“This is pretty overwhelming,” Bukiet added. “The Giants have home field advantage, since the National League won the All Star game for the first time in more than a decade. The most likely outcome (a 23 percent chance) is that the Rangers will win the series in five games.”

Bukiet thinks his model did well so far this season insofar as all the teams the model predicted won in the first of round of the division series. In the second round (the league championship series), one of his two picks won. “That’s pretty good,” he added, “since both underdogs won. So far, we’re five out of six in the post season.”

More details can be found at http://m.njit.edu/~bukiet/baseball/playoffs10.htm.

The blog Baseball PhD recently named Bukiet its 2010 Predictions Champ http://tinyurl.com/38tonqw based upon Bukiet’s predictions of Major League Baseball wins. 

This is Bukiet’s 10th year using his model to determine whether it is worthwhile to wager on games each day during the baseball season. His picks (posted on www.egrandslam.com) have led to (slightly) positive results for 7 of the 10 years (counting 2010’s positive results). He has also used the model to predict how teams should perform during a baseball season and these results have compared favorably with so-called baseball experts over the years, including 2010.

The model, originally developed by Bukiet and others, was published in Operations Research. More recent improvements were published in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sports. Bukiet’s model computes the probability of a team winning a game by considering specific hitters, bench, starting pitcher, lineup, relievers and home-field advantage. “Winning the first game in a short series can change a team's fortunes markedly,” Bukiet noted.

Contact: Sheryl Weinstein, director, public relations, Sheryl.m.weinstein@njit.edu, 973-596-3436 or Bukiet directly bukiet@m.njit.edu, 973-596-8392.