Yankees and Texas to tie for a wild card berth (for 4 1/2 correct). Street and Smith picked Atlanta, Houston, Cleveland, Yankees, Texas and the Mets (for 6 correct playoff teams). For the playoffs, they picked: Atlanta, Mets, Yankees and Cleveland (for 4 correct) The Star-Ledger: They predicted each teams' number of wins, as I did. Star Ledger errors in wins: Atlanta 6 NY Mets 4.5 Philadelphia 1 Montreal 8 Florida 2 Astros 14 Reds 7.5 Pirates 5.5 Cards 6.5 Brewers 9.5 Cubs 14 Diamondbacks 19 Giants 15 Dodgers 24 Padres 2 Rockies 15 Average NL error: 9.6 wins per team NY Yankees 3 Red Sox 13 Blue Jays 3 Orioles 12 Tampa Bay 2 Indians 2 White Sox 0.5 Tigers 7.5 Royals 5.5 Twins 3 Texas 11 Athletics 17 Mariners 1 Angels 17 Average AL error: 7.0 wins per team Overall error 8.37 wins per team for the Star Ledger vs. 7.8 for me. Yahoo predicted an order 1-30 for all the teams, comparing with my error in placing 30 teams. On average, I was off by 4 19/30 per team and Yahoo Sportline (4/5/99) was off by slightly more 4 23/30 per team. Yahoo has 6 of the playoff teams -- Yanks, Indians, Braves, Mets, Astros and Texas.