MLB Championship Series

Our predictions for baseball's Divisional Series brought the performance down to a still-respectable 16-9 record for major sporting events over the past year (for our book's research/blog). Not bad for sports psychology factors that are sometimes overlooked (and sometimes selects underdogs).

We used the following factors for our New York Times analysis:

• Pitching leadership (top of the starting rotation),
• Consistency factor (batting average),
• Minimizing errors (defense).

Based on these factors, our quant facts predict that the Yankees will meet the Phillies in the World Series.