FanGraphs Now Featuring coolstandings.com Playoff Odds

I’m pleased to announce that earlier this year, coolstandings.com joined the FanGraphs family and we’ve now integrated their playoff odds into FanGraphs, with some additional features available here on our site as well.

I’ve always been an admirer of the work Greg Agami and Sean Walsh did at coolstandings.com, and we couldn’t be more pleased to have their product as a part of FanGraphs. And we’re excited about using some of the data available on FanGraphs to make the forecasts even better.

There are currently three different ways we simulate the season to generate the playoff odds:

FanGraphs Projections Mode – This mode uses the combination of Steamer and ZiPS projections, along with the updated FanGraphs Depth Charts, to calculate the expected winning percentage of each remaining game in the major league season. This model incorporates the latest updates to each team’s roster, including injuries, acquisitions, and adjusted playing time allocations.

Season to Date Stats Mode – This mode uses current season to date statistics, weighted more heavily towards the most recent games, to calculate the expected winning percentage of each remaining game in the major league season. (This is the old “Smart” mode on coolstandings.com)

Coin Flip Mode – This mode uses a coin flip to determine the winner of each game, giving each matchup 50/50 odds. (This is the old “Dumb” mode on coolstandings.com)

The coolstandings models incorporate actual remaining schedules into their forecasts, so in addition to the estimates of each team’s talent, the strength of their upcoming opponents is also included, and the simulations are run 10,000 times hourly.

In addition to the standard odds of winning the division or earning a place in the wild card play-in game, we also have the odds of each team winning each level of the playoffs all the way up to odds of winning the World Series.

Right now we’re showing the current playoff odds, but you can visit coolstandings.com for all the historical playoff odds. We’ll also be adding these to FanGraphs in short time. You can find a permanent link to the Playoff Odds from the Standings drop down in the toolbar at the top of the site.