The number crunchers at Baseball Prospectus offer some hope to Cubs fans alternating between optimism and dread at the thought of what “Cubbie occurrence” might derail the team this time around. BP’s Clay Davenport is running a Monte Carlo simulation based on teams’ actual performance to determine their odds of making it to the playoffs. The result assigns the Cubs a 78.39568 (out of 100) chance of winning the Central Division and a 96.74370 chance of making it to the playoffs as either the division champ or wild card team. BP thinks the Cubs have a better shot at the postseason than every other team except the Angels, who’ve been given a 99.79407 chance of winning the AL West, which they’re running away with, and a 99.82178 chance of making the playoffs. Even the Sox are still in the running if you buy the algorithms (and you should): they get a 65.79284 chance to take the AL Central and slightly better 68.14108 to make the playoffs. [h/t to Mike]
