Yankees Have Best World Series Odds among 2018 Wild Card Teams
- Heading into October, the four Wild Card teams have the longest 2018 World Series odds.
- But the Yankees lead that quartet thanks to a great bullpen, homefield advantage, and a balanced roster.
Major League Baseball implemented the second Wild Card spot in 2012 to better reward division winners. Since then, the path to the World Series for non-division winners has started with the Wild Card Game, a one-game toss-up which effectively slashes a team’s World Series chances in half.
That’s why the four 2018 Wild Card teams (Yankees, Athletics, Cubs, and Rockies) have the longest odds of the 10 teams remaining, as shown by the graphs below.
NL Playoff Teams: 2018 World Series Odds
The Wild Card Game-Winners Are at a Disadvantage
The Wild Card teams also have longer odds because the winners will be at a disadvantage going into the division series: those teams will have just used one of their top starting pitchers and, usually, their better bullpen pieces; they’ll also have to immediately travel overnight to a new city.
The results have been as expected. From 2002-2011 (i.e. before the second Wild Card spot was introduced), four Wild Card teams went onto win the World Series. That’s a 40% hit rate (or .400 batting average, I should probably say).
In six years of the current format, only one team has gone from the Wild Card Game to World Series champion (Giants, 2014).
Hope remains for the Wild Card teams, of course. One in six is still a 16.7% chance; and just last year, the Yankees came within one game of reaching the Fall Classic after beating Minnesota in the AL Wild Card Game.
That was the third time in four years that the AL Wild Card-winner had advanced to the ALCS.
The Yankees Have the Best Odds Among 2018 Wild Card Teams
The graph below shows the odds of the four Wild Card teams. As you can see, the Yankees (+1000) have the edge over the Cubs (+1200), Rockies (+1400), and Athletics (+1500).
Looking at the makeups of the remaining teams, it’s easy to see why New York has the shortest odds.
Home-Field Advantage in the WC Game
The Yankees’ first and most obvious edge is that they have home-field in the WC Game against Oakland. The A’s are one of the best road teams in the majors (47-34 away), but New York’s edge in the Bronx is palpable; they went 53-28 at Yankee Stadium (the second-best home record in the majors) compared to 47-34 away from home.
This is also a big part of why the Cubs have better odds than the Rockies in the NL. Chicago was 51-31 at Wrigley and 44-37 on the road, while Colorado went 47-34 at home and 44-38 on the road.
Bullpen Strength
In recent years, making a deep playoff run has hinged more and more on bullpen performance. Advanced analytics continue to prove that leaving starting pitchers in to face batting orders a third time around is asking for trouble. Case in point …
Look for the #Brewers to have a really quick hook on Chacin today, even if he’s looking good. They rarely let him go further than the third time through the order, and with that bullpen in an important game, there’s no reason for them to today: pic.twitter.com/PgrQGTLkYP
— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) October 1, 2018
The second-most successful Wild Card team in the Wild Card Game era — the 2014 Royals — had the 7th, 8th, and 9th inning on lock with Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland.
The roles in the Yankees’ pen aren’t quite as defined, but they have the fourth-best bullpen ERA in baseball (3.33), the second-best xFIP- (80), and by far the highest bullpen WAR (9.7) because their relievers are not only great, but also eat up a ton of innings (594.2 IP, 10th in MLB) and keep the ball in the yard in a hitter-friendly park.
The chart below shows how the WC teams stack up in terms of bullpen strength.
| TEAM | BULLPEN INNINGS PITCHED | BULLPEN ERA | BULLPEN xFIP- | BULLPEN WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 594.2 (10th) | 3.38 (4th) | 80 (2nd) | 9.1 (1st) |
| Athletics | 641.1 (1st) | 3.37 (3rd) | 97 (11th) | 5.7 (5th) |
| Cubs | 588.1 (12th) | 3.35 (2nd) | 106 (22nd) | 4.0 (12th) |
| Rockies | 520.1 (28th) | 4.04 (26th) | 99 (15th) | 4.0 (13th) |
Just looking at ERA and Innings Pitched, the A’s would seem to have an advantage over New York. But xFIP- is the more telling number since it adjusts for variables like ballpark. Oakland’s relievers have the significant edge of pitching half their innings at Alameda Coliseum, a very pitcher-friendly park.
The Yankee relievers don’t have it quite as bad as the Rockies at Coors Field, but balls fly out of Yankee stadium, particularly to the short porch in right.
Run Differential
In reality, a team’s 162-game (or 163-game) record can belie the true strength or weakness of its roster. When it comes to predicting future performance, run differential is a better indicator of win/loss record.
Among the four Wild Card teams, the Yankees have by far the best run differential at +182 (4th in MLB). The A’s are next at +139 (6th), followed by the Cubs at +116 (7th), and the Rockies at +35 (14th).
That’s a simple way of indicating New York is great at both scoring runs (851 runs, 2nd overall) and keeping them off the board (669 runs against, 10th overall). It doesn’t take a genius to see why teams with potent offenses and solid run-prevention tend to win games going forward.
Sascha was a hockey player in his youth, a lawyer in his capricious mid-20s, and has been with SBD since 2014. He specializes in football, basketball, politics, baseball, and hockey.
