Astros playoff odds: Past the quarter pole

by Stephen Higdon on May 29, 2009 4:00 AM CDT

It's no secret, the Astros have been pretty, pretty dismal as of late. Having dropped 8 of their last ten and previous seven straight, in my delerious misery I began to wonder if it was time for another ridiculously earlier check in on what the various models have to say about the Astros playoff odds.

We last did this on May 11, so there have been seventeen days and fourteen more games for the Astros to improve or diminish their odds at sniffing legitimate October baseball in 2009. What I found was depressing to say the least.

Here are the odds as they stand, which doesn't account for yesterday's action:

Model	Odds
BPro Unadjusted	2.25087%
BPro Schedule Adjusted	2.21333%
BPro PECOTA ADJUSTED	.20537%
Cool Standings	1.4%
SCS Weighted	.4%
SCS 50/50	5.5%

These are not good odds, and what I think is even more impressive, is the following chart, which is the change in each model during those fourteen games:

Model	Delta
BPro Unadjusted	-4.61218%
BPro Schedule Adjusted	2.21333%
BPro PECOTA ADJUSTED	-.69186%
Cool Standings	-6.3%
SCS Weighted	-13%
SCS 50/50	-1.3%

For those of you who are perplexed by the fact that the schedule adjusted BPro report is positive, it's because the Astros had a 0% chance on May 11th. This skid hasn't wrecked the season, and obviously the 18-27 start hasn't either, but something got to give because the odds really plummeted fast in fourteen games. While health and underperformance have hampered the Astros thus far, the deeper the hole we keep digging, the harder it will be for that second half surge we all are hoping for/expect can do to make this team meaningful once fall starts to approach.

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Amen, brother

The data and subjective demoralization coincide on the Astros expectations.

but I still hold out hope (and I still buy lottery tickets)

Astros fan for life

by Joe in Birmingham on May 29, 2009 9:46 AM CDT reply actions

Well...

not to get all Drayton McLane, but wasn’t it the WS year that we started 15-30? or was that 2004. Maybe we should get the Chronicle to run another tombstone.

I certainly don’t think we have the same tools we had back then, particularly on the pitching side, but I’m confident they won’t continue in their current downward spiral. We knew this recent stretch would be tough, and we know that with 10 games coming up against Pittsburg and Colorado in the next 10 days, they have a bit of an opportunity to claw back towards .500.

If the post a few weeks ago about this being a season defining stretch was correct, though, we certainly don’t have a lot to look forward to. I’ll throw one more blindly optimistic sidebar out there, and that’s that the Cards won their last World Series having had three losing streaks of 8 or more during the regular season.

by littlevisigoth on May 29, 2009 10:14 AM CDT reply actions

2005

With Roger, Andy, and Roy.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by Stephen Higdon on May 29, 2009 12:05 PM CDT up reply actions

Don’t bring up that year… One more win in Atlanta, and we’d have made it in, not them. The Cards damn near choked it up, and got hot in the right place.

"He walked 18."
"New league record!"
"Struck out 18."
"Another new league record! In addition he hit the sportswriter, the public address announcer, the bull mascot twice...also new league records! But, Joe, this guy's got some serious shit."

by Elephande on May 29, 2009 8:28 PM CDT up reply actions

Just for laughs

I have a little mathematical model that projects the occurrence of “Mathematical Elimination Night” which I claim should be a big promotion opportunity for the Astros – they could give away black t-shirts, boxes of Kleenex (for the tears), and free beer (will never happen). To honor the offense there would, of course, be no fireworks.

This model assesses the relationship of the Astros to all the potential playoff teams with regard to win (or loss) rates and projects the Astros game after which they will be mathematically out of the playoffs. It currently sees the Astros going down for the count at Milwaukee on September 18th – before the current “streak” it was forecasting the home game against St. Louis on September 21st.

This is a bit better than it looked this time last year, and of course, another miracle turnaround will change the date for the better or make the date too close to call. Let’s hope that happens. Meanwhile, if you’re a gambler, you could offer some season ticket holder a lowball price for his late September tickets – kinda’ like going short in the market.

It takes more than pitching to win a pennant, but not much!

by bwhite2323 on May 29, 2009 2:58 PM CDT reply actions

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