Why Red Sox have big edge over Cardinals in Baseball World Series

Now that the World Series is about to begin, NJIT math professor Bruce Bukiet has announced the probability of each of the contenders winning the best 4 out of 7 game contest.

"The Boston Red Sox have a nearly 70% chance of winning the series", says Bukiet.

But he gives the caveat that the St. Louis Cardinals have defeated both the competition and his mathematical model in each of their previous series.

Bukiet's mathematical model said that the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Detroit Tigers, the Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates had the edge in the League Division series.

Of these, only the Pirates were defeated (by the Cards).

In the League Championship Series, the model said that the Red Sox and Dodgers had the edge, but once again, the Cards confounded the model by defeating the Dodgers.

"We'll see if they can overcome a mathematically better team for the third straight series - striking the model out."

There are also regular updates as to how the probabilities of each team winning the World Series change as the series progresses.

For example, if the Cards win game 1 in Boston, their chance of winning the series increases to nearly 46% from the 31% chance they have going in.

The model computes the probability of a team with given hitters, bench, starting pitcher, lineup, and relievers scoring any number of runs and adjusts for home field advantage to compute the chance each team has to win a game.