Baseball probability calculator
Winning Streaks
Given a season’s total wins and losses, compute the probability distribution for the team’s longest winning streak.
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The results assume that the season’s wins and losses are randomly distributed. See About the Calculation below for details.
Each row gives the probability that the listed value is the team’s longest winning streak.
About the calculation
Assume that every ordering of the specified wins and losses is equally likely. This program computes, exactly, the probability distribution for the team’s longest winning streak during the season.
Each row of the table will show the probability that the longest winning streak has the indicated length, together with the equivalent odds and the exact number of qualifying seasons. The calculation uses an inclusion–exclusion formula due to Robert Israel rather than random simulation.
For example, the 1916 New York Giants won 86 games and lost 66 (ignoring ties). Remarkably, they also compiled a 26-game winning streak. If their wins and losses had been randomly distributed throughout the season, the chance of such a streak would have been only about 1 in 541 thousand.
By comparison, the 2002 Oakland A’s 20-game winning streak during a 103-59 season was much less improbable—about 1 in 729.
These examples illustrate how dramatically the probability of a winning streak depends on both the streak length and the team's overall record.