Cubs start a series with the Brewers tonight. We did this almost two weeks ago so this report will be abbreviated.
| BAT | PITCH | Rs | Ra | W | L | UR | LR | TeamID | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36.8 | -3.4 | 221 | 190 | 24 | 18 | –2.5 | 0.1 | MIL | 5/19/2017 |
| 28.1 | -1.7 | 504 | 478 | 55 | 50 | -1.5 | 0.1 | MIL | 7/29/2017 |
| -25.1 | 35.6 | 628 | 621 | 72 | 68 | -3.9 | 0.4 | MIL | 9/8/2017 |
| -15.6 | 57.5 | 693 | 653 | 81 | 71 | -2.7 | 0.9 | MIL | 9/21/2017 |
Above are all four status lines from these Cubs Brewers series analysis posts. You can clearly see how the Brewers went from a hitting centric team to pitching centric. This is quite amazing. Mid May they had a real WAA=+6 and today they’re at +10. They gained 4 wins in all these months proving once again a baseball season is a marathon.
Let’s see what the Ouija Board has to say about tonight.
DATE 09_21 8:10_PM CHN MIL
LINEAWAY CHN [ 0.583 ] < 0.561 >
STARTAWAY 3.38(0.595) Jake_Arrieta_CHN
LINEHOME MIL [ 0.455 ] < 0.459 >
STARTHOME 1.95(0.549) Zach_Davies_MIL
------------------------------------
CHN 84 67 MIL 81 71
DELTAWAA 7 WINPCT 0.565 CHN
The two new lines added to this snippet shows all the numbers required to calculate deltaWAA and then the expected probability (WINPCT) from the deltaWAA lookup table described here.
Our expected probability almost exactly matches the Ouija Board making this a complete discard for both lines. We need a clear advantage on the house to bet a game and if there’s no clear advantage then the bettor always loses in the long run.
The Cubs have a tier 2 starter in Arrieta and MIL has tier 3 starter in Davies. WAR has them reversed BTW. CHN has a tier 2 lineup. MIL still has tier 3. See lineups from our analysis two weeks ago. Both teams are tier 2 based upon their respective real team WAA. This should push the expected probability in favor of CHN somewhat but in no way enough to break the margin required for betting the CHN line. A more exact amount is still a work in progress.
Not much is different from the last time we did this. The playoff horse race post shows how the Brewers’ team value compares with the rest of playoff contenders. We’ll do one more before the end of the season. Weekly Cubs’ status tomorrow.
Below is a data dump of all pitchers the Brewers’ may throw at the Cubs the next couple of days.
Starters
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +029+ | 4.83 | Chase_Anderson_MIL | PITCH | |
| +168+ | 1.95 | Zach_Davies_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 1.57 | Brent_Suter_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.90 | Brandon_Woodruff_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.06 | Taylor_Williams_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | -1.13 | Junior_Guerra_MIL | PITCH | |
| -160- | -1.66 | Matt_Garza_MIL | PITCH | |
| Total | 6.52 |
Relivers
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +031+ | 4.70 | Corey_Knebel_MIL | PITCH | |
| +126+ | 2.56 | Josh_Hader_MIL | PITCH | |
| +063+ | 2.50 | Anthony_Swarzak_CHA | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 1.49 | Jared_Hughes_MIL | PITCH | |
| +063+ | 1.32 | Anthony_Swarzak_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.57 | Jeremy_Jeffress_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.29 | Jacob_Barnes_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.15 | Carlos_Torres_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | 0.10 | Oliver_Drake_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | -0.08 | Wei-Chung_Wang_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | -0.29 | Oliver_Drake_BAL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | -0.29 | Aaron_Wilkerson_MIL | PITCH | |
| XXXXX | -0.86 | Jeremy_Jeffress_TEX | PITCH | |
| Total | 12.16 |
Swarzak has two entries because he played for the White Sox at the beginning of the season. He’s ranked on the sum of his WAAs for both teams. The White Sox gave up a good pitcher. Hopefully they got some decent prospects for him.