Tag: coin flip

Major League Baseball Division Series Predictions

It’s time for some more coin flipping! The first round of the MLB playoffs ended yesterday. How did the coins do?

Rays vs Blue Jays: I picked the Blue Jays. I was wrong.

Indians vs Yankees: I picked the Indians. I was wrong. I hate the Yankees even more now.

Twins vs Astros: I picked the Astros. I was right.

Athletics vs White Sox: I picked the A’s. I was right.

Dodgers vs Brewers: I picked the Dodgers. I was right.

Padres vs Cardinals. I picked the Padres. I was right.

Cubs vs Marlins: I picked the Cubs. I was wrong.

Braves vs Reds: I picked the Reds. I was wrong.

So the coins did exactly what they should have. Four right and four wrong for a 4-4 record. 50/50, as you’d statistically expect. Cool! Except for the part about the Yankees winning. That wasn’t cool. Lets all hope that the coin doesn’t pick them in the second round.

On to the Divisional Series! In the American League (Heads for the higher seed, tails for the lower):

Astros vs A’s: Astros. That’s too bad, again.

Yankees vs Rays: NOOOOO!!!! It’s tails… the coin flip picked the Yankees. Damn it. I don’t want to play anymore.

Now to change coins and pick the National League:

Padres vs Dodgers: Padres.

Marlins vs Braves: Marlins.

Ummmm… can anyone see what happened here? I picked the lower seed four times. All four coin flips came up tails.

Okay, fate. You’re obviously not taking this seriously but let’s see how you do.

Major League Baseball Wild Card Round Predictions

Okay, so it looks like the wild card round is going to be a set of three game series. I can work with that. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to flip a coin to make my picks for each series. I tried to use Siri but it gave me four tails in a row. The I started again and it gave me four heads in a row. Okay, let’s not put our trust in randomness.

Let’s start with the American League and hope that the coin doesn’t pick the Yankees. The team with the higher seeding is heads, lower is tails.

Rays vs Blue Jays: Tails. Blue Jays.

Indians vs Yankees: I’ve never hoped for one result over the other more than I am hoping right now. Come on heads! HEADS! I promise on all I hold sacred that I didn’t rig that. Indians.

Twins vs Astros: Tails. Astros. That’s too bad.

Athletics vs White Sox: Heads. A’s.

Now for the National League. In the spirit of pageantry I have decided to use a different coin for each league. Dramatic, eh?

Dodgers vs Brewers: Heads. Dodgers.

Padres vs Cardinals: Heads. Padres.

Cubs vs Marlins: Heads. Cubs.

Braves vs Reds: Tails. Reds. I played for the Reds when I was 12. Good choice, National League coin.

So I did hit heads four times in a row. Apologies to Siri.

The playoffs start tomorrow. Happy playoffs, everyone!

Thoughts on Playoffs

There was a chance that Tampa Bay could have won the Stanley Cup last night, but Dallas ended up beating them in double overtime. It feels like Tampa has spent so much time in overtime that they’ve played an extra round or two.

In the past few weeks I’ve been making my playoff predictions for each round of the NHL playoffs. I’m going to end up with a positive record no matter who wins in the final round, but I am only slightly better than 50/50. If Dallas wins I will actually effectively be 50/50 at 8 right and 7 wrong. Where am I going with this?

Baseball. The Red Sox have had one of the worst seasons (win/loss percentage wise, the season ends today after game #60 rather than the usual 162) in franchise history. I’ve been paying attention to final scores most days, but generally they were so bad I couldn’t watch. That lead to me sort of taking a pass on the rest of the league too.

Now that the playoffs are about to start, I don’t know anything about any team in the running except that I effin’ loath the effin’ Yankees. Other than that, I’m clueless. That, plus my lack of success in the NHL playoffs gave me an idea…..

I am going to make post-season predictions for Major League Baseball, but I am going to decide my pick for each series with a coin flip. Yup. This is going to be a case of is Robbie luckier than fate. I suspect that I am not.

I don’t even know how they formatted things this year. Is there a one game play-in round? All I know is there are bubbles involved. I’ll figure it out and let you know.