For the first time in the 21st century, the Atlanta Braves are in the World Series, having claimed their first National League pennant since 1999.
It’s not an insult or a revision of history to say that the Braves began this October run as something of an afterthought. The oddsmakers in Vegas rated them as the fourth-likeliest pennant winner in the NL, ahead of the wild-card St. Louis Cardinals but behind the wild-card Los Angeles Dodgers, the team finished off by Atlanta on Saturday night. At ESPN, just two of our 36 wannabe prognosticators picked the Braves to win the National League.
Yet here they are, in the Fall Classic, a crowning achievement for franchise lifers like star first baseman Freddie Freeman and manager Brian Snitker, who has been with the organization since the early days of Georgian Jimmy Carter’s administration.
While a tiny sample of postseason statistics can tell you only so much, sometimes you can glance at the box scores and an obvious trend will leap out at you. For example, the American League champion Houston Astros have averaged 6.7 runs per game this postseason, far more than any other club. If you were to write a “how they got here” story about Houston, that’s an obvious place to start.
The Braves, on the other hand, have no eye-jabbing statistical indicators that serve as neon signposts pointing their way to the World Series. They haven’t really led the playoff teams in anything, at least on the traditional stats ledger.
But let’s focus on one number where they can’t be touched: 100, their probability percentage for winning the flag they’ve just won. Throughout the postseason, I’ve been running probabilities through my simulator after posting the previous night’s results and logging them to see the daily changes. The first run, which was prior to the start of the playoffs, gave the Braves a 17% shot at winning the pennant.
Sixteen days and 10 games later, they hit 100%. So the only question is: How?
Day 1: Oct. 8
Brewers 2, Braves 1 (NLDS…
Source : espn
