Which would you rather be?

[7teen]

Was thinking about this today. Would you rather be a perennial wild card team that is not good enough to win a Landis but make the post season. You may miss out from time to time but make it 4 out of 5 times but aren’t the best team and probably won’t win the Landis.

Or

Be a rebuilding team, have to go through 4-5 years of losing but have a top ranked farm system because you’ve finished at the bottom for many years but have future Landis expectations.

In other words, would you rather be Madison or Edmonton at this point?

[bpbrooksy]

As an Edmonton, I'd rather be an Edmonton.

However, there's also the possibility that your rebuilt organization's ceiling winds up being "perennial Wild Card winner."

[7teen]

I ask because I’m not so sure I wouldn’t rather be you as well.

You get to a point as a post season team in which you can’t do a lot to get over the hump. Either you don’t have trade chips or you get against the cap. Then you realize you’re spinning your wheels going nowhere and you have no where to go but down. You hope the random playoff generator goes In Your favor but that’s about it.

[RonCo]

I picked Edmonton, but only because I think it's possibly easier to get a different option with them--I want to be a Vegas.

[RonCo]

I ask because I’m not so sure I wouldn’t rather be you as well.

You get to a point as a post season team in which you can’t do a lot to get over the hump. Either you don’t have trade chips or you get against the cap. Then you realize you’re spinning your wheels going nowhere and you have no where to go but down. You hope the random playoff generator goes In Your favor but that’s about it.

The ability to go on a 20+ year run where you're the favorite to win the division pretty much every season is a specific skillset...but can obviously be done. Step one is to divest yourself of the entier concept of a "window."

The problem with this, of course, is that in process it can completely implode and you're suddenly back at square one.

[Ted]

I ask because I’m not so sure I wouldn’t rather be you as well.

You get to a point as a post season team in which you can’t do a lot to get over the hump. Either you don’t have trade chips or you get against the cap. Then you realize you’re spinning your wheels going nowhere and you have no where to go but down. You hope the random playoff generator goes In Your favor but that’s about it.

The ability to go on a 20+ year run where you're the favorite to win the division pretty much every season is a specific skillset...but can obviously be done. Step one is to divest yourself of the entier concept of a "window."

The problem with this, of course, is that in process it can completely implode and you're suddenly back at square one.

This is what I agree with. If you're asking if I'd rather be Edmonton or a maybe wild card team that only makes it half the time, I'd take the rebuilder. But if your'e asking me if I can be in the playoffs, even as a wild card, 5 out of 6 seasons, I'll take the playoffs. The idea of a World Series contender versus "just a playoff team" is bunk. Being the best team barely increases your chance of winning it all over the wild card team. Ask Recte.

[RonCo]

Being the best team barely increases your chance of winning it all over the wild card team. Ask Recte.[/quote]

That's true or not true, depending on what you mean by "barely."

The best team will win about 25% of the time (simplifying greatly). A "playoff team" will win maybe 8% of the time. So being the best gives you three times the chance (a 300% increase in odds), but it's still a small enough number that there's no real guarantee.

[RonCo]

One way you can tell that's about right is to note that Vegas odds on the best teams winningthe series are almost always in the range of 3:1 or 4:1... sometimes, but rarelyas high as 2:1.

[Ted]

Being the best team barely increases your chance of winning it all over the wild card team. Ask Recte.

That's true or not true, depending on what you mean by "barely."

The best team will win about 25% of the time (simplifying greatly). A "playoff team" will win maybe 8% of the time. So being the best gives you three times the chance (a 300% increase in odds), but it's still a small enough number that there's no real guarantee.

Hmm, where are you getting that 25%? I don't remember it being that high.

Also, lets say the rebuilder is in the playoffs as the best team half the time (this is probably overstating it) and the perennial wild card is in the playoffs five out of six years.

25% and in the playoffs 50% of the time = 12.5% yearly.
8% and in the playoffs 83% of the time - 6.67 %.

