New Jersey mathematician calculates Yanks to win the World Series
At first blush this might seem a little off-topic for an EcoSpeak post, but it speaks to the inner math nerd inside.
A New Jersey mathematician has computed the probability of the Yankees and Phillies winning the world series as well as the most deserving candidates for the MVP and Cy Young awards.
Bruce Bukiet’s model gives the Yankees a 70 percent chance of winning the series with the most probable outcomes being a Yankees victory in six games (23 percent) The chance of them winning in five or seven games is 19 percent each. The Phillies have a 30 percent chance to defeat the Yankees, the model shows.
Bukiet’s method uses 2009 regular season stats for each player on each team’s roster. He then applies a mathematical model known as the Markov Process to predict the number of runs.
To determine MVP and Cy Young winners, he considers how many extra wins each player would have contributed to a team of otherwise all average players in his league based on his performance during the regular season.
For hitters, this involves quantifying each player’s offensive performance in the Markov model in comparison to others who play the same position. For pitchers, the player’s contribution is most heavily influenced by how well he has kept players off the basepaths over a large number of innings.
So now for the controversy.
In the American League in 2009, Minnesota Twins’ catcher Joe Mauer’s performance was worth more than six extra wins to an average team while the Yankees’ Derek Jeter comes in second with four wins.
In the National League, Bukiet, an associate dean of math at New Jersey Institute of Technology, says Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez deserves the MVP award, contributing 5.6 extra wins, while the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols is close behind at 5.4 extra wins.
For the Cy Young award, Bukiet says Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals deserves to win for contributing 5.1 extra wins. In the National League, the model shows that Tim Lincecum of the Giants ought to win, followed very closely by Chris Carpenter of the Cards.
EcoSpeak loves the Colorado Rockies, who got demolished by the Phillies, so I’d like to see them take the World Series. I also like Lincecum in the National League because he reminds me of my goofy, shaggy-haired nephew.
That’s my non-mathematical opinion. What’s yours? See any holes in Bukiet’s model?
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Kim McGuire joined the Post-Dispatch in August 2007. She has covered the environment for almost 10 years while working at The Denver Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In 2004, McGuire was named a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 
I really like the way he calculates the extra wins a MVP or CY candidate would have contributed to a team of otherwise all average players in his league. This lessens the biased stats for a player on a team more/less supportive for his position, for example, a pitcher whose team has a less than average offense and defense behind him (KC and SF). I like his picks for the AL, NL MVPs and CYs.
The hole in Bukiet’s model is that the game has to be played on the field, and that post season awards are determined by sportswriters not statistics.
Other than that, he’s right on.
The basic problem is that the model doesn’t reflect the situation that the players were in when they produced the results that they did. For instance, it doesn’t reflect Albert’s batting average and home runs per at bat when the bases were loaded, which were well above what he did over the rest of the season. It also doesn’t reflect the impact that player has on making his teammates better and defense is completely ignored. As previously stated, the game is played on the field and the evaluation of that play on the field is what needs to determine who is most deserving of the awards.
@ Ed Brucker:
Actually, WAR does take into account the situation in which each player’s performance is executed. The REAL problem is that you don’t bother to even attempt to understand that, and so you sound ignorant when you post. My recommendation would be to know what you are talking about before you comment. As for ”intangibles” such as ”making (their) teammates better”… that’s the staple argument of blowhard homers who want to argue for their own player in the face of a logical and factual headwind (i.e. Yankee fans for Jeter, et al).
Sadly, just like with the actual MVP award, defense counts for nothing.
@ Matt Vorwald
Chill out tough guy.
Stats applying to World Series won’t be reliable at all since the series consist of only few games.
Well that model sure looked on-point tonight.
Such a great article. I like mathematics very much. The guy is really genius and the way he calculates. Truly deserving person. I am really very much impress. Thanks.