MLB

Using numberFire's Power Rankings to Predict the 2016 World Series Champion

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes Oct 3rd, 2016
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World Series

Chicago Cubs over Boston Red Sox

As you've probably noticed, we've been skirting around addressing where the Cubs sit in numberFire's power rankings. That's because they're first by a country mile, and they're heavy favorites to get Wrigleyville dancing in a few weeks.

As mentioned before, the Red Sox led the AL with a nERD of 1.29. The Cubs led all of baseball at 1.87, making them 0.58 runs better than the Red Sox on a neutral field, and no other team was above 1.00. It's hard to overstate how dominant the Cubs were in the regular season.

Because of this, the Cubs enter the postseason with 28.2% odds of winning the World Series, making them the only team above 20.0%. The Red Sox come close at 19.2%, and then the Indians are third at 13.6%. Simply put, it's the Cubs followed by everybody else right now.

Again, all of this is before we factor in home-field advantage, pitching matchups, changes in bullpen usage, and so on. But based on the regular season, the Cubs have themselves some dandy odds of finally breaking that century-long curse and sitting atop the baseball world.

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