So twice as good of odds (with a 25% to 8% split and I remember it being more like 20 to 10) and you have to suck in half your years. ON top of that, the rebuilder/window teams are probably only the best team 3 out of the six years in their "window". Let's adjust for that

25% for 3 years, and maybe 15% for three, not in the playoffs for six = now 10% yearly and you have to suck for half your existence.

I'll still take the perennial playoff team, especially given that team will likely be better than a bare wild card team.

[Ted]

One way you can tell that's about right is to note that Vegas odds on the best teams winningthe series are almost always in the range of 3:1 or 4:1... sometimes, but rarely as high as 2:1.

I'll admit this is something I don't know as much about, but are the Vegas odds a good measurement of this? Aren't they geared to actually represent something actually off the true odds to slightly favor the house over betting tendencies? The odds on theoretically identical first place teams from New York and say Minnesota should be fairly different.

[Ted]

The other part of this is that what holds true for MLB does not in the Brewster. I'll update this for fun, but last I checked in the Brewster, the best team actually did only have a marginally better shot at a title than the wild cards. We have had a different playoff structure and that is important. Also, after expansion we changed our playoff format so it may be different. I'll probably put something up on this soon.

[RonCo]

Vegas odds can often be used as a reasonable representation of the chances of actually winning. Those guys are staking cash on being right. And, of course, they take a percentage.

Our conversation above is simplifying things a lot. Structure of the playoffs makes a difference, for example...as does the true depth of talent in a league. In other words, "How much better is the best team from the rest?"

Current Vegas odds have the Astros and Dodgers at 5.5:1 or about 16%. Teams that are mostly being discussed in the wildcard mi are running about 20:1 (Capped by the Red Sox at 10:1 [10%] and Colorado at 50:1 [2%]). So, simplifying for general conversation, let's say that average playoff team then will be 20:1--expected to win about 5% of the time. That means Vegas thinks the best teams are three times more likley to win the series than the average playoff team (16% vs 5%). These numbers will adjust a bit as the season goes along, but are a little small because they include the chances that any team could win. Once you get to the point where the playoffs actually start, my full expectation is that the best teams will go of as at least 4:1 (20% chance to win) and probably 3:1 (25 % chance to win).

That's kind of basic chalk, anyway. There are situational specifics that will change things, of course.

----

And, regarding the conversation on "windows" ... realize that's what I predicated my view on. Edmonton has the best likelihood at present of being able to build to a team that competes for their division for 20+ seasons...which, as I've said a lot of times before, is the way I want to build Yellow Springs. I may totally screw up and have to go back to the basics, but my intention is to _always_ be among the top teams in the Frick.

[RonCo]

The other part of this is that what holds true for MLB does not in the Brewster. I'll update this for fun, but last I checked in the Brewster, the best team actually did only have a marginally better shot at a title than the wild cards. We have had a different playoff structure and that is important. Also, after expansion we changed our playoff format so it may be different. I'll probably put something up on this soon.

Yeah....it's all good.

As a rule, the best teams in each league wind up having very similar odds to win. As will the second best teams, and down the line. A lot of that has to do with basic math and, yes, the structure of the playoffs.

[RonCo]

Just looking at the last ten BBA seasons:

- 8 of 10 Landis winners won their division (80%)
- 3 of those were teams who had the most wins in their league (30%)

So that quick take says the best team in a BBA league has won 30% of the time, and that non-division winners (which is a field bet ... you have to share that 20% among multiple teams) have won only 20%. Of note, one of those was Louisville, who came in _third_ in the Heartland, but it took 94 wins to do that...so one could say that space-time continuum has warped a little in the Heartland for now.

These numbers are pretty much perfectly in line with my view on how the odds of winning go once you've made the show.

[Ted]

That's interesting. I'm almost certain the last time I looked at this (which, importantly was before expansion) it looked a lot different. It will be fun to go through this again. Always fun to find out I've been looking at something wrong.

