The featured game for June 3, 2011 is the Toronto Blue Jays at the Baltimore Orioles.

Winning Ability

Each team has won half of their last 10 with the Blue Jays losing 2 straight. The Orioles, on the other hand, are coming off of a 2-1 win over the Mariners. But let’s not forget the Blue Jays do have a 2-game lead over the Orioles in the division.

Edge: Blue Jays

Offense

The Orioles have scored the fourth fewest runs in the American League so far this year, while the Blue Jays have scored the second most, just behind the Yanks. Despite losing their last game against the Indians, the Blue Jays still managed to put up 9 runs. No surprise here.

Edge: Blue Jays

Pitching

Villanueva (2-0, 2.62) is getting the start for the Blue Jays against the O’s Britton (5-3, 2.93). Both pitchers had terrible outings in their last appearance against their respective opponents allowing 6 runs a piece. As a team, the Blue Jays have allowed less runs in less games compared to the Orioles, who average more than 4.7 runs allowed per game.

Edge: Blue Jays

Home Field (Dis)Advantage

The Blue Jays have no clear advantage playing at home versus on the road, while the Orioles are an above .500 team playing at Camden Yards.

Edge: Orioles

Pick

This should be a close game. Despite the clear advantage playing at home, the Orioles can’t make up for the fact that Toronto is better than them in every other category.

Pick: Toronto Blue Jays
Difficulty: 9/10

Pirates at Mets
Difficulty: 8/10
Pick: New York Mets

Rangers at Indians
Difficulty: 3/10
Pick: Texas Rangers

Twins at Royals
Difficulty: 10/10
Pick: Minnesota Twins

Giants at Cardinals
Difficulty: 8/10
Pick: San Francisco Giants

Nationals at Diamondbacks
Difficulty: 1/10
Pick: Washington Nationals

Astros at Padres
Difficulty: 10/10
Pick: Houston Astros

Rays at Mariners
Difficulty: 9/10
Pick: Tampa Bay Rays

Winning Ability

Tampa Bay has won just 4 of their last 10 games, while Seattle has posted a winning percentage of .700 in the same number of games. Their records for the year are very close, with Tampa having the slight edge. The numbers are pointing to the Rays, but just barely.

Edge: Rays

Offense

The Mariners do not possess the strongest offense, averaging a little more than 3.5 runs per game to the Rays’ 4.2. This one’s obvious.

Edge: Rays

Pitching

Tomorrow’s starting pitchers are Shields (5-3) for the Rays against King Felix (5-4) for the Mariners. Despite no obvious advantages this season comparing each starting pitcher’s record, the Mariners for the season have been better at preventing runs, allowing only 3.7 runs per game.

Edge: Mariners

Home Field (Dis)Advantage

This season the Mariners have only been slightly better at home than on the road, which isn’t saying much. The Rays, on the other hand, have an away winning percentage of .600, despite being an under .500 team at home.

Edge: Rays

Pick

Despite having an edge in 3 out of the 4 domains, the numbers are still very close. The Rays should come out on top in a tight one.

Pick: Tampa Bay Rays
Difficulty: 9/10

The Challenge

Over the course of the remainder of the 2011 MLB season, I will continuously optimize my prediction algorithm by strategically consuming the large array of statistical data that is readily available to each and every baseball fan.

Predictive Domains

The winner of each game is a function of four key domains, namely:

1. Winning Ability – Some teams are just winners.
2. Offense – Which team is able to outscore the other?
3. Pitching – Who can stop the other from scoring?
4. Home Field (Dis)Advantage – Does the home team really have home field advantage against a team that dominates on the road?

These domains are meant to encompass arguably all aspects of a baseball game. If a prediction is incorrect, we can look to these domains to better understand why.

MLB Prediction Engine

The intermediary function Z(AwayTeam, HomeTeam) outputs the variable z, which represents the aggregate value of the four domains. The AwayTeam and HomeTeam input parameters encapsulate the specific team information for the away team and home team, respectively. Ultimately, the z variable is inputted into the prediction engine PE such that PE(z) = PredictedWinner and PredictedWinner represents either the away team or the home team.

PredictionDifficulty (PD)

PredictionDifficulty Graph

As mentioned earlier, the variable z is the quantification of the four key domains. It is defined between 0.7 and 1.3, inclusively. The most important characteristic of z is its ability to map to the difficulty of predicting the winner of a game.

The PredictionDifficulty graph shown in the image demonstrates the parabolic nature of the PD(z) function. As shown in the graph, a z-value of 1 denotes the most difficult game to accurately predict; while, a z-value of approximately 0.7 or 1.3 represents the easiest game to predict.

What to Expect

In future entries, I will provide my predictions for the subsequent day’s games, with an in-depth look at one particular prediction.

Information that I will share with you includes:

• Visual analysis of the four key domains for one game
• The PredictionDifficulty for every game
• The PredictedWinner for every game
• Prediction Statistics (overall and based on PredictionDifficulty)

Specific information that will not be disclosed includes:

• The PredictionDifficulty(z) function
• Domain-specific values for any game
• The z-value for any game
• Any prediction engine rules

Enjoy!