Announcements » The New York Yankees (98-61) will wrap up the regular se

ason with a potential playoff preview on Friday http://www.dodgersfanproshop.com/authentic-max-muncy-jersey , when they visit the Boston Red Sox (107-52) as small road favorites. The Yankees still have something to play for, as they are hoping to clinch home-field advantage in the American League Wild Card Game against the Oakland Athletics, while the Red Sox could then meet them in the AL Division Series.MLB betting line: The Yankees opened as -130 favorites (wager $130 to win $100); the total is at nine runs, according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark. Line updates and matchup report.MLB betting pick, via OddsShark computer: 5.8-4.8, Red Sox.MLB picks on every game.Check out the OddsShark podcast on iTunes or at OddsShark.libsyn.com for more odds information, betting picks and a breakdown of this week's top sports betting news.Why the Yankees Can Pay on the MLB LinesNew York is treating this series opener like a playoff game, sending J.A. Happ (16-6, 3.57 ERA) to the mound in a huge spot. Happ has not lost as a member of the Yankees, going a perfect 6-0 with a 2.18 ERA in 10 starts for them and giving up three runs or less nine times during that stretch. Surprisingly, Happ is 0-1 in three outings versus Boston this season despite posting a minuscule 0.54 ERA in 16.2 innings of work. One of the main reasons he was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays was his mastery of the Red Sox, going 4-0 with a 1.98 ERA in eight starts the previous three years.Why the Red Sox Can Pay on the MLB LinesBoston has gone 9-7 against New York in the first 16 meetings between the teams this season, according to the OddsShark MLB Database, and would love nothing more than for Oakland to have home-field advantage in the wild-card matchup.Five of the nine wins in this year's series for the Red Sox took place in seven games played between August and September, when the Yankees still had hopes of winning the division.Boston will counter Happ with southpaw Brian Johnson (4-4, 4.11 ERA), who has started in just 12 of his 37 outings. In his past three relief appearances, he has allowed only one run and three hits in 7.2 innings, walking six batters and striking out five. Smart Betting PickNew York is rightfully favored here, and Happ could easily end up starting the AL Wild Card Game as the team's most reliable pitcher. The magic number for the Yankees to clinch home field over the A's is one, and this is the game to do it. Look for New York to get off to a strong start and cruise to an easy victory.MLB Betting TrendsNew York is 5-2 in its past seven games.The total has gone over in four of New York's past five games.The total has gone over in six of Boston's past eight games.All MLB odds and betting trends according to Bleacher Report's official odds partner, OddsShark. Check out OddsShark on Twitter and Instagram or head to YouTube for more betting picks and analysis on this week's top games. You can also download the free odds tracker app. What are the chances the Braves win the division?"You can read this post’s title either way, they’re both valid. Either this is stupid math, or math for a stupid off day. Take it how you will.One of my favorite meta baseball-y things are playoff odds. Some people may not care, but I like watching them zigzag and evolve over time. While this is more fun during the season, the offseason can also suffice. Unfortunately, Fangraphs’ playoff odds module (https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds) is not yet updated for 2019 http://www.dodgersfanproshop.com/authentic-max-muncy-jersey , even though it reads “2019” everywhere while displaying 2018 results, so that’s led me down this stupid path to this stupid exercise.Yesterday, Anthony did a tremendous job summarizing a whole bunch of things. That article (go read it if you haven’t) included some great tables about current projected records, as well as playoff odds via Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS (which is not quite the same as the overall Fangraphs playoff odds, which blend Steamer and ZiPS together). That got me to thinking, all of that is well and good, but given what we know, how might the division actually shake out?That’s where the stupid math comes in. Here’s what I did. I started with each team’s projected wins, from the Fangraphs projected standings page, which is updated for 2019 (https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.as...ition=Standings). These standings currently have the Nationals at 90 wins, the Phillies second at 86, the Braves and Mets virtually tied at 84, and the Marlins bringing up not just the division rear, but the entirety of MLB, with 62 victories. (Also, be advised that these numbers have been observed to jump around with little warning, so these are the numbers as of 2:33 pm ET on March 7, 2019.) (Minor pedantic/irrelevant note — I’m a fan of considering wins in the context of WAR-wins, i.e., team projected WAR plus about 47.6. By this record, the Fangraphs Depth Charts projections have the Braves at around 85.5 wins, above the 84-win projection. The reality, though, is that schedule matters to some extent, and that’s likely what’s driving the 84-win projection, as well as the fact that I think Fangraphs uses BaseRuns rather than straight-up WAR totals for their projected standings.)But, those win totals are just point estimates. And what do we say to the god of point estimates? “Show us distributions Sandy Koufax Jersey , dingus!” To get those distributions, I simply applied the complete array of variability associated with “projected vs. actual results” for 2005 through 2018 (hat tip to Jeff Sullivan for most of these data, which he graciously shared with me years ago; I’ve been updating it since). Once that was done, it was an easy task to just array the five NL East teams in terms of wins, and see who came out ahead, and how often.I ran 10,000 trials. Here are some examples:In the first trial, the Nationals captured the division title with 97 wins. The Braves and Phillies also crested the 90-win mark by winning 93 and 92 games, respectively. The Marlins substantially outperformed their own projections as well, winning 77 games, leaving the collapsing Mets fifth with just 75 victories.In trial number 39, the Nats again prevailed (95), and the Braves and Phillies were again neck and neck (89, 87), also joined by the Mets (84). The Marlins Marlined, with 58 wins. In trial number 1920, it was the Mets who clambered on top with 90 wins, and the Phillies finishing as runners-up with 87. The Nats backslid down to 83 wins, but sadly for the Braves, they finished under .500 with a 78-84 record. The Marlins had 57 wins.In trial number 9997, the Braves were victorious in the division with a 99-win season, while the Nats finished a distant second with 93 victories. The Phillies, Mets, and Marlins all kind of died (78, 85, 54 wins, respectively).To summarize these and the 9 http://www.dodgersfanproshop.com/authentic-max-muncy-jersey ,996 other trials, see below.You can see from the above that the Nationals come out ahead most often, at a rate almost twice as frequent as the Phillies (and more than twice as frequent as the Braves and Mets). Yet, their division victory likelihood is still under 50 percent. The Phillies are marginally more likely to be the divisional runner-ups, while the Braves and Mets are equally likely to finish in some combination of third and fourth. And the Marlins, well, they also exist, I guess.Now, this exercise is very stupid, in that it doesn’t take into account stuff like:Sometimes wins come at the expense of other teams in your division. This exercise ignores this, and just modifies wins in general. In trial number 6472, the Phillies win the division with 75 wins. The division finishes with only 335 wins, total. That’s probably not going to happen; it’d mean the various NL East teams lost huge to every other division. The flip side is trial number 1660, where the Mets take first place with 104 wins, but the three non-Marlins teams finish with 99, 98, and 96 wins between them. Also probably not going to happen, unless the NL East pounds every other opponent mercilessly.The distributions around the central estimate for each team aren’t equal, but that equality assumption is being made here. Different teams have different risk factors and outcome distributions. This ignores all that. I’m not sure how rigorously the Fangraphs playoff odds apply this concept, but it’s probably more rigorously than here, so wait for those for a more judicious treatment of this aspect of forecasting.The Mets almost certainly not getting through the season without Michael Conforto missing two weeks due to a hangnail suffered while skydiving and Zach Wheeler injuring his elbow as a result of drinking Gatorade too quickly.Anyway, there you go. Stupid is as stupid math, and now you know. 17 percent division victory odds aren’t the best ever, but it’s better than 2015 through 2017 (and better than 2018 as well). Opening Day can’t come soon enough.