The baseball playoffs are getting started tomorrow afternoon and while there are no Bay Area teams (or California teams for the first time since 1999!), there are still a number of interesting match ups and the potential for some great stories if the Rays and Cardinals can keep their miracle runs going.

Over at Crazy Crabbers I have created a tool that allows me to project the odds for each game and I thought it would be fun to adapt it to use to give the odds of who wins each playoff series.

Yankees vs. Tigers:

Yankees Tigers Sweep 12.3% Sweep 12.1% 4 games 20.1% 4 games 17.8% 5 games 21.7% 5 games 16.1% Overall 54.0% Overall 46.0%

According to my projections the Yankees should be favored in every game except for Game 2, where the Tigers’ Doug Fister has a fairly large edge over the Yankees’ Ivan Nova. What surprised me the most is that the hype surrounding Justin Verlander has made him out to seem invincible, but C.C. Sabathia matches up really well with nearly equally impressive statistics.

Game 1 will be pivotal because just about every game is pretty close to 50-50. Whoever wins that game will be in the driver’s seat with odds of winning the series moving to over 70%.

Rangers vs. Rays (UPDATED 9/30):

Rangers Rays Sweep 13.38% Sweep 11.10% 4 games 23.01% 4 games 14.96% 5 games 22.04% 5 games 15.50% Overall 58.44% Overall 41.56%

I expected this series to be a lot closer, but the Rangers are a much more dangerous team than they would seem. They are surprisingly balanced, with a better offense and pitching staff than the Rays. What isn’t taken into account is that the Rays have been on a roll lately, catching and then passing the Red Sox. I’m not sure how important momentum is in baseball but if it means something, watch out.

It will take the Rays overcoming some more long odds to get into the ALCS but hey, the odds sure looked against them in the last month and that never stopped them.

UPDATE: So after I write this Tampa Bay goes and changes everything by giving the ball in Game 1 to rookie Matt Moore. I am not sure exactly how to deal with Moore because his major league sample is 1 start and a couple innings of relief. I will do my best to weight his Major League Expectancy numbers with his rather small sample from this season. This probably makes the projected odds pretty unreliable because he is such a wild card.

Phillies vs. Cardinals:

Phillies Cardinals Sweep 14.94% Sweep 9.39% 4 games 17.52% 4 games 19.86% 5 games 22.72% 5 games 15.55% Overall 55.19% Overall 44.81%

This was a hard one to project because I am not 100% sure what the order of the Cardinals’ rotation will be beyond Jamie Garcia starting Game 1. Right now I have them going with Garcia, Edwin Jackson, Chris Carpenter and then Kyle Loshe — I will make an update to this post if things change.

The Phillies have a decisive advantage in the pitching department with the best rotation of all the playoff teams, but there are questions about the offense. If the offense scores runs this team will be really hard to beat. As we learned from the Giants last year, a great pitching staff can take you a long way with just a little bit of timely hitting.

Brewers vs. Diamondbacks:

Brewers D-Backs Sweep 15.02% Sweep 10.13% 4 games 17.62% 4 games 19.52% 5 games 20.40% 5 games 17.32% Overall 53.03% Overall 46.97%

The closest of the four playoff match ups, neither team is a heavy favorite in any of the games. My gut says that Milwaukee’s pitching staff of Zach Greinke, Yovani Gallardo and Shaun Marcum should be better than the Diamondbacks’ trio of Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson and Joe Saunders. However, I have made the mistake of waiting for the Diamondbacks pitching to implode all season with no luck.

This matchup probably won’t be a ratings bonanza for TBS but at least on paper these are two evenly matched teams that hopefully will give us good odds of having a tight 5-game series to watch.

The last and most important question: how long will it take me to get really annoyed with whatever song TBS chooses to play over and over again?

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I’m Scott Willis you can catch my Giants writing at Crazy Crabbers and follow me on twitter @BAStatsGuy and @CrazyCrabbers