This java applet computes the chance that a team will achieve a
certain winning streak at some point during the season. The model assumes
that the number of wins and losses are distributed randomly throughout the
season. In other words, that any order of wins and losses is as likely as
any other.
You can specify the following:
- “Number of Wins”— (W) the number of games the team will win
during the season.
- “Number of Losses”— (L) the number of games the team will
lose during the season
When you hit the “Table” button, the applet will compute a
table of the chance of a given streak being the longest during the season.
When the computation is complete, you may wish to scroll the applet window up
and down to view the entire table. You can also select the text and copy it
into other applications.
The computation method just counts all possible sequences of W wins
and L losses in which a string of S (or more) consecutive wins occurs. This
is listed as “ways with streak”. This is divided by the total
number of possible sequences of W wins and L losses, regardless of streaks.
This is listed as “total ways”. The probability is the former
divided by the latter.
The formula used was derived by Robert Israel at the University of
British Columbia.
Back to Bob’s main Baseball page.