I think a lot of it comes down to how you define the "best team" and the "playoff team" as neither of those hypothetical teams exist as that entity every year. Also, I think this assumes you cn rebuild and make the Astros. If I knew I could do that, sure, why not? But I'd bet just as many full rebuilds don't even win the division more than once as the number that are the "best team" for a 4-5 year stretch.

Anyway, we're probably debating semantics at this point, as both of use have repeatedly stated we prefer to never full rebuild.

[Ted]

I am a bit more interested in the Vegas odds question. I realize they have to be close to the true odds because they are interested in making money, but then why do betting lines move as more and more money is bet? This doesn't represent a change in what they actually think will happen right? It's a reflection of them trying to cover a possible loss if one side is more heavily bet. So I'm kind of skeptical of betting odds representing true likelihood at times. Am I looking at this wrong?

[usnspecialist]

I answered the question narrowly, and chose Edmonton over Madison. I'm not sure on the broader topic.

[RonCo]

I am a bit more interested in the Vegas odds question. I realize they have to be close to the true odds because they are interested in making money, but then why do betting lines move as more and more money is bet? This doesn't represent a change in what they actually think will happen right? It's a reflection of them trying to cover a possible loss if one side is more heavily bet. So I'm kind of skeptical of betting odds representing true likelihood at times. Am I looking at this wrong?

Well...I dunno.

That said, don't tell Stu, but I grew up in Louisville. That means I spent a lot of time at Churchill Downs and Louisville Downs and talking about odds and betting and whatnot. So this question of how much to weight the oddsmakers is literally a question I've grown up around. Bottom line, though, is that I think people should look at the oddsmakers as not saying what they think will happen but instead as a group of people who understand the wisdom of crowds better than most. Their goal isn't to say who will win. Their goal is to gauge public thought on the matter, and find the right math to make money consistently.

Why do they change odds when people suddenly bet a lot? Because the crowd has just told them something. And because if they don't listen to the crowd they are going to lose their shirt.

Why do they change the odds as time goes by? Because the world and the real odds (whatever they are) change over time.

Interesting aside: there's a fairly common "system" for betting race horses and actually winning. You don't win a lot, but you win a little, and if you do it well, you win consistently. STEP 1) Take the odds for a horse winning as true. STEP 2) Go look at the show and place pools (which are different money pools, so have different odds). Somewhere between 1 and 3 times a day, you'll find a race where the place and show bets are skewed, and you can put a bet down that will be a better return than you'd usually find. Of course, you can still lose. But like a poker player, your goal isn't to win every time you make a bet...your goal is to read the table and make that same bet every time, knowing that over 10 or 20 or whatever bets you're going to come out ahead.

Technically, that's what the house is doing with odds. All they really do is take the whole collection of money from all the betting people, remove 5 or 10% for themselves, and then pay out the rest based on who has bet what. They'll "lose" sometimes, but they'll win on the whole...and they'll do that because they're really just paying out a portion of the money they took in. The only way they do that for a long time, though, is to be good at setting the odds at at least something close to what people think are real.

That said, every person in the world can calculate the base odds of a 3-seed beating a 4-seed just based on history...then tweak things a little based on situational things. It's basic math to say that the best team in the post season will win roughly 25% of the time, give or take a little, as long as the playoff structure is something close to MLB, anyway...which it is. Close enough, anyway.

So...do you trust the oddsmakers to have "true" odds? Of course not. But they understand math and they understand probability pretty well, and their entire business model is based on using the collective thinking of betters to get pretty close.

[RonCo]

Realize that the way these things work, you're not really betting against the house. You're betting against all the other people who are betting.

Of course, they have to get the ball rolling, so they star somewhere.

Also: please not that I am not really versed in any way in exactly how oddsmakers look at betting pools and change odds.

[RonCo]

But I would definitely not look at the situation as if there's some skeezy expert guy off in a dark room telling the bookies what the real chances of a specific team winning are. Vegas doesn't care